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Post by Bruce on Nov 27, 2014 17:00:19 GMT 12
Would have been a couple of years ago, I was running a training course at NorthShore airfield and had caught up with Stu, who took me flying in a Robin. We were just joining downwind off an overhead rejoin at 1200ft when we noticed this odd dot thing coming at us. Within seconds it had passed just over the top of the canopy directly over the top about 15ft above us. Looking back at it I saw it was a jet powered flying wing about 2m span. Despite being painted bright orange, at the same height as us it was just a dot with a faint line as it came right at us. The speed, size and mass would have caused a lot of damage if it had hit - it would have taken out the prop, canopy and presumably us. Stu made a warning call to other traffic but was somewhat shaken. We both filled out statements for an incident report on Landing and CAA investigated. from what I understand from what CAA told me at a later meeting it was a "commercial" but unlicensed operator using the craft on autonomous mode, and despite all the busy air traffic overhead he was unaware of the location of the airfield. Scary stuff - certainly convinced me that the risks are real!
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 27, 2014 17:10:38 GMT 12
Gosh, I hope the guy was fined and learned a lesson.
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Post by Barnsey on Nov 27, 2014 17:57:04 GMT 12
For you Dave:
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 27, 2014 21:48:23 GMT 12
Fantastic!! Thanks so much I think it was at the end of that episode when he shot the plane, wasn't it? Or am I mixing memories here?
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Nov 29, 2014 12:32:36 GMT 12
• SHARED SKIES (PDF document download) Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems in the New Zealand Aviation System
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Nov 30, 2014 13:16:21 GMT 12
How about this for scarey (I know, it doesn't involve a UAV, but still potentially disasterous)....
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Post by Dave Homewood on Nov 30, 2014 18:43:32 GMT 12
What is the strange beeping?
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Post by Barnsey on Nov 30, 2014 19:44:28 GMT 12
Variometer, which aurally depicts climbing or descending in the thermals.
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Post by Dave Homewood on Dec 1, 2014 8:23:38 GMT 12
Thanks Phil.
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Dec 4, 2014 17:28:41 GMT 12
from The Times....This isn’t your captain speaking. It’s a robotIrrational fears about pilotless planes must eventually give way to the evidence that they are better and safer.By MATT RIDLEY | 10:01AM GMT - Monday, 01 December 2014THE Civil Aviation Authority is concerned that pilots are becoming too reliant on automation and are increasingly out of practice in what to do when the autopilot cannot cope. We now know that a fatal Air France crash in the Atlantic in 2009 was caused by confused co-pilots reacting wrongly when the autopilot disengaged during turbulence. They put the nose of the plane up instead of down.
But there is another way to see that incident: the pilot was asleep at the time, having spent his time in Rio sightseeing with his girlfriend instead of sleeping. When roused as the plane stalled, he woke slowly and reacted too groggily to correct the co-pilots' mistakes. Human frailty crashed the plane, not mistakes of automation.
Human error, or sabotage, also seems most likely (though we cannot yet be sure) to have disabled and diverted the Malaysian Airlines jet that vanished over the Indian Ocean in March. Human action certainly caused 9/11. For every occasion on which a Chesley Sullenberger brilliantly and heroically landed a plane on the Hudson River after a flock of geese went into the engines, there have been many more where people caused catastrophe. Human error is the largest cause of crashes in the sky, as it is on the ground.
That is, I suggest, why we will embrace the inevitability of pilotless aeroplanes at some point in the not so distant future. Already, automated systems are better at landing planes than pilots, even on to aircraft earners: they react quicker. Drones are crashing less often when allowed to land themselves rather than be guided in by ground-based pilots. Even Hudson River heroism could possibly be automated. I confess I am probably an outlier here and that most people will be horrified by the prospect of boarding pilotless planes for a while yet. But I think they will come round.
