The class B restriction is draconian and unnecessary. I live about 4 miles from an airport (Class B). The B zone is 5miles. There has never been an aircraft I have ever seen 400ft over my house, and if they were making a 4 mile <400 ft approach they would have a hell of a lot more to worry about than drones when coming in. (Engine failure with seconds of glide ratio, birds, objects). The "inverted wedding cake" of airspace needs to exclude below 400ft AGL besides areas very close to the airport. You as a pilot must know that besides when you are making your final approach or taking off you are well above 400ft for safety reasons other than unaccounted for aircraft.
You can’t just barge into a system that’s being used to safely transport human beings in a high-risk environment and expect to be allowed to do whatever you want with no forethought, planning, or coordination with other users. The system as it exists protects people from violent and catastrophic death. It would be patently insane to start making big changes to it without thinking very hard about the impact of those changes.
Is it strictly necessary to protect airspace around major airports all the way to the surface for five miles? Probably not. But we have designed a hugely complex, life-critical system around that and many other assumptions, and we can’t just go changing things willy-nilly. This is aviation, not computing. We do not “move fast and break things.” The consequences of
getting this wrong aren’t just tweaking some syntax and trying again. The consequences are destruction, death and bereavement.
I’m sure we’ll eventually get to a point where drones are more readily integrated into the system. For now, humans have the priority. And if that means you have to fill out a little web form while the people charged with maintaining the system work through all the implications, I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
I didn't say we should just barge in and make things unsafe. I am saying that we should have a discussion about whether it is needed or not to have <400ft AGL 4.5 miles outside an airport controlled as it is probably unnecessary. The corollary to Silicon Valley startups isn't valid. I wasn't advocating flying craft there anyway and if there's a crash well we'll pivot to a new model.
An example is the FAA has sections of uncontrolled space up to 1000 ft over the Hudson river in NYC, which is in the busiest airspace in the USA in the most densely populated area, dead center in the space of 3 of the largest airports in the world. They decided that in the interest of sightseeing aircraft that they would give an area for this despite midair collisions (one recently), and an actual plane landing in the Hudson once through this space. The area 400ft AGL around airports several miles out is much less treacherous than this and perhaps a discussion should be had to see if it can be given in the interest of drone pilots.
Just a tip, but discussions don't usually start with calling the existing, time-proven system "draconian and unnecessary." Air traffic rules exist mostly to keep people alive. If that interferes with your hobby, that's unfortunate, but the priority should be maintaining the safety levels while accommodating the hobby as much as reasonably possible, not establishing some kind of equality between manned flight and hobbyists.
It's also worth noting that R/C pilots had a high enough barrier to entry that they generally policed themselves pretty well. Now that anyone can buy and operate something that can be hazardous to manned aircraft, things have changed significantly. The system needs to account for that level of inexperience and disregard.
> If people die well we'll pivot to a new model.
I reworded that to better reflect reality.
Current airspace requirements–politically-motivated and misguided tho they may be at times–are mostly written in blood. You'll find most aviators have a healthy appetite for the risk of aviation, but at the same time generally won't be interested in taking a "let's tinker with it and pivot after people die" approach.
1) The 400 AGL rule comes from the idea that the FAA administers everything above that line. Below 400 feet isn't considered navigable airspace. The FAA doesn't specify a global minimum altitude for aircraft to fly at (in 14 CFR 91). Instead, they specify building and person/surface vehicle distances and end with the catch-all that you have to be flying high enough to be safe in the event of an engine failure. So, they're creating rules in a manner consistent with their preexisting regulations.
2) The airspace over the Hudson appears to be class E, which is controlled. By definition, only class G airspace is uncontrolled.
3) The actual plane landing on the Hudson was an airliner in the middle of an emergency. Landing on the river was certainly not part of their planned activities for the day. The pilot-in-command is allowed to deviated from the rules to the extent needed by the emergency.
I'm sure the FAA is still hotly debating how drones will be treated, but it's a government organization used to old technology and moves slowly. Silicon valley will run laps around the regulations until the VCs get bored and fund something else.
Yes agreed. I am just saying this is an example of the FAA yielding a bit to make things a bit less complicated for those wishing to fly up there. My general argument is giving FAA control of all airspace from the ground up in such a large area is infringing on some valid uses of it without really safety justification. I have yet to see anyone point out why operating a drone below 400ft over a mile from an airport is clearly unsafe to air traffic, and actually air traffic operating in this zone is unsafe to people on the ground.
