There is an interesting article in the latest news (09 Nov 2019) from UK magazine “Pilot” investigating the stories of drones interfering with aircraft in UK airspace. I would suspect that it is a similar situation in Australia. Anyway if you would like to read the article then here it is. Perhaps there needs to be more objective investigation into incidents before CASA blows its budget on drone stopping technologies?
2 Replies to “Is This The Truth Of “Drone Hits Aircraft” Stories?”
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I note that the writer was in the drone business so has a vested interest, but there may something in what he says.
If you look at the UK Airport Board website drones page (https://www.airproxboard.org.uk/Topical-issues-and-themes/Drones/) you can see that most reports by pilots are unconfirmed but taken at face value so if a pilot says “drone” then drone it is. On the other hand the Airport Reality Check Organisation (https://www.airproxrealitycheck.org) tries to verify Drone reports by pilots. I don’t think Australia has any similar organisations working in this space which means that Drone sightings by pilots go unchallenged and are taken at face value. To put it in perspective if you have an object approx 60cm in diameter at the same height as a plane and the plane is moving at 150k per hour the pilot will only have (give or take) 14 thousandths of second to identify the object. This assumes a stationary object and a moving aircraft. If an object is moving in the same direction as the aircraft the pilot will have longer to observe and identify it; if the object is moving in the opposite direction to the aircraft the pilot will have less time to observe and identify it.