Driverless ground transport will help to assuage our fears. I took a driverless train between terminals at Heathrow last week, and Transport for London has begun tendering for driverless Tube trains, to predictable fury from the unions. Prototype driverless cars are proving better and safer than anybody expected. It cannot be long before they seem preferable to an occasionally distracted, risk-taking, radio-playing or grandee-teasing taxi driver.
Google's prototype self-driving cars have now covered more than 700,000 miles on public roads with only one accident — which happened when a human took the controls. They may be commercially available after 2017. Testing of self-driving cars will begin on British roads next month.
Getting out of a driverless ear, after a restful journey working and reading, then telling it to park and come back when you need it, would bring the luxury of the chauffeured plutocrat within reach of ordinary people. Driverless lorries on the motorways could be confined to night-time operation, leaving the roads clear for cars in the day.
In the air, small drones are now commonplace and not just in the military. The “Matternet” is a plan to use them to supply the needs of remote areas with few roads in poor countries, leapfrogging poor infrastructure as mobile phones leapfrogged the lack of landlines. Once drones can refuel each other in the air, they should quickly take over (for instance) searches of the ocean when planes or boats are lost — so as to put fewer lives at risk.
The next step would be that cargo planes would fly without human beings aboard. The sticking point will be air-traffic control's reluctance to sanction such planes landing at airports in built-up areas. At the moment, drones and piloted aircraft are kept apart in separate zones. If you live under a flight path it is comforting to know that the planes overhead are piloted by people with every incentive to land safely: with “skin in the game”. The existence of a “ground pilot” who can take control of a plane from the ground, as drone operators can do now, would be of little comfort to such people, let alone to passengers on a plane.
But pilots' wages and training costs are one of highest contributors to the cost of flying, after fuel, and if pilotless planes can fly safely for years without passengers, objections to them carrying passengers will gradually fade. An ordinary aircraft is now regularly flying between Lancashire and Scotland with nobody at the controls (though there is a crew on board to take over if necessary). The offspring of a seven-company consortium called ASTRAEA, it uses radar, radio and visual sensors to detect and avoid hazards.
Are we approaching the era when it will be more reassuring to know that there is not a human being in the cockpit than to know that there is? We might find it comforting to know that the cockpit was wholly inaccessible to terrorists and that the machine within it had not spent the night drinking.
It is true, as the CAA has spotted, that we currently have an uncertain mixture of people and machines flying planes, with a danger that the former are getting out of practice and confused. But since accident rates are low and falling, there is no evidence that this partial automation has been a problem, or that going further towards full automation would not help.
Perhaps robotic surgery holds a lesson. Justin Cobb, a distinguished professor of orthopaedic surgery at Imperial College London, tells me that his engineers build into his experimental robots — which carve out, via keyholes, slots in your knee or hip bones of just the right size and shape to fit the necessary implants — what is little more than an illusion of control by the surgeon. The surgeon is allowed to move the tool about, but only within a certain boundary. Beyond that, the robot's software prevents the tool straying.
So an automated aeroplane might allow the pilot to play with the joystick and the switches, but only within limits. Thus can the pilot retain what is left of his dignity and the passenger indulge what is left of his irrational fear of submitting his life to a machine. Imagine a future hijacker or suicidal pilot finding the controls of the plane refusing to obey orders. Like Hal in the film 2001, but in a good way: “No, Dave, I can't let you crash this plane.”
So in practice, despite the cost, we will keep pilots around in the cabin even if there is not much for them to do, and surgeons in the operating theatre, farmers in the cabs of tractors, teachers in the classroom, lawyers in the courts, and columnists on newspapers.www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4283270.ece
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Dec 4, 2014 17:29:55 GMT 12
There....that just “ threw the cat in amongst the pigeons!”
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Post by efliernz on Dec 5, 2014 12:30:04 GMT 12
Firstly... remember that I am primarily a model pilot with occasional full-size fun.
