F.A.A. not being quite as honest as they should be......

According to the F.A.A. Drones (model type such as quadcopters) have had hundreds of near misses with manned aircraft..
www.faa.gov...

August 12- Pilot reports of unmanned aircraft have increased dramatically over the past year, from a total of 238 sightings in all of 2014, to more than 650 by August 9 of this year. The FAA wants to send out a clear message that operating drones around airplanes and helicopters is dangerous and illegal. Unauthorized operators may be subject to stiff fines and criminal charges, including possible jail time

But most of this is total BS, that's right people..straight up BS.. I am a member of the A.M.A.
(Academy of Model Aeronautics for those that don't know.)

The A.M.A. thought that this might be just a too much drone interaction with Manned aircraft so they went and did a study of their own..Here is what is really going on...

MUNCIE, Ind. – The Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) today released a detailed analysis of the
FAA’s drone data. A close examination of the 764 records, which the agency publicly released on August
21, reveals a more complex picture of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) activity in the United States
than initial headlines suggested. There are military crashes and a UFO sighting in the data. Only a
fraction of the records were legitimately reported “close calls” and “near misses.” Some didn’t involve
drones at all.
“Without a doubt, there are some records of ‘near misses’ that represent actual safety concerns, and
more needs to be done to address those,” said Dave Mathewson, executive director of AMA. “But our
analysis also found that the number of ‘near misses’ is substantially lower than the number that was
previously presented.”
According to AMA’s analysis, about 3.5 percent (27 out of the 764 records) were identified with explicit
notations as a “near miss,” “near mid-air collision” or “NMAC”, an acronym that stands for Near Mid-Air
Collision. The records include instances of military UAS crashes and mishaps. There are also “sightings”
of public agencies and commercial operators that may be flying with or without authorization. Some of
the FAA’s records of “sightings” may be drones being operated responsibly pursuant to FAA guidelines,
while others may not even be drones at all.

I thought some of you might like to know this so you all don't start getting paranoid over all these drone "near misses" you keep hearing about..
www.modelaircraft.org...

view.exacttarget.com... ffcf14&ju=fe3811707763077e761470&r=0


Just another government agency trying to scare the general public into ,what? being afraid of new technology? scared to fly? Who knows anymore, but I don't want us "drone" operators to get a bad rap from someone else's lies...

a reply to: baddmove
For the AMA to bring up near misses seems to be somewhat of a straw man since the FAA doesn't really cite any near miss statistics. Just pilot reports of sightings.

Pilot reports of unmanned aircraft have increased dramatically over the past year, from a total of 238 sightings in all of 2014, to more than 650 by August 9 of this year.

www.faa.gov...
Sightings of unmanned aircraft have more than doubled. That's what the article says. Do you dispute it?

The FAA wants to send out a clear message that operating drones around airplanes and helicopters is dangerous and illegal.

Do you disagree?

Who knows anymore, but I don't want us "drone" operators to get a bad rap from someone else's lies...

Then follow the rules. And stay out of my airspace unless invited.

a reply to: baddmove

Gotta love modern gyroscopes . Quad-copter manufacturers , and helicopters as well for that matter have made these things relatively easy to fly and have made them viable hobbies for those not wanting to put in the hours on a simulator and pay sometimes horrendous repair bills . Not sure about frequencies there but in Australia its all 27 megahertz . I am no expert but i would think it would be relatively easy to shut that frequency down around airports . But as i said i am no expert . The real time first person view camera setups may be the problem more so than the ease with which these things can be flown in my opinion . I fly a blade 500x helicopter as well as smaller ones and to be honest at not much more than 100 meters its orientation is very easy to lose , a 500 size helicopter is by no means small . If i installed first person view the only limit would be the radio range .

a reply to: baddmove
Just another government agency trying to scare the general public into ,what?

isnt it obvious, they exaggerate the problem to in order to validate there enormous expenditures & incur more funding to expand their operations.

Most hobbyist stuff stays near to the ground and the majority have flight times under 15min, means they don't go too far from the operator. Therefore that would limit risky encounters to aircraft approaches, thus you should be able to track down the troublemaker either by doing a perimeter cruise of the airport and/or tracking the localized signal source. No new rules needed, just catch a few of these idiots and give them fines or jail time and the BS would stop.

Now if these aircraft are having near misses at operating altitude along flyways and such, I think the government itself is much more likely to be at fault. Complaints therefore should be directed at state or military authorites, as they're the most likely the operators of high-flying drones. (And if not, something large enough to be seen when going past it at 400+ MPH is probably of interest to them anyways.)