> Transport minister Robert Goodwill admitted authorities had not yet confirmed whether what struck the Airbus A320
> Mr Goodwill also dismissed calls for tighter rules on drone use to protect against terror threats insisting current rules governing drone use were strong enough. He said it would be much easier for terrorists to attack airports on the ground with rucksacks or car bombs than orchestrate the attack from a drone aircraft.
> He warned that any moves to enforce geo-fencing rules would be vulnerable to being hacked by "somebody who could get round that software".
> "And indeed the early reports of a dent in the front of the plane were not confirmed - there was no actual damage to the plane"
> "the pilot has a lot of other things to concentrate [while landing] on so we're not quite sure what they saw so I think we should maybe not overreact too much."
This is a sane, rational response.. I am just not used to hearing it come from government officials. This should be a model for the type of responses that government officials have to these types of situations.
> He warned that any moves to enforce geo-fencing rules would be vulnerable to being hacked by "somebody who could get round that software".
Indeed very impressive that an elected official understands this.
Someone with a little reverse engineering talent can patch something like that without much work for near-free (think bypassing those FCC regulations turning up TX power in your router firmware). Someone with a little regular engineering talent can spoof or jam GPS for relatively cheap.
Realistically speaking, what it means is that this particular minister somehow managed to employ a "technical expert" who actually is just that. Oh, and that this technical expert is both a) competent, and b) has managed to gain the trust of the minister. The combination is probably easier said than done, so props to whoever that person is :).
I don't really care whether my `competent politician' is actually a single human, or a bunch of people working together.
(Just like people usually attribute speeches to a mythical, composite `Obama' person, even though the roles of performer and speechwriter are done by different people.)
Why worry about something that hasn't happened? Why not worry about a careless teenager wanting to get a sick Camera angle of the inside of your fridge? It's as valid a concern.
Normally I would agree with you, I often chide people for inventing problems to solve. But it is a little different when it isn't a hypothetical as much as an inevitable future occurrence.
As for refrigerators, I am just as worried about people trying to fly drones around my house as I am about people flying drones around planes, yes. I have it on good authority that anyone with the funds can purchase access to 3D drone-generated map of my city, my house included. A gentleman here in town who replaces windows doesn't bother to measure them anymore; he just uses the drone photos.
We will always have to worry about intelligent, motivated people who wish to do us harm. Isn't that enough to worry about without being vulnerable to careless people, behaving unintelligently, who put lives at risk through their ignorance? Keep in mind, the latter group is much bigger.
I use multimotors, and think the current hysteria about drones is deplorable, and that this minister's response (and indeed the whole article) is great.
That said, geofencing is not to protect planes from terrorists, it's to protect them from stupid.
Yeah, the hysterical response has come from the public this time. I fly drones, perfectly legally, and this week have had people variously tell me that I'm either a terrorist or I'm "helping the terrorists" or I'm am idiot or "Isn't that dangerous for my children" - even stood in a field, people wander >100m over from the canal towpath to complain at me. Popular opinion in the pub is that they're dangerous and should be banned, didn't you hear 5000 people almost died on Monday when ten drones crashed into twelve aircraft, all almost certainly carrying nuclear weapons that failed to go off because gchq saved us?
a few years ago the response was positive and interested, almost universally - even though I was at that point flying in town due to lack of regulation.
Media has trained them to be scared of drones, like everything else.
The media is part of contemporary society. As are the police who originally tweeted the drone hitting plane angle, the media for reporting on it, and the consumers who love a good fear-ridden headline.
The culture of fear is a widespread human fallibility, not an evil corporate invention.
The fact rationality, and how to perceive the world without tripping over our human biases/fallacies, is not taught with any priority in society is the real issue. That is the root cause of the anti-intellectualism that's so widespread IMO. No-one in the chain approached the topic with any level of skepticism. Just retweeting and reblogging a story without any solid evidence, giving it more and more credibility.
Propaganda aside, geofencing isn't about stopping a sophisticated group from launching an attack. Its about making sure all my friends around here keep their DJI Phantoms away from SFO arrivals and departures..
He's interested in transport, so he's the kind of guy who is useful as a transport minister. Otherwise he mostly just votes with the whips and doesn't seem to have much focus on anything. I'm not sure that's really who you want for president
What a level headed response by the transport minister. I love that he acknowledges that geofencing rules will easily be circumvented.
That said, I still think it's a good idea to implement. It will make it easier for casuals like me to quickly be warned when I'm venturing into forbidden areas. Sure, I could ignore it or hack around it, but at least it's an easy to implement safeguard that will keep most people away.