Hmmmm Sitting in my office looking out the 3rd floor window (EcoLab Te Rapa, Hamilton) watching a Squirrel lifting building bits approx 600m away (Wairere Drive) when a r/c quadcopter came past me (heading south) above Te Rapa straight at around 50'. It turned in front of my window and flew north approx 300-400M. It hovered 25-40' higher than heli (in heavy overcast conditions) approx 200M away from the heli. I suspect the heli didn't know anything about it... and if it had needed to make a rapid westerly track, it may have got ugly.
The location is just outside the Hamilton Control Zone. That makes it legal under 101 - although I know (as a modeller) he must have been flying using the video downlink due to the distance. That now makes it illegal as it's outside normal vision. Yes I have photos... no I can't upload them from work.
I had enough concern to call the tower. They of course knew about the heli. They did not know about the model... and under 101 didn't need to. He agreed with my suggestion that an informative message to heli pilot warning about the stationary UAV immediately to his west could be beneficial... just as info.
The new up-for-discussion rules for 101 and 102 were on CAA's website yesterday. I can see someone having an "I was flying within 101 so go bite me" attitude here as many do not value or care about others. The attitude of "I can land in a hurry if I have to" doesn't help the full-size pilot hovering with an under-slung load at 100' in town suddenly siting a model so close - higher than them.
Just saying...
Pete
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Jan 15, 2015 14:07:23 GMT 12
from the Wairarapa Times-Age....Drone users to draw up rulesBy SUSAN TEODORO | 6:51AM - Tuesday, January 13, 2015WHAT'S THE BUZZ: Drone operator Toby Mills enjoys a reasonably “unregulated” sky but that could change under new rules proposed.NEW ZEALAND leaders in unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) technology will meet in Masterton in the lead-up to Wings over Wairarapa next week to discuss key issues facing the sector, including potential rule changes to improve regulation and increase safety.
The one-day symposium “Open Skies”, on January 16th at Solway Park, will be discussing new technology as well as the proposed regulations.
Wairarapa drone operator Toby Mills supports the suggested changes.
Mr Mills owns Noise Productions, a Carterton based sound company which provides a drone photography and video service.
“The new rules strike a good balance between keeping things open and having regulation,” Mr Mills said. “At the moment, there isn't a lot around the safety side of it.”
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) documents explaining the proposals support Mr Mills' view, saying that increasing use of unmanned aircraft poses risks to safety.
Chris Thomson, aviation industry cluster manager at Callaghan Innovation, one of the conference's partner organisations, says use of drones is increasing, with the horticulture, oil and gas, forestry, TV and film industries finding roles for the gadgets.
Mr Thompson said the proposed risk-based rules were quite progressive compared to other countries and that the technology was becoming more widely used in New Zealand.
“There are many opportunities for unmanned aircraft technology to improve farm productivity, reduce operating costs and improve safety. Examples include remote stock monitoring, fence and equipment inspections, weed spraying and pasture management,” he said.
Associate Minister of Transport Craig Foss will be a keynote speaker at the conference.
CAA director Graeme Harris will talk about the proposed rules, which include:
• The introduction of a certification scheme for some operators.
• Establishing a two-tier risk-based regulatory structure, low risk and higher or uncertain risk. Lower risk craft are unlikely to require operator certification.
The CAA issued a notice in December about the changes for the sector, also known as remotely piloted aircraft systems.