So far the comments from very knowledgeable people seem to say well a plane could fly in there in some exceptional circumstances and then could happen to encounter a drone that is operating in visual range under 400 feet and something could possibly happen. This is also considering that the sky is filled with birds many larger than drones.
Personally I struggle everytime in discussions covering a broad, general subject and there specific counter examples popping up all around you without any deep understanding of that particular example. In that regard, the Hudson river.
SO, the Hudson area is not as heavily regulated as it should be following standard procedure. There is however some sort of regulation to it and it is, I assume, monitored. Everything else would just be plain suicide. One can safely assume that the FAA came up with that perticular piece of regulation after putting some thought into it. Pretty much the same approach they are taking with drones.
I am not a software engineer, therefor I am not commenting on software posts. Honest questions are always fine and welcome, but argueing against the FAA without any deeper knowledge of how air travel works is getting us nowhere.
FInally, the plane that landed on the Hudson had an issue with birds, didn't it? Only that you cannto do anything against birds, dornes are a different thing.
Yes I am not disagreeing with that. I am saying the bottom of the cone has to be more "cone" shaped. More resolution. Why not make it forbidden without authorization to fly large FAA regulated craft anywhere outside say a half mile radius of a runway? Because operating a craft that low is not very safe anyway outside of landing and taking off. Saying the FAA controls ALL airspace from the ground up for an area of a 5 mile radius is not necessary for safe large aircraft operation. In fact I wouldn't want large passenger jets flying <400ft in any densely populated area outside of landing and taking off as it is not safe.
I would highly recommend a Discovery of Flight experience at your local airfield. They're usually free, and I think it will help you realize that there are a lot of things you aren't accounting for. Aviation isn't nearly as tidy an environment as you think it is, and safety margins need to be big. The number of protocols that have been instituted because of statistically insignificant events is one of the reasons aviation is as safe as it is.
From the air, five miles is quite close to an airfield. There's a significant amount of activity in all directions of an airfield that near to it–you have straight-in pattern entries, overhead pattern entries, diagonal pattern entries, base pattern entries, downwind pattern entries, teardrop pattern entries, aircraft transiting the airspace, helicopters running one traffic pattern, single engine aircraft running another, multi-engine aircraft another, jets another, and sometimes heavies yet another, with everyone else avoiding all the wake turbulence they produce.
All of this happens mostly within 5-10 miles of the field. Not everyone has the same training and experience, there are students and instructors in the mix, equipment failures happen, radar coverage is far from perfect, meteorological and geographic factors often crowd an otherwise-open airspace so everyone's now operating in a greatly reduced footprint, and so on.
All this is further compounded by go-arounds (when an aircraft can't make an approach for whatever reason, either called by a pilot or a controller), which regularly throw the traffic around a field into a state of fairly instant disarray, as controllers vector aircraft rapidly away from each other to try to prevent any collisions from occurring.
If an emergency is declared the airspace may have an aircraft operating anywhere above ground level they deem necessary
This complexity is enough to keep you busy when everyone's hearing everyone, and being coordinated by an adept controller. Drone operators aren't listening to controllers when they operate, don't have great vantage point of the airspace, and would know almost nothing of what's happening above while they're flying.
Beyond that, I can think of several situations where a pilot might find the safest course of action is to bolt from an airfield at <1,000 feet AGL for a few miles. It's probably not an everyday occurrence at any particular airfield, but it's happened to me multiple times (and I'm far from a high-time pilot) and it probably happens daily, multiple times, somewhere in the FAA's jurisdiction.
Also, consider:
91.119 Minimum safe altitudes; general
Except when necessary for takeoff or landing, no person may operate an aircraft below the following altitudes;
(a) ·Anywhere. ·An altitude allowing, if a power unit fails, an emergency landing without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface.
(b) ·Over congested areas. ·Over any congested area of a city, town, or settlement, or over any open air assembly of persons, an altitude of 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a horizontal radius of 2.000 feet of the aircraft.
(c) ·Over other than congested areas.
An altitude of 500 feet above the surface except over open water or sparsely populated areas. In that case, the aircraft may not be operated closer than 500 feet to any person, vessel, vehicle, or structure.
(d) ·Helicopters. ·Helicopters may be operated at less than the minimums prescribed In paragraph (b) or (c) of this section if the operation is conducted without hazard to persons or property on the surface. In addition, each person operating a helicopter shall comply with routes or altitudes specifically prescribed for helicopters by the Administrator.
