Researchers say FAA is really overblowing risk posed by small drones

[Coyote]

This is a copy and paste from an article by Sean Gallagher

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/03/researchers-say-faa-is-really-overblowing-risk-posed-by-small-drones/

Researchers say FAA is really overblowing risk posed by small drones. Small drones would damage aircraft once every 1.87 million years.

Fly your drone for 1.87 million years, and a plane might hit it once.

Kevin Baird the Federal Aviation Administration has pushed forward strict rules for the operation of small consumer drones. Drones weighing more than 250 grams (a little more than half a pound) will have to be registered with the FAA, and there are restrictions on where they can be flown. The regulations are largely prompted by fears that the toy-sized flyers will pose a danger to commercial and civil aircraft—fears that new research suggests are unfounded. That research, shown in a study just published by George Mason University's Mercatus Center, was based on damage to aircraft from another sort of small, uncrewed aircraft—flying birds.

Much of the fear around drones hitting aircraft has been driven by FAA reports from pilots who have claimed near-misses with small drones. But an investigation last year by the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) found that of the 764 near-miss incidents with drones recorded by the FAA, only 27 of them—3.5 percent—actually were near misses. The rest were just sightings, and those were often sightings that took place when drone operators were following the rules. The FAA also overcounted, including reports where the pilot said explicitly that there was no near miss and some where the flying object wasn't identified, leading the AMA to accuse the FAA of exaggerating the threat in order to get support for its anti-drone agenda.

There hasn't yet been an incident in which a drone has struck an aircraft. But bird strikes (and bat strikes) do happen, and there's a rich data set to work from to understand how often they do. Researchers Eli Dourado and Samuel Hammond reasoned that the chances of a bird strike remain much higher than that of an aircraft hitting a drone because "contrary to sensational media headlines, the skies are crowded not by drones but by fowl."

The researchers studied 25 years of FAA "wildlife strike" data, reports voluntarily filed by pilots after colliding with birds. The data included over 160,000 reported incidents of collisions with birds, of which only 14,314 caused damage—and 80 percent of that number came from collisions with large or medium-sized birds such as geese and ducks.

Despite the rise in reported bird strikes over time (largely driven by improvements to the FAA's reporting system), the number involving damage has remained relatively constant, numbering in the hundreds per year—a statistical blip, considering that there are approximately 27,000 commercial aircraft flights per day in the US. And in 25 years, there have been only 37 incidents of wildlife strikes that caused injuries or death. The most dramatic of them, the water landing of US Airways Flight 1549 in 2009, was caused by a flock of geese being sucked into both the plane's engines. The one commercial aircraft fatality was caused not by a bird strike but by a collision with a pair of deer during landing in 2000.

"On average, only 3 percent of reported small-bird strikes ever result in damage, compared to 39 percent of large-bird strikes," Dourado and Hammond reported. "Given the voluntary nature of strike reporting, the true percentage of strikes causing damage is probably much lower, as strikes that do not cause damage can be either missed or underreported."

Using the FAA data and bird census data, the researchers calculated the probability of airborne wildlife striking an aircraft. "In 2014, there were 13,414 reported collisions with birds and flying mammals, counting incidents in which flocks of birds hit an aircraft as a single collision," the researchers noted. "As there are on the order of 10 billion birds in US airspace, this means that plausibly 1 bird in 1 million collides with an aircraft every year."

Birds spend much more time in the air than consumer drones, which have a short battery life. Birds also don't necessarily avoid areas where airplanes are apt to hit them. Based on usage statistics, compared with bird behavior, the researchers estimated that for every 100,000 hours of flight time for drones weighing up to 2 kilograms, there would be 0.00000612 collisions causing damage to aircraft. "Or to put it another way," the pair wrote, "one damaging incident will occur no more than every 1.87 million years of 2kg UAS flight time."

And the frequency of injuries caused by drone collisions, they estimated, would be another two orders of magnitude smaller—happening once every 1.87 million years of operation. "This appears to be an acceptable risk to the airspace," they concluded.

[CurryKitten]

Give the way the FAA think, I honestly expect them to ban birds next.

[FPVSteve]

Government Agency Rule #1:

Never let a ridiculous argument be defeated by logic and common sense if there's money or control to be earned.

[iPeel]

An interesting outcome of the registration process is that I believe the number of registered non-commercial drone pilots now exceeds the number of private license pilots, so in theory the FAA should be protecting the safety of drone pilots and their equipment by grounding all private pilots.

[stevec]

Just to play devils advocate...

there was an increase in stupid videos on youtube several years ago with people filming heavy jets landing and taking off.
I suppose the awareness that has been forced on people due to the silly rules the FAA have imposed in the US has had the desired effect.