Feedback on the proposals is due by the end of this month.www.nzherald.co.nz/wairarapa-times-age/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503414&objectid=11385592
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Post by ErrolC on Jan 22, 2015 18:42:04 GMT 12
Discussion by the Privacy Commissioner Game of drones privacy.org.nz/blog/drones/ Given the recent media interest in dash cams, the timing couldn’t be better to raise a related topic that has also excited journalists - drones. Technically known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), drones are becoming more and more common. They have even been described as the tractors of the future. Their rapidly growing availability and use by agencies and hobbyists has triggered fears about their impact on privacy and aviation safety - so much so that our office has received 10 media enquiries in recent months from reporters wanting to know the privacy rules that apply to drones. They also want to know if we have received any complaints. The answer, until fairly recently, was none. But there has since been one, and we’re working through it. As we discussed in our post about dash cams, the Privacy Act is a technology neutral piece of legislation which gives the basic principles by which we can make an assessment on the privacy implications of an emerging technology. While drones are a new and emerging technology, the threat they pose to privacy is consistent with the use of any camera, including mobile phones or automated CCTV systems. Our CCTV guidelines apply to how someone might use drones fitted with cameras and comply with the Privacy Act. The main points for any camera operator to observe are: being clear about why you are collecting the information making sure people know you are collecting the information how you intend to use the information keeping the information safe and making sure only authorised people can see it disposing of the information after it has served its purpose right of access to the information by the individual or individuals concerned. The Privacy Act applies to information gathered by an agency about an identifiable individual, and it concerns how that information is collected, handled and disclosed. For a definition of an agency, go to our website here. There are also other laws in New Zealand that are relevant to using drones to film or record. For example, it is against the law to make covert intimate recordings of people without their consent or knowledge, and to publish them. For example, if you are sunbathing semi-naked in your own back yard surrounded on all sides by a three metre high fence, you would have an expectation that you won’t be spied on. See section 216G to 216J of Crimes Act 2006. There’s also the possibility the homeowner might want to take their own court action against the camera operator for invasion of privacy. It is also against the law to peer into people’s homes and record any activity within. See section 30 of the Summary Offences Act 1981. While it is understandable there is a spike in media and public interest in a new and exciting technology, it is important to keep things in perspective. In this case, people using drones should have the same consideration for others as those who already use CCTV cameras on their properties or dash cams in their cars. That’s because the laws that protect people’s privacy are already in place and have been for some time now. While the technology of visual recording keeps changing, the laws and principles around the collecting and disclosing of information remain as relevant as ever.
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Jan 26, 2015 11:34:25 GMT 12
from The Dominion Post....Drones invading privacy say criticsA Masterton man filmed by his neighbour's drone has raised privacy concerns with the police.By CALEB HARRIS | 5:00AM - Monday, 26 January 2015FROM ABOVE: Aviation NZ is developing a code of conduct for drones.GRAHAM KERRISK was at home in Masterton when he noticed a small drone filming him through his window.
“This bloody thing is just sitting outside your window ... at about 10 feet. Then it slowly turned, allowing its camera to pan. I thought, this is bloody cheeky.”
He knew the multi-rotor remote-controlled craft belonged to his neighbour, who had shown off the new $1,600 toy a few days earlier. He knew it had a live video feed, high-resolution still camera and GPS.
He spoke to his neighbour and received an apology. But, still perturbed, Kerrisk went to Masterton police. What they told him disturbed him even more.
They said they had been expecting complaints about drones invading privacy. “They said they knew it was coming, but they didn't have a policy yet.”
The privacy commissioner says a drone filming someone in their home is just as illegal as any other invasion of privacy.
The commissioner's office recently received its first complaint about a drone invading privacy, and said in a blog post last week that, while the ubiquitous new technology caused alarm, it was no more of a threat to privacy than mobile phones or security cameras.
It was covered by laws protecting people's privacy, such as the law against “peeping or peering into dwellinghouse”, punishable with a $500 fine, and the law forbidding intimate recordings of people without their consent.
Wellington police spokesman Nick Bohm said police had not had a spike in complaints about drones, but those it did receive were referred to the Civil Aviation Authority. With submissions on the CAA's proposed drone safety closing at the end of the month, it would be “premature” to discuss privacy issues around drones before then.
But Kerrisk still wants to know more. “I thought, what are my legal rights if this thing comes back? Can I get the kids' shanghai out, can I hose it down with my garden hose?”
He tried to raise his concerns at a symposium in Masterton to coincide with the country's first drones trade show at Wings Over Wairarapa airshow last week, but was put off by the $100 entry fee. He is now considering other avenues.
Industry body Aviation NZ has a division governing drones. Chief executive Samantha Sharif said that, while the privacy commissioner had jurisdiction over breaches, the body took privacy seriously.
