Can Drones Really Get National Airspace Access?

coondoggie writes "There is a push by a variety of proponents to give unmanned aircraft more free rein in US airspace, but safety is a major hitch in that effort. The Federal Aviation Administration said this week that data from the Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency, which flies unmanned systems on border patrols, shows a total of 5,688 flight hours from Fiscal Year 2006 to July 13, 2010. The CBP accident rate is 52.7 accidents per 100,000 flight hours. This accident rate is more than seven times the general aviation accident rate (7.11 accidents/100,000 flight hours) and 353 times the commercial aviation accident rate (0.149 accidents/100,000 flight hours)." An FAA executive noted that an "accident" refers to a situation in which "the aircraft has done something unplanned or unexpected and violates an airspace regulation."

Uh, yeah

[russotto]

The CPB isn't answerable to the FAA; nothing will happen to them if they violate airspace regulations. So of course they will have a much higher rate of violation than anyone who does.

Caveat

[ceraphis]

Just because there's nobody in the cockpit doesn't mean there isn't somebody wanking a joystick with malicious intent somewhere.

Small sample

[Anonymous Coward]

Running the numbers, that means they're looking at 3 incidents in 4 years. That seems like a pretty meaningless exercise to me, especially then comparing that number to commercial flight with millions of hours logged.

Re:Here's a prediction

[Kepesk]

Yes, absolutely. The faults of "big government" are caused by those transnational corporations bribing our politicians (or to put it politely, "Lobbying").

I wish more people would see this, but guess what issue is least accurately covered by the transnational corporate media? "Lobbying".

Re:And Extrapolation?

[Monkeedude1212]

shows a total of 5,688 flight hours from Fiscal Year 2006 to July 13, 2010. The CBP accident rate is 52.7 accidents per 100,000 flight hours

Wait - so they haven't logged 100,000 flight hours, under 6,000 - and you are extrapolating up to 100,000?

This reminds me of an XKCD [xkcd.com]

Re:I'm impressed, they are worse than GA

[mcrbids]

Kind of hard to believe considering how many terrible pilots I've seen out there.

And yet, even with all those despicable actions taken by pilots, the general safety record of Single-engine piston based General Aviation is roughly the same as the safety record of automobiles, despite flight being an inherently much riskier activity. While any failure rate could be improved, most people here are comfortable with the relative risks involved with driving from point A to point B, and the relative risk of getting from point A to point B is about the same in a private plane as a car by actual DOT statistics.

Wanna improve your odds when flying private?

1) Don't run out of gas. Seriously, almost 1/3 of fatalities involve (gulp!) running out of the stuff. I DO my checklist EVERY time I fly, and I don't take off without knowing exactly how much fuel is on board, EVER.

2) Don't fly into storms. About 1/5 of fatalities involve icing and thunderstorms. Can you say preflight briefing?!?! It's a TOLL FREE CALL!!! (that I generally make, often while on the way to the airport)

Re:Restrictions

[JordanL]

Yeah, that's a meme isn't it? All authority figures are fascist thugs (particularly the ones that are actually everyday people)?

Or is that meme over on slashdot?

Re:I'm impressed, they are worse than GA

[Gavin Scott]

Anyone with an interest in aviation safety should be able to entertain themselves for hours with the NTSB database of accident reports:

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/month.asp [ntsb.gov]

Reading about other people's bad luck and capacity for self-delusion and occasionally pure boneheaded stupidity can be both entertaining and enlightening. Better than most reality TV anyway :)

G.

I would mod you to 6

[Radical Moderate]

...if that were possible

Re:Uh, yeah

[gd2shoe]

Indeed. Violating military airspace will not involve the FAA to get you out. Fighters will intercept you, and if you do not willingly land with them, they will simply shoot you down.

Unless your aircraft is equipped with countermeasures, and you shoot back.

Fair enough. They would, however, proceed to shoot you down in a complicated fashion.

Re:Here's a prediction

[Eivind Eklund]

I think the reasonable thing to do would be to make all lobbying public. All lobbyists to have *all* contact with politicians and staffers recorded and published in an electronic format.

This means that all attempts at twisting information would be at least in theory possible to uncover; and that if there is any significant amount of them, a lot *would* be uncovered, creating some fear of this in the lobbyists (and thus reducing it overall).

If we were to enforce this well, deliberate lying or twisting the truth should be considered treason. And deliberately being uninformed in order to avoid this should also be considered treason.

The wordnet definition of treason is:

• a crime that undermines the offender's government
• disloyalty by virtue of subversive behavior
• treachery: an act of deliberate betrayal

... and I think it fits rather well.