Was it a drone? British airways flight

Well crap! I just turned 50 and haven't found a hobby that interested me in many years until I looked into quads. Just after buying my P3P, new rules come out, NFZs and bad media jumping on every negative UAV story they can find. This no doubt is affecting my ability to enjoy my new bird.

Drone or not, this news story sux and will probably have negative consequences for all quad enthusiast.

Please fly safe!


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I am in the exact same boat! Just turned 50 in February and I have always loved aerial photography. I was the guy who wanted to put a camera on a model rocket or an RC airplane or even an RC car. Then quads came out and it was a dream come true. But now, with all the bad press and such, my family rarley finds positive things to say about "drones" and I have already lost some of the abilities my quad came with when I bought it due to "forced" limitations. Such a shame...
 
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Let's hope it wasn't a drone but surely how much damage can a piece of plastic do compared to a flock of geese bones and all?!


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It's the battery that they are concerned about. Ingest this into a jet engine and the consequences, although not proven, can't be considered overly beneficial.

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Frangibility of any and all materials is a concern. Not sure why you'd focus on the battery which is mostly non metallic. Once it is dissected it no longer is a source of extract-able energy
The concerns are not Phantom centric. There are many different designs out there which mostly use CF and we all know how strong that stuff is.
 
If I were Mr Dji I wouldn't be pleased most news articles show a photo of some version or other of a phantom
 
I just read a more recent article. At first I thought the plane was landing, as in very close to the ground, at the time of the impact. I now read that it was at 1,700. So I don't see that they will find the drone. This will now be reported as a confirmed drone strike. Too bad.
 
If I were Mr Dji I wouldn't be pleased most news articles show a photo of some version or other of a phantom
No you know what he is worth and the more they flash a DJI the more he sales .
 
I just read a more recent article. At first I thought the plane was landing, as in very close to the ground, at the time of the impact. I now read that it was at 1,700. So I don't see that they will find the drone. This will now be reported as a confirmed drone strike. Too bad.
Yes, I agree. I've no doubt that BA will now show the extensive damage caused by "the drone" hitting the Airbus at 200 knots and....oh... Hold on.... so, there wasn't any....
 
No such thing as bad publicity eh? Maybe your right
 
And in any case the BBC will never allow the true facts to get in the way of their story .....

Do you have any evidence that the BBC is reporting anything other than the information released by the Metropolitan Police, BA and the CAA? The same information that all the other news outlets are reporting.
 
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Whenever someone approaches me and talks about my "drone" I tell them that it's a "quadcopter" not a drone. I explain that "drones" are unmanned combat planes. Makes me feel better if nothing else!!!!


So if someone remarks, "I saw a drone hit an airliner," presumably you would reply with, "no, that was a quadcopter that hit the airliner."

I don't see how that makes it better.
 
Drones usually refer to autonomous flight.

However, mine has always been a drone and it does fly autonomously sometimes.

Not going to give up another word/term to the PC crowd.
 
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In this situation I could believe it. However, to give you an idea of what is being reported, in the latest FAA reports there are such things as an helicopter pilot at 500' who saw a drone a mile away at 400'. This was 5 miles from an airport.
Exactly... One word comes to mind. Bullshlt!
 
The article I read that reports on this incident uses the incident as "evidence that stricter regulations are required". That's simply not true! As far as I can tell - all of these near-misses were the result of a drone pilot that was breaking the existing regulations - ie flying too high, flying too close to an airport, etc.

It seems to me like the existing regulations are good enough - some pilots just refuse to follow them. Stricter regulations aren't going to change a thing! Stiffer penalties maybe - but not stricter rules!
 
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The article I read that reports on this incident uses the incident as "evidence that stricter regulations are required". That's simply not true! As far as I can tell - all of these near-misses were the result of a drone pilot that was breaking the existing regulations - ie flying too high, flying too close to an airport, etc.

It seems to me like the existing regulations are good enough - some pilots just refuse to follow them. Stricter regulations aren't going to change a thing! Stiffer penalties maybe - but not stricter rules!

Sounds an awful lot like gun policies

Mmm, oh well, anything the mm can do to bump their stupid ratings


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I'm a news anchor here in the U-S. This crossed the AP just as most here have described it...the pilot THOUGHT it was a drone. No solid confirmation on that possibility.

News copy passed to me by an editor implied that a drone DID hit the plane...I changed it to reflect the facts and reported it that way to 500+ radio stations all night. Some of us still care about this profession. (BTW...in 1st reference for any story of this nature, I routinely change "drone" to "multi-rotor", "UAV", or "multirotor" drone to avoid misrepresentation)
Yep, you're correct trevsdad and bravo for your professional stance too, but the BBC have moved with the mob and are now stating "a drone" hit a British Airways plane..." I just echo others and say and c'mon... lets see the damage BA - after all, this isn't a bird; this is a hard plastic and metal 1.3kg thing here, that would've ripped the aluminium skin of a wing or fuselage, having hit it at 200kts... Oh and it's a DJI "drone" too, given the propensity of their products being shown behind the anchor/reporter as an example of what a "drone" looks like. No doubt the legislation will now be "rushed" through parliament and we'll have to pay £120 admin fee for three years for the privilege of registering our "drone"... Which geofencing software already means we can't fly anywhere near any operating airport anyway....unless we "easily bypass it" as the expert on the BBC stated this morning. Wish he'd explain how that's done then. Tw@t
 

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