“We are developing a code of conduct for [drones], ensuring best practice, safe standards and complying with all of New Zealand legislation ... the privacy commissioner will need to think about where drone operations might cause privacy concerns.”
A CAA spokesman also referred privacy concerns around drones to the commissioner.
Commission spokesman Charles Mabbett said it was aware of the concerns, but laws to protect privacy were in place. “While the technology of visual recording keeps changing, the laws and principles around the collecting and disclosing of information remain as relevant as ever.”www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/65406446/Drones-invading-privacy-say-critics
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Post by Darren Masters on Feb 2, 2015 9:01:19 GMT 12
So sick of these being called 'drones'. They are not 'drones' they are UAV's. Sick of these di@# heads also making it harder for legit people (such as myself) to have a reason and proper means of operating these. Fed up.
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Post by lumpy on Feb 2, 2015 19:59:45 GMT 12
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Post by efliernz on Feb 3, 2015 8:40:13 GMT 12
More UAV "drone" rubbish on Campbell Live last night. Hey... let's deliver a latte by copter! The woman even removed the cup from under the machine while it hovered just above her head! Oh yeah... just before it flipped for no reason at all at 6' lol. www.3news.co.nz/tvshows/campbelllive/latte-to-your-lap-via-drone-delivery-2015020219#axzz3QcPGKl2TAs someone that has flown remotely pilots cameraships for 8 years, I see these damn things being flown by so many thoughtless nutters with zero safety considerations. Add that to completely devaluing quality aerial photography! I have had several commercial shoot cancellations based on media negative hype... Any wonder I now shoot using a C172. Pete
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Post by Darren Masters on Feb 3, 2015 9:05:32 GMT 12
More UAV "drone" rubbish on Campbell Live last night. Hey... let's deliver a latte by copter! The woman even removed the cup from under the machine while it hovered just above her head! Oh yeah... just before it flipped for no reason at all at 6' lol. www.3news.co.nz/tvshows/campbelllive/latte-to-your-lap-via-drone-delivery-2015020219#axzz3QcPGKl2TAs someone that has flown remotely pilots cameraships for 8 years, I see these damn things being flown by so many thoughtless nutters with zero safety considerations. Add that to completely devaluing quality aerial photography! I have had several commercial shoot cancellations based on media negative hype... Any wonder I now shoot using a C172. Pete Indeed Pete the negative 'publicity' is scaring people off and no doubts at all that companies and organisations that thought of using them for shoots are now thinking twice. Very sad there are that many twats out there.
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Post by efliernz on Feb 3, 2015 10:13:26 GMT 12
I have been mentoring a company in Christchurch for nearly 2 years. They now have govt/CERA contracts as well as some high-profile work. They have worked hard to get there and have the full insurance, operations manual, op's log and the CAA tick. They have sat the current PPL exams (he's an ex PPL) as part of their establishment and are doing well due to some very hard and expensive work. Good responsible operators will still succeed Saying that, the part-timer like me with 8 years op's under my belt has watched some irresponsible local "drone" pilots fly illegally and with the quick setup/fly/leave time, they are unlikely to be found and prosecuted by CAA. I have a 3rd-floor glass office in Te Rapa, north Hamilton and have twice seen UAVs (a large Droidworxs quad and a DJI Phantom) fly past my window with at least a 400-500M flight path over the Te Rapa straight traffic. They must have been flying FPV - and it's illegal to fly a model outside unaided visual range. The Droidworx quad flew and hovered 100M in front/above of a heavy-lift heli lifting roof trusses. CAA were advised but I have no idea who the idiot was... I'm sure in the UAV pilots mind, he was flying safely. I'm sure the thought of laws and rules never entered the idiots mind... Education here is the key and CAA know that... but really don't know where to start. However education will still not stop the idiot factor. I do however enjoy educating construction companies about engaging the services of a "drone photographer". Do they know if the operator has a H&S manual, operations manual, insurance... and are they aware that they are responsible for their sub-contractors? That last one usually sways them Pete
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