·Helicopter operations may be conducted below the minimum altitudes set for fixed-wing aircraft. The reason? The helicopter's unique operating characteristics, the most important of which is its ability to execute pinpoint emergency landings during power failure. Further, the helicopter's increased use by law enforcement and emergency medical service agencies requires added flexibility in the application of many FAA provisions.
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Plenty of drone activity happens over water, unpopulated areas, sparsely populated areas, etc.
Lastly, not all passenger aircraft are large jets.
Again, I can't recommend getting an hour or two of flying experience enough. HN commenters tend to have a high level of expertise within their respective domains, and perhaps as a result are almost famously prone to oversimplifying subjects outside of their domain expertise. It seems like every time an aviation-related thread comes up it usually highlights that tendency wonderfully.
I've flown a plane a few times before with an instructor, so I am not commenting completely out of ignorance. I am not claiming to be an expert. I also don't own a drone. I am also interested in getting a pilot's license.
I also didn't claim that all passenger craft were large jets, didn't claim that planes would NEVER have to enter space below 400ft AGL miles from an airport. In fact a single engine plane flying that low is even more dangerous as it has less redundancy. I've flown in them. Nothing is without risk and someone flying in a low approach like that has plenty of risk besides drones which are more significant than drones. Also we aren't talking about < 1000ft AGL, we are talking 400 which is a tremendous difference. Yes a controller can do a lot to clear airspace but they aren't going to clear wildlife, trees, and other structures which are a risk at that level or lower much greater than 2lb drones.
> From the air, five miles is quite close to an airfield.
But realize that this is not only a rule at 400 feet. It's a rule at 100 feet, at 40 feet, at 10 feet, at 4 feet.
Surely you can agree that there is a certain height where it's safe to fly drones when there is an airport less than 5 miles but more than line of sight away. And surely you can agree that such a height is not zero feet.
Being limited to ~99.99% of the US is hardly a major issue for drone operators. Further, people are very poor at judging altitude consistently, and it's much easier to enforce 'don't' than try and enforce only up to 100 feet or something.
Class D is generally though not always 4 nautical miles not 5, which is a 20% smaller area.
Now, if you want more permissive rules around class D airspace that's IMO very reasonable. But, talking about class B as any airport is extremely misleading.
A normal ILS approach is about 300 ft/mile. Many airports have runways that are a couple of miles long, so the center of the Class B could be roughly as much as 1.5 miles from the touchdown point. At your distance, a nominal approach would be at 750 feet. At a mile closer, a nominal approach would be 450 feet.
If the pilot is a little low on the glideslope, you're a little closer to the airport than you think, and your drone is a little higher than you think, you've got a collision. Now, these are all worst case deviations, and it might make sense for the FAA to draw the lines more closely, orient them with the actual approach paths, and perhaps have a lower altitude restriction (maybe 150 feet or so) close to an airport. As it is though, the 5 mile ring is a pretty reasonable, if conservative choice given the potential consequences of a drone hitting an aircraft on takeoff or landing.
With DJI, at least, it’s not easy for your drone to be “higher than you think”.
Phantom 3, Phantom 4, Mavic, all track within a foot or so of the designated coordinates in 3D space.
Default settings have an altitude cap, no matter your momentum, you can’t accidentally or intentionally cross the cap. You have to go into configuration settings to override the cap and set manually to go any higher.
Modern models also come with awareness of FAA zones.
I agree. Before a recent move, I flew a model airplane and “large” drone about a half mile from a regional airport (but not in the approach path). I called them up, explained to them what and where I was flying, and they basically told me it would be fine to do whenever as long as I kept an eye out for any low flying planes.
There are a number of assumptions missing in this.
Emergency approaches are by their very nature often well below glide slope.
Perhaps more statistically relevant is that not everyone's altimeters always function correctly, are set to the correct airfield's most recent numbers, that in the potentially 50+ minutes since the last ATIS update the ambient pressure hasn't changed significantly, and lastly that all pilots–drone pilots included–are doing what they're supposed to and leaving sufficient margins.
Shoot enough approaches and you will likely realize that small, potentially dangerous objects piloted by untrained, unregulated, unmonitored, non-communicating pilots at 400' could quickly become a problem for you more readily than it appears from the ground.
Take off on a high-density-altitude day in an underpowered aircraft and you'll also appreciate the additional headroom.
To say nothing of the fact that I've owned drones that under LoS conditions just continue the last input received, which with inexperienced or irresponsible operators would be an input to climb.
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