There's a danger to this though; if drone pilots are universally expected to be warned when they fly in dangerous areas, then pilots will start flying "to the edge" and expect the technology to always keep them in line. I would be surprised if restricted areas were stable enough that drones could store a database of no-go areas and keep it up to date easily.
It would be more straightforward to set clear policy and provide a way for drone pilots to know where not to fly (e.g., provide an online map and require altitude telemetry to the controller at all times). Include a link to this information with every drone purchase.
My guess of what will happen if we go down the GPS route: Some incident with a drone will occur, and the pilot will say something like "the drone didn't warn me that I was in a restricted area".
With cars we have technologies called roads and lines and signs that tell us where we can and cannot go. But sometimes, those fail us. Particularly in areas with lots of dirt roads (no lines). And especially when there are many dirt roads (potentially no signs, too many locations to put them up). That does not excuse people from driving in restricted areas. It may be cause for mitigation. But, at least around here, driving in an otherwise unmarked (signs) wilderness protection area (on the map), will still get you a ticket and a fine if you're caught. Even if you did pass into it on a dirt road you were allowed to drive on and there were no signs.
The pilot can try that line of reasoning, it is (somewhat) valid. But reviewing maps would, ideally, only be made redundant. Since we don't live in an ideal world, it'd still be their responsibility to know where they were flying.
That's actually good precedent to bring up - has e.g. Google Maps or more infamously, Apple Maps, ever been held liable for bad directions? I believe it's still seen as the end user's responsibility to obey the laws, especially when the safeguards fail.
A friend recently (several months ago) was fined because he trusted Google Maps to be accurate and drove into an otherwise unmarked (by the route he took into it) wilderness protection area. He got the minimal fine because he demonstrated that he'd tried to obey the law (showed that Google Maps marked the areas, but marked them incorrectly), but he was still fined.
He did. Because it's a demonstration of how the court system (at least in the US) generally works. Pleading ignorance of the law when violating it, even when you use tools that are supposed to prevent that violation, doesn't always work. Anyone using these systems should still be aware of what they're doing and where they're allowed to go and should consider them mitigators, at best, when they get caught in violation of air space.
Waze seems like insanely dangerous software in the first place. The whole idea of a "social" driving application that constantly pops up little alerts that the driver is supposed to respond to seems to be inviting distracted, dangerous driving.
"Supposed to respond to?" Yes, by driving. The alerts take the form of "Traffic ahead". "Police ahead", etc. There is no interaction required, or even expected unless you really want to poke the thumbs up "yes, this alert is still valid" button.
(And if you can't do that safely, given the size and consistent location of the button, you probably shouldn't have a license anyways)
The problem is not the mechanical difficulty of pressing a large button, the problem is that the application popping up alerts and encouraging you to press the button means taking your eyes away from the road.
At some point we've moved into the point of diminishing returns and pointlessness. Carrying on a full conversation might be one thing - barking the words "acknowledge alert" or similar at your phone probably doesn't cause a measurable or significant distraction.
> It takes drivers up to 27 seconds to return to full attention after using voice commands to make a hands-free call, turn on the radio or perform other tasks, according to two studies released Thursday by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety. Traveling at 25 miles per hour, that would equal the length of three football fields.
"Attention" isn't a binary; it's a gradient from full attention to no attention at all.
"With researchers in the car, the drivers were tested for the extent of their distraction, even as they kept their eyes on the road and hands on the wheel after hitting a voice-command system button. A head-mounted LED light flashed red every three to five seconds at the edge of a driver’s left eye. Drivers pressed a switch attached to a thumb when they saw the light. The researchers measured how voice interactions with a car or smartphone reduced drivers’ reaction times and accuracy at seeing the flashing lights. The drivers also completed surveys about their perceived level of distraction, and videos measured how much of the time they kept their eyes on the road, mirrors or dashboard."
That's not correct. "The most surprising finding was that a driver traveling only 25 mph continues to be distracted for up to 27 seconds after disconnecting from highly distracting phone and car voice-command systems, and up to 15 seconds after disconnecting from the moderately distracting systems."
The alert I see the most with Waze is "Vehicle stopped on shoulder", which is not only distracting when the yellow sign pops down and animates out, but can't possibly be relevant to my life when I'm driving in the left lane.
You can turn on and off each individual notification. And it also has voice commands built in to control the app. You don't even need the phone's screen on. It can be in your pocket while driving.
