See and Avoid

[Bartman]

What percentage of your total hours are spent flying below 18,ooo feet? Compared to what percentage of my total time is spent below 1500 feet?

What percentage of your flight time is spent actually flying the aircraft without autopilot? Compared to, I don't recall ever flying a helicopter with an autopilot.

Do you own an plane or helicopter? I do. Your comment about me derailing this conversation is disingenuous at best, I spend the majority of my flight time flying an aircraft that I own at the altitudes your "debating," while it appears you spend less than a minute climbing or descending through those altitudes in an aircraft owned by someone else.

i'm not sure why you're trying to bait me into an argument with you but the more you dismiss people who are actually well qualified participants in the conversation the lower you place yourself in the conversation.

for what it's worth, when i'm out banging around in a Cub i'm low enough to see fish jumping after bugs in ponds below. if my life is worth less in your eyes based on whether I own the plane (I've owned two aircraft at different times) or not then that again speaks of your worth as an industry representative.

 

[Av8Chuck]

Old Man, I think when all of us talk about statistics (and our direct experiences) we need to make sure of the context in which they are collected and disseminated. I'm not aware of a single collision between a civilian aircraft and civilian sUAS especially at or below 400 feet AGL. Since you mentioned a CH-53 I'm guessing this was a military helicopter, and since you were recovering, located on or near a military base. If that's the case, it wouldn't surprise me at all that you had a close encounter, the military is kind of in a league of their own and I think probably not subject to the same see and avoid guidelines we're discussing here.

The biggest problem with using TCAS is that in the US its only commercial turbine-powered transport aircraft with more than 30 passenger seats or an aircraft that weighs more than 33,000 pounds that are required to use it. I've never used TCAS but I had a Falcon 900 for a couple of years and often rode in the cockpit and heard the alerts and watched it being used. TCAS is extrapolation oriented, it uses algorithms to approximate an aircrafts trajectory based on flight path history. Anyone else see the problem with doing that with an sUAS? Plus, if a sUAS does trigger a TCAS alert, depending on the situation how does the pilot take action to avoid conflict? Do they listen to the TCAS or ATC? Depending on something as simple as a different altimeter setting the TCAS warning, if there was one in the CH53, might have actually caused the aircraft to move closer together.

My point has been that this topic of debate always seems to end up ignoring the fact that 99% of aircraft are restricted to flying 500 feet AGL and above, then the large percentage of the discussion is how to avoid something that is statistically very unlikely. Most people go their entire lives having never personally seen a medivac helicopter landing in a school yard or on the freeway etc., does it happen sure but given the fact that helicopters represent less than 5% of civil aircraft it just doesn't add up to the level of scrutiny and proposed regulation being discussed.

 

[Old Man]

I was referring to a military environment but all of those were conducted in ATA's that functions pretty much the same as the civilian versions. There is so much traffic the larger bases have to use the same traffic methods used here. Some of the terminology changes a little but the heavy control of the airspace in and around the base works the same way. Since ATC personnel rotate in and out and are often from different countries the methods are very "standardized" to meet ICAO standards. I was giving you a little bit of a hard time by mentioning the rotary wing people, so that was a tease

I agree, TCAS is not going to be a panacea, nor will ADS-B Out. The way both civilian and military "bus drivers" have reacted with it overseas has been pretty much terrible. I won't name the locations but they were/are large ATA's with high traffic densities, equal or greater than LAX, ATL, or SFO, mixing both civilian and military passenger, transport, and attack aircraft. Most of the issues occurred at 3,000' and under, with a couple happening literally at ground level. Full scale where it wasn't supposed to be, which happened to also be part of launch and recovery routings. One in Germany had an sUAS ramming a military transport broadside while the sUAS was taxing out on a programmed taxi route. Guess what wasn't supposed to be there... The point was the manned units would near chit themselves if they found they were within several miles of an unmanned aircraft that was flying a programmed route with an accuracy measured to a meter or less. UAV's function in a ROZ, or Restricted Operations Zone which can move with the location of the UAV.

I do agree than manned aviation will also have to make some operational changes fro sUAS to work in our airspace. It cannot be a one sided game and for the most part there really is little reason for fixed wing traffic to be hanging out below 500'AGL. Rotary aircraft serve more diverse functions and are something that presents more of a problem for MR and similar service level small stuff. OTH, there's not too many reasons for us, the MR crowd, to be blindly flying along at 500' AGL. Most of what we do is conducted at altitudes well below that, and there's no reason at all for the back yard enthusiast to go blasting into the stratosphere just to see how high they can go. You and I see most of this stuff the same way. For the guy out smelling the roses in a Cub or T-Craft perhaps we'll need to maintain great situational awareness or perhaps their days of ground hugging type low flying need to be made part of history. They can follow a road from 500' just as well as they can from 300'.

 

[Bartman]

TCAS is extrapolation oriented,

The traffic and resolution advisories are extrapolated from position and motion data sensed by the units. the displayed position of an aircraft is done in real time

this thread wasn't about solving the problem of separating manned and unmanned aircraft so at this point if you want to continue hypothesizing on possible solutions it should be done in another thread.

 

[Bartman]

just found this while surfing for CES related info for tomorrow, ADS-B is an evolutionary step forward for full scale manned aircraft and probably for UAS that hope to coexist with manned aircraft in the National Airspace System (NAS)

http://www.garmin.com/us/intheair/ads-b

If I can get a moment with a person from Garmin I'll ask if they've seen any future technical requirements that would suggest sUAS will have a position reporting requirement of some sort.

 

[Rentakill]

Australia's roll out...
View attachment 22570

 

[Old Man]

One starts to think a few world governments are in collusion.......