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So, maxx..


Wilbur

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What happens to drones when they lose radio comm?  Do they all seek home or do some just carry on until they run out of battery? 

We were on arrival into Mobile Alabama the other day at 6000 feet and had one pass over the left wing by about 20 feet.  It was pretty big, multiple blades, maybe 6 or so.   I find it hard to believe someone would be flying it that high intentionally. 

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10 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

What happens to drones when they lose radio comm?  Do they all seek home or do some just carry on until they run out of battery? 

We were on arrival into Mobile Alabama the other day at 6000 feet and had one pass over the left wing by about 20 feet.  It was pretty big, multiple blades, maybe 6 or so.   I find it hard to believe someone would be intentionally flying it that high intentionally. 

Some return to the start position via the onboard GPS.  Some go to a preset fail safe condition, normally something like station hold while descending at a reduced throttle mode (attempted anti crash).  If your drone was 6 bladed, then it wasn't a sport drone.  Rather it was some sort of industrial or higher end photo drone or possibly even some sort of military drone.  While one of those could be flown by some extreme utube idiot, chances are that it's a bit too expensive for most idiots.  Many of the news station camera drones are of the 6 and 8 bladed type.  Hollywood uses those sorts of camera drones as well.  You need more than 4 motors to recover from a failed motor without crashing and you need them to carry heavier payloads.

If military it could be under control of an operator.  I have some trouble believing that they would get near an airport at that altitude however.  If not military it would probably be flying to some gps waypoint at a commanded altitude using the onboard computer to direct flight.

Either way it should be reported to ground control immediately as that's the only way they are going to have any chance of finding anyone responsible for actions that are a federal crime.

Drones have been responsible for thousands of near or close miss interactions with aircraft in the last few years and frankly I'd go for the removal of control fingers and thumbs from the offenders.  They are going to crash an airliner some day.

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