And it is relevant to you no matter what lane you are in. If there is a car on the shoulder, someone in the right lane could be not paying attention, and swerve into you to avoid that car. Though you should be always on high alert while driving, having a little extra notification and awareness could save your life.
> If there is a car on the shoulder, someone in the right lane could be not paying attention, and swerve into you to avoid that car.
Then on 101 they'd still be a lane or two away from me, so most of the time it doesn't matter. But someone's car is guaranteed to be broken down somewhere every day, so it just comes up all the time.
BTW, you actually can't turn it off without disabling all Hazards, but the rest of them like "object in lane" seem pretty good.
Wouldn't it be safer to pay attention to the road and notice someone swerving your way than to get an alert, look over your phone to read it, then look up to catch the swerving car?
>That said, I still think it's a good idea to implement. It will make it easier for casuals like me to quickly be warned when I'm venturing into forbidden areas. Sure, I could ignore it or hack around it, but at least it's an easy to implement safeguard that will keep most people away.
Yes, it's definitely a good idea that will stop casual drone users from being somewhere they shouldn't be flying. Here is a good example (see the description):
The vast majority of drone users won't bother looking up the aviation charts to see if they are inside a control zone or other controlled airspace, and won't have any idea how far away they are from an airport.
Round up a team and put it in the ApplyHN sector - that could be a really useful, pay-for-app & updates type service. Definitely has value. The target market should be able to see the cost-benefit I presume. Good thinking!
It seems like there could be something of an aspirational market there for 'prosumer' drone pilots who follow the rules because it makes them feel more like professionals. Include some resources on interesting uses of drones, maybe a little marketplace for connecting camera drone pilots with marketers or landowners...
Absolutely - if anything, the excuse of "ignorance" factor would be a lot less. Reducing the risk of liability is a reasonable avenue in my opinion. Also if "drone racing" and the like start to get more popular, having advertisements for regional facilities could be mutually beneficial.
>Classic HN. Jumping from someone's annoyance to "create a startup" that "definitely has value" without knowing anything about the space.
Haha joke's on you buddy, I grew up around aviation and know that log books and maps are what pilots must always have at all times in all situations otherwise they'll get popped by the FAA. Only recently have digital devices been allowed anywhere NEAR professional cockpits, having been slowly tested in civil aviation. Thus I concluded that an expanding sector with limited knowledge of traditional expectations - airspace 'n shit - might be marketable. Watching your comment turn grey and then to vapor is more "Classic HN" to me.
Considering the cost of both DJI and 3DR and the inevitable down-stream development and access, unless each and every manufacturer is mandated to include "smart" flight restrictions, then I would say the point stands. Making a useful application and product is fun to spit ball. Whizzing out some sanctimonious pontification is feeble.
It's already there, i have either my phone or tablet out when i use my 3DR Solo (it displays the video feed). One screen of the app which displays the video feed, is airspace restrictions on a map of the current area (although you can pan and zoom around the world in order to plan future flights too).
Unfortunately yes, which is why you get founders awkwardly trying to answer questions like.. "How does your product compare to X and Y that are dominating the space right now?" when they've never heard of X or Y.
> Classic HN. Jumping from someone's annoyance to "create a startup" that "definitely has value" without knowing anything about the space.
All that without specifying whether or not you have knowledge in the space. You probably should have specified X and Y are already in the space rather than assuming that someone already has taken up space there.
Hover used not to have any info in the UK. It now does! Sweet update.
But note that no-fly zones are pretty onerous: all the best parks in $town are occluded by the huge zone for an out-of-town airport.
Likewise a local beauty spot that occasionally activates for military training is marked without any timely activation data. Is it hot or not? The zone is larger than the current NOTAM, which suggests they're being completionist, which is maximum ass-covering and minimally useful.
This sort of blunt zoning mostly doesn't make sense, and will likely get ignored.
(in fact, if that same zoning applies to geofences, all the $town flyers own bricks)
Real pilot info is semi-useful: http://notaminfo.com/ukmap ; the legal 400ft limit is 120m, which is an invisible speck in the sky. Useful for setting ceilings for waypoint flight, etc.
They should still know the relevant law instead of relying on technology. There isn't that much you need to know.
In the UK, article 166 and potentially article 167 of the Air Navigation Order (http://publicapps.caa.co.uk/modalapplication.aspx?appid=11&m...) are relevant. In any case, the drone should be within line of sight, lower than 400 feet above ground level, and not be in controlled airspace or near an airport (which should be checked on an aeronautical chart - they're only about £25 and look good on your wall).
