OT FAA requires RC pilots to register, or else

On a sunny day (Fri, 26 Feb 2016 22:20:11 +0000) it happened Martin Brown wrote in :

Yea, I have read that somewhere lately, am in the Netherlands, google eagle top speed Bald eagle: 120 - 160 km/h

Raptors are faster, in fact the fastest animals, IIRC > 300 km/h, but only when diving, Training would be a pita.

My plane flies 160 km/h and can keep that up for 15 minutes. there exist much faster ones too. And even then the bird cannot get hold on it (delta wing). So, and have birds stationed everywhere or even near airports only would well, the story is just an other crap project IMNSHO.

Maybe drones could be equipped with a small speaker that emits bird alarm cries, to avoid collisions with birds you know (ahum). I have never seen an eagle being used here. Maybe if it sees a nice fat pigeon it will just go for that, for a good meal. Plenty of pigeons here.

Good chance the bird would be chopped up by a drone.

The usual solution for loss of signal is to default to low throttle and modest left or right rudder (often a servo failure results in maximum left or right rudder jam which doesn't make the thing easy to fly).

You want it to fly round in circles and gradually descend rather than go straight and climb which would be the worst possible outcome.

A deployable silk parachute would be a better option. It is annoying and expensive when a model crashes into the ground because of RF interference from a typically higher power unlicensed transmitter.

I flew it the other day in my yard, but I have too many trees and it ended up snagged on a twig. I almost flew it off, but it tumbled and snagged on a larger branch. It blew down last night in the wind so I'll give it another try later.

Once you get even 40 feet off the ground it catches a lot more wind and becomes much harder to fly.

We hear these sky is falling numbers of drone sightings from aircraft. How many collisions have actually happened? Don't recall that being hyped.

Our small local airport (average

Read below, and realise you now have sufficient information that a responsible person would cease making such silly statements.

In *one* small country in *one* month there were 7 (seven) recorded and formally investigated drone incidents, 4 (four) of which were determined to be "category A", i.e. "serious risk of collision". (Total incidents that month: 21) That's impressive.

Your statements are the old "I've never been knocked down crossing the road, so I don't need to look" argument. Unimpressive.

Note most of those occurred over *major* populated areas.

One example: THE B737 PILOT reports passing 4000ft on departure from RW04 at Stansted when the First Officer saw a remotely piloted aircraft pass within 50m and overhead the aircraft by about 5m. The aircraft was purple in colour with a fuselage of about 2m in length, the crew were unable to tell whether it was

The incident happened so quickly that there was no time to take avoiding action; however, there was no indication on the flightdeck of an impact. The incident was reported to ATC. ... the Board determined that the risk was Category A, separation had been reduced to the minimum and chance had played a major part in events.

I agree that drones can be a risk if not operated responsibly. Do the rules really say no drone operation at all within 5 miles of an airport? That seems a bit excessive. Heck, the would cover virtually the entire city I am from including all the parks and ball fields and especially the fair grounds which is the most likely spot for an event using drones.

I know this group is inhabited by posters from many countries. Are we still talking about US regulations?

The CAA is responsible in the UK, and the CAA has been actively *reducing* the way silly red tape rules might affect people in the UK.

It outline is at

It is also producing simplified information for the unwashed masses - and in this case they are both masses and unwashed :(