The thing the statistics above don't take into account is the action of total idiots and with the RTF Quad market blowing up with the Phantom and other flying cameras the barrier to entry will only go downwards.

with no discipline involved in putting the thing together and no prior knowledge of RC modelling and a predisposition to stupidity it was only a matter of time until someone caused a serious crash.

I also feel that this should have been the AMA's responsibility to sort out and not the FAA but it would seem that the FAA doesn't really recognise the AMA.
In my opinion the AMA missed a huge opportunity to get everyone who buys a drone to join up with them.

just my 2p worth...

/Steve

[FPVSteve]

The Phantom has been out for 3 years now (Jan 2013 release date) - people always go on about the quad market exploding but it remains a very niche market even now.

Look around - how many "drones" would you actually see if you weren't in the hobby? It's not like they're... as the article mentions ... birds. There's barely any of them, and huge airspace.

[electrotor]

Just to play devils advocate...

there was an increase in stupid videos on youtube several years ago with people filming heavy jets landing and taking off.
I suppose the awareness that has been forced on people due to the silly rules the FAA have imposed in the US has had the desired effect.

The thing the statistics above don't take into account is the action of total idiots and with the RTF Quad market blowing up with the Phantom and other flying cameras the barrier to entry will only go downwards.

with no discipline involved in putting the thing together and no prior knowledge of RC modelling and a predisposition to stupidity it was only a matter of time until someone caused a serious crash.

I also feel that this should have been the AMA's responsibility to sort out and not the FAA but it would seem that the FAA doesn't really recognise the AMA.
In my opinion the AMA missed a huge opportunity to get everyone who buys a drone to join up with them.

just my 2p worth...

/Steve

I was thinking along much the same lines so I largely agree with your comments on irresponsible flying.
Where we differ is in whose responsibility it is. The AMA, like the BMFA, is only a "governing body" of sorts for its own membership. It has no legal powers and cannot enforce any legislation. All it can really do is have a dialogue with the FAA, as does the BMFA, LMA, SAA, FPVUK, etc with our own CAA. The difference with the UK is that there has been for many years sensible and evolving legislation for model flying. Until the recent FAA registration, there was no legislation in the USA, only a single page of recommendations. You could say that the FAA has been caught with its pants down, which is very careless for such an aviation aware country.
As regards the analysis of statistics, you always have to take these with a pinch of salt as they can be slanted towards a preferred conclusion be that for or against your own view.

[stevec]

yes I agree with that but the FAA could have said that anyone wishing to fly a "drone" needs to be a member of an organisation like the AMA instead of this farcical registration, but in all the US based podcasts I listen to they are treated like second class citizens.

They weren't even allowed to speak at the initial hearing, even though I am not American I was disappointed that a government organisation would not recognise a body that has been active and in existence for longer than the FAA and has a pretty much flawless safety record.

that is what seems like a missed opportunity. AMA membership is dwarfed by the numbers of people who have registered and if they were all members then maybe it could have been avoided.

/Steve

[Billy_boy_2010]

Fly your drone for 1.87 million years, and a plane might hit it once.

I hope this isn't true.

or fly 1.87 million drones and one will hit a plane in a year.....

how many phantoms have been sold I wonder?

[Loopdreams]

What % of a year do you suppose a Phantom typically spends in the air?  Half an hour a week would be exceptional.

[iwan_canobi]

Would it not mean - fly 1.87 million drones for a year (continuously) and one would hit a plane?

If we go from a purely 'accidental' perspective then I think it is highly unlikely it would ever happen, but if someone intentionally was trying to do it the odds would be lower. Still probably wouldn't happen though, and even if it did, registration wouldn't stop it!

[FPVSteve]

registration wouldn't stop it!

Says it all.

[keukpa]

The Phantom has been out for 3 years now (Jan 2013 release date) - people always go on about the quad market exploding but it remains a very niche market even now.

Look around - how many "drones" would you actually see if you weren't in the hobby? It's not like they're... as the article mentions ... birds. There's barely any of them, and huge airspace.

This is very true! I'm into the hobby, and to be fair, I don't think I've ever actually been out and about and seen one (except for places I expect to, i.e. meets, events, flying with mates, etc).

Keukpa

[Dizzy]

Seen a guy walking back to the village with what looked a broken one :(

I'm out and about a lot So TBH expected to see more of them  :+

dizzy :)

[FPVSteve]

Exactly - you just don't see them.

It's as basic as this - if you don't watch the news, there is largely no problem. Same applies to terrorism, religious hate, riots, etc.

Yet people are scared to go shopping because of the 1 in 3109238210380239821302 chance they might get blown to bits by Joe Terrorist.

Sad.

That's not to say it's not important to know what's going on in the world but it's much more important to keep a little perspective. Gutter journalism has a lot to answer for. I thought inciting hate was a crime, but that's largely what these papers do, only in an indirect "don't shoot the messenger" type way.

But what if the messenger is a total troll? He'd deserve a good kicking at least IMO!