And bear in mind that there are cases where pilots might be flying light aircraft well below 400 feet AGL away from an aerodrome: during ag operations (crop dusting), during a forced landing, or during a practice forced landing under instruction, so even with the ANO rules there's still potential (albeit unlikely) conflict.
As soon as drones are required to have geofencing, you will find they become useless for monitoring the police, factory farms, pollution, "black" sites, etc. Humans die because of those things, while no practical benefit to aviation safety has been proven. And yeah, controlled airspace has been used to prevent monitoring of police, in Ferguson, for example.
If we argue that regulations don't stop criminals (DRM etc) then doesn't it also hold true that regulations wouldn't stop do-gooders? (sorry, not the best word).
It wouldn't stop activists from filming "restricted" areas, no, but it could give authorities a way to tack on additional charges ("terroristic disabling of an aviation safety device" or the like) when they inevitably find the person who leaked the video.
British law is very restrictive on the use of camera-equipped UAVs. Without specific permission from the CAA, it is unlawful to use a small unmanned surveillance aircraft within 150 metres of "any congested area" or within 50 metres of "any vessel, vehicle or structure which is not under the control of the person in charge of the aircraft".
It's a common tactic used by governments to push a restriction under a (often emotional) motive that looks legitimate at first and then extend it further.
"We need to do this or that because terrorism and won't somebody please think of the children."
"Well, now that it's in place, it would be a shame not to use it against illegal <insert something harmless or subversive here>."
And usually they manage to design laws so that diverting their use doesn't require passing through parliament again.
DJI products quite effectively indicate and restrict access to no fly zones. My controller starts to beep if I get within a few hundred feet of a border to a no fly zone. I haven't tested it, but I think it is supposed to come home and land if you somehow get into a no fly zone.
That said, 1,700ft is so high, no fly zones don't really mean much anymore.
They aren't, actually, and people parrot this falsehood all the time.
If we assume you're referring to the United States, don't conflate proposed rules, rules, guidelines, and law, nor circumstances that require you to seek FAA authorization for the flight (which is different than "forbidden by law," itself inaccurate).
You are talking about Advisory Circular 91-57 (Model Aircraft Operating Standards) from June 1981. Not law, just standards for their airspace. Certainly not forbiddance by law.
Without any certification or registration, yes - if you're CAA registered then the limits are quite different.
Additionally, if you're flying FPV the ceiling is 1000ft, not 400ft, although you must have a spotter who can maintain unassisted line of sight. Get friends with good eyes, fly further!
It doesn't look so easy. First you must put a GPS in each device, I think the cheaper drones don't have one. Also, the forbidden areas may vary, so they have to provide a way to update it.
It's mostly airports that we need to worry about, and they don't tend to change much. Sure, TMA boundaries might vary occasionally, but that's not really much of a worry, because most drones won't be up at 1000+ ft.
More importantly, what failure modes does it have? Do you have to have GPS lock to takeoff? What if you lose it while flying?
At DEFCON someone demonstrated dropping drones from the sky by spoofing GPS coordinates to inside an airport. Funny, but it guarantees I won't be buying one of them because of the potential for harm to my camera, etc.
I haven't had good luck with style of GPS module on my models, even a <100 mW 5.8 GHz FPV transmitter tends to swamp the GPS signal to the point where getting a lock is impossible.
They're also prohibitively heavy on smaller models. A 10% increase in mass (for a 300g quadrotor) can shave an entire minute off of your run time.
I'm nto sure exactly how these things work but would it not be possible to get the phone GPS and then determine the position of the drone relative to that using whatever wireless tech it's using to communicate? Probably not 100% accurate but it might be good enough to say 'this drone is within 100m of a no-fly zone, stop it.'
More useful would be a lower ceiling in no-fly zones, tbh; no-fly is appropriate for real aircraft, but for toys there is value in considering "no-fly" and "low-fly".
Geofencing has a downside, too. While you might think it enhances aviation safety, it may not do so at all. Planes spend so little time within flying/control range of commonplace drones that, when you read about a "possible drone strike" always bet against it.
Instead it will enable mission creep as more places get banned because embarrassing things, like protesters getting beaten, happen there.
I'm not sure I agree with geofencing, but it's also true that drone operators appear to be, by and large, acting like complete jerks and someone needs to get the message across somehow.
The message shows be sent by levying fines, mandating community work and putting restrictions from operating drones for X years for anyone caught being a jerk.
