Wilbur ★ Posted April 3, 2022 Share #1 Posted April 3, 2022 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. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralphie ★ Posted April 3, 2022 Share #2 Posted April 3, 2022 Did you get its tail number? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wilbur ★ Posted April 3, 2022 Author Share #3 Posted April 3, 2022 2 minutes ago, Philander Seabury said: Did you get its tail number? I can't read at 250 knots. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maddmaxx ★ Posted April 3, 2022 Share #4 Posted April 3, 2022 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. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ralphie ★ Posted April 3, 2022 Share #5 Posted April 3, 2022 5 minutes ago, Wilbur said: I can't read at 250 knots. knots?! You are not on the ocean! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maddmaxx ★ Posted April 3, 2022 Share #6 Posted April 3, 2022 Just now, Philander Seabury said: knots?! You are not on the ocean! Shades of the metric thread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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