near miss with military helicopter

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this weekend I was flying at a beach in Corona Del Mar. It is not in a no fly zone, and I talked to a lifeguard to get permission. She said that she had recently spoke to the police about drones and they told her as long as you are not flying over people or disturbing wildlife ( there are a lot of birds on the rocks and arches) that it was perfectly legal.
So, I went to take a pan up shot from the tide pools and I took it straight up to 390 feet. I was under the 400 foot limit and then my butt puckered. I heard the thud thud thud of a helicopter. As I tried to bring it down ASAP, a military helicopter came up over the cliff. * the beach is down below some high cliffs.
The helicopter was flying VERY low and very fast. Had to be below 400 feet.
I didn't want to move my P3P because I figured I may fly into the helicopter and most likely, if it was in its way, it would maneuver around it.
So, I left it where it was and it was a real close near miss.
I quickly brought it down and left the beach.
Since I was flying with permission in a zone ok to fly, could I have got in trouble?
 
You would have gotten into trouble had there been an impact. Manned aircraft have the right of way and sometimes fly below 400 ft -- taking off, landing, special operations. It is your responsibility to anticipate a situation where interference with a manned aircraft can occur and, although the military copter came up on you suddenly and without warning, you hadn't taken into account that your view beyond the high cliff was obstructed when you shot up to 390 ft. Hence, I believe you would have undoubtedly been at fault. Luckily, it was a near miss. A safer maximum height would have been no higher than that cliff.
 
i would guess you would be fed to the lions if your bird was run down by a manned aircraft.
i use the airmap app, the first time i saw anything out of the ordinary ( im no where close to any nfz) was yesterday. to windy to fly but i check it just in case i can. saw my area had some shading that i never saw before with a couple of numbers and letters associated with it. early evening.....sure enough, a large military aircraft flew over.......i would guess at 3000 ft plus, but its not a regular occurance here. morale of my story.......theres an app for that. ( kinda maybe sort of). helis can play by a different set of rules sometimes...so ive read.
 
I think I would file a NASA report on that.

Look up

NASA ARC 277B

This is a form for pilots to fill out if a discrepancy occurs. Basically it is a "get out of jail free" card. If you file within 10 days of an incident, FAA cannot fine or take away priviledges under most conditions. Never seen it done with a UAV but it is an aircraft.

Look into this if you violate or have a near miss.
 
unfortunately, it was to the right of my P3P, so it wasn't on the video. ** first thing I checked once I got safe in my truck **
thanks for the info. I didn't think about anything coming over that cliff mapmaker53, good point. And he came in HOT. lol
It definately was a "hold your breath" moment that I will think of anytime flying from here on out.
 
Most of my flying is on the coastline, fixed wing AC and helis regularily fly at 200ft or lower, often close to shore. There are certain lateral clearances they must allow for but they are definitely allowed to fly below 400ft- military ops likely have other blanket or special permissions given what I have observed if their operations. If it was really that close you perhaps should have considered performing a CSC to get down and out if the way as quickly as possible. Full size AC always have the right of way. Another thing while AirMap is useful many aircraft don't operate transponders- mostbsmaller AC won't show on the display.
 
Most of my flying is on the coastline, fixed wing AC and helis regularily fly at 200ft or lower, often close to shore. There are certain lateral clearances they must allow for but they are definitely allowed to fly below 400ft- military ops likely have other blanket or special permissions given what I have observed if their operations. If it was really that close you perhaps should have considered performing a CSC to get down and out if the way as quickly as possible. Full size AC always have the right of way. Another thing while AirMap is useful many aircraft don't operate transponders- mostbsmaller AC won't show on the display.
stupid question: what is a CSC? I just had the left stick down and it was descending as fast as it could go. Was there another way to get it down faster?
 
that's exactly what I was thinking. I guess that would be 100% better than a collision. But, still. lol
I actually had a guy tell me that if you used CSC, it would shut down the motors but it would autorotate down to a nice soft landing. I just said "ok" and left it alone. I'm pretty sure he really believed that.
 
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"SHOULD BE obvious" is correct but as you and I both know, not always true.
i don't know what you might or might not know, I hold what I suoect is a reasonable assumption, most if not all would appreciate that an unpowered UAV is unlikely to make a controlled descent.
 
i don't know what you might or might not know, I hold what I suoect is a reasonable assumption, most if not all would appreciate that an unpowered UAV is unlikely to make a controlled descent.
You are 100% correct. I was just saying that after reading some posts in this forum, it's painfully obvious that there are SOME people that can't make the jump to the obvious conclusion and it needs to be spelled out for them. I am in no way being critical of you or the OP. Hope I didn't come across like I was.

See my previous post (#15). That's a true story! :)
 
Maybe you can try taking off from here:

upload_2017-5-22_15-52-23.png
 

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