>Planes spend so little time within flying/control range of commonplace drones that
It depends where you're talking about. Close to airports is the major issue. 2nm from the runway planes will be at 600ft, which is well within the range of drones.
>Instead it will enable mission creep as more places get banned because embarrassing things, like protesters getting beaten, happen there.
We're talking about voluntary geofencing here, by the companies themselves.
We're talking about voluntary geofencing here, by the companies themselves.
Much as I like the idea of keeping drones away from planes, just look at how governments have abused other "voluntary" restriction systems. For example, ISPs install filters for ostensibly noble causes, then governments commandeer them for more questionable uses.
Which governments of civilized, democratic countries have commandeered ISP's filters for questionable uses? If you're talking about the UK porn filter, it is the other way around: government has instituted a law saying they have to do it.
Even if it were a law, I don't see the issue that you are arguing. You're essentially saying "I don't want a law that says drones are banned by default from controlled airspace, because the government might change it's mind and also ban drones from places that embarrass the government", which is just another slippery slope argument.
Are you saying you don't want any laws at all, and people should just be able to do anything they want?
> Sounds like a slippery slope argument. [...] it is the other way around: government has instituted a law saying they have to do it.
Yeah, that's the point. When the technology has been demonstrated to work (even if badly) in some areas it's suddenly mandated in other areas.
Now we have a technology that was so-so at blocking unwanted porn being used for everything from catching pedophiles to checking for intel leaks. A false-positive in porn blocking was annoying, in pedo-detection it can ruin lives. Worse, when functioning properly it can prop up repressive regimes.
> Are you saying you don't want any laws at all, and people should just be able to do anything they want?
Is that the only choice? Egregious laws that harm innocents and don't actually solve the issue versus no law at all? Well in that case, it's clear. No law is better than being stuck with bad law that doesn't actually help...
But thankfully those aren't the only options. We can push back against bad laws (useless, abusive, etc) and accept the good ones.
> "I don't want a law that says drones are banned by default from controlled airspace, because the government might change it's mind and also ban drones from places that embarrass the government", which is just another slippery slope argument.
No, we don't want useless technological measures mandated that claim to block drones from airports, but fail to actually help in a real security context. Because those useless security rules have only one real purpose - banning civilians from inconvenient things.
Laws, like lines of code, have a distinct cost and we should only add the ones that will actually help.
>No, we don't want useless technological measures mandated that claim to block drones from airports, but fail to actually help in a real security context. Because those useless security rules have only one real purpose - banning civilians from inconvenient things.
It's not useless. Do you fly planes? If you look at the youtube video I posted elsewhere in this thread you'll see that the guy wanted to fly near the airport on the beach, but the geo fence wouldn't let him. The beach is <0.5nm from the end of the runways, so planes will be at <300ft crossing the beach. I fly there myself, and I don't want to hit a drone and risk losing the engine or having it crash through the windshield into my face.
Unfortunately we need laws like this because people aren't responsible, as that youtube video proves.
Useless because it's billed as stopping terrorists. Let's be honest, consider ham radios; the mandated but easily bypassed hardware lockouts are more useful for market segmentation than preventing bad guys from broadcasting on ATC frequencies.
So as a convenience feature that told me I the conditions for where I'm flying, it'd be great. And then it'd only need to be 4-nines, and wouldn't have to have fail-proof lockouts, etc.
But as a major portion of the defense of our air fleet - no. That's ridiculous. If we're that worried we need to figure out something to actually make us safer, not add another perpetual layer of theater.
Yeah, that's the point. When the technology has been demonstrated to work (even if badly) in some areas it's suddenly mandated in other areas.
I'm not sure that seeing an actual implementation is required for politician to have harebrained ideas. Besides, as others have pointed out, geofencing has already been implemented by DJI, so we're past that phase anyway.
Strange, I'm having a hard time thinking of a single US government program that hasn't expanded far beyond the original justification. Bureaucracies expand, water is wet. A classic example of a USG switcheroo would be the social security number being used for identification purposes beyond social security administration. A more contemporary example would be the NSA providing intel to the DEA for domestic law enforcement, which I'm sure wasn't part of the founding mission statement.
> Which governments of civilized, democratic countries...
So only a true Scotsman?
> Are you saying you don't want any laws...
Are you saying that if somebody caused an accident with a drone, then prosecutors would just throw up their hands? We already have enough laws on the books to charge anybody for anything. If causing a horrible accident isn't enough of disincentive for a drone operator then I doubt that they'd pay any attention to the FAA.
Sure, and creation of a law would be voluntary on the part of the government. The end result for the owner is the same - an involuntary restriction of their drone's software.
We don't need any more encouragement of device lockdown, treacherous computing, and the general erosion of ownership.
I'm sympathetic to the criticality of airport approaches, but also sympathetic to people flying drones above their own property to arbitrary heights while informing ATC (perhaps it's time to revisit that previous uncompensated aeronautical space grab). But this balance is orthogonal to what I'm arguing about.
In any industry that adopts treacherous computing, it spreads like cancer. Phones, cars, entertainment, payment cards. Assumptions of the user being hostile get baked into the design and business models, and must be fortified ever-harder over time. In a computing-based world, perverted cultures that mandate closed devices are simply incompatible with individual autonomy and self-reliance. "Selling" a device while retaining control over it is basically fraud.
Pragmatically, I'd be in favor of the "default config" coming with built-in geofencing to avoid thoughtless idiotic situations. But then the ability to change and fully remove that code must also be provided, ideally through well-documented reflashing process. Anything less creates the unavoidable centralizing path down the slippery slope, and from the users' perspective it hardly matters whether it's the manufacturer or government driving the process.
Yes, it's already illegal, but most people aren't aware of - or don't care about - the laws. The youtube vid I posted here was < 1nm from the end of the runway at CYAZ, which means planes are at <300ft. The only reason the guy wasn't creating a hazard is because the geofence in his Phantom wouldn't let him use his drone there, so he had to move a few miles down Long Beach.
Slightly misleading headline. Basically they haven't confirmed it's a drone so they can't rule anything out, or as he puts it "it could have been a plastic bag or something". They don't seem to have any evidence suggesting it's a plastic bag and not a drone (and vice versa).
Um, the whole point of the article was that "they" don't think it was a drone. The idea that it was a drone seems to have come entirely from a single tweet by the local police force, which the media jumped on.
No flimsier than the original drone-claim headline.
Contrary to popular conception, most airline pilots are very poor at recognising anything that isn't in their company fleet. A few are aircraft enthusiasts, a few are bird spotters. The remainder have knowledge of unexpected flying objects no better than most laymen and a lot worse than a school-age plane spotter.
I used to run aircraft recognition training for a local cadet squadron. The 'pro-pilots' were uniformly awful.
Is there any advance in drone tech to make it quieter? Any time I've been near a drone in operation, the loud buzzing hits a particular psychological frequency (probably the "it's a large flying insect!") that stresses me out.
I don't think I'm alone in this. Other animals seem to dislike drones.
I think most of us animals would mind them less if they were more pleasant-sounding, or closer to silent.
I've only heard about for wing based uav's , not quadcopters. Maybe this is a good sign for Google's drones, which use wings, but rotate their rotors for landing.
Hitting a commercial jetliner with an off the shelf drone is impossible--especially at that altitude. With $8K it becomes feasible, but I'd put the level of difficulty at about the same as driving a Bugatti Veyron at 70mph in reverse and executing a j-turn (think Hollywood 180 spin) into a tight spot between two SUV's at the grocery store--3 times in a row.
As rare as plastic bags are at 1700 feet, if it was a sunny day in London in an area with a lot of jet traffic, then it was in all likelihood a bag that was kicked up by a car, caught a massive thermal and managed to get blown around by jet traffic.
(1) Fly fixed wing RC in excess of 180mph weekly and have flown quads for 3 years.
I'm happy that they're backing off the drone regulation but it's going to be pretty inconvenient for the locals when plastic bags are banned within 2km of an airport.
> Transport minister Robert Goodwill admitted authorities had not yet confirmed whether what struck the Airbus A320
> Mr Goodwill also dismissed calls for tighter rules on drone use to protect against terror threats insisting current rules governing drone use were strong enough. He said it would be much easier for terrorists to attack airports on the ground with rucksacks or car bombs than orchestrate the attack from a drone aircraft.
> He warned that any moves to enforce geo-fencing rules would be vulnerable to being hacked by "somebody who could get round that software".
> "And indeed the early reports of a dent in the front of the plane were not confirmed - there was no actual damage to the plane"
> "the pilot has a lot of other things to concentrate [while landing] on so we're not quite sure what they saw so I think we should maybe not overreact too much."
This is a sane, rational response.. I am just not used to hearing it come from government officials. This should be a model for the type of responses that government officials have to these types of situations.