A study done by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in 2016 studied bird strikes where damage or fatalities occurred. I highly recommend you read the study linked above, but the takeaway is this:
“Our analysis has been based on actual bird strikes, not near misses or simple sightings. We find in general that small UAS under 2kg pose a negligible risk to the safety of the national airspace. We estimate that 6.12×10−6 collisions will cause damage to an aircraft for every 100,000 hours of 2kg UAS flight time. Or to put it another way, one damaging incident will occur no more than every 1.87 million years of 2kg UAS flight time. We further estimate that 6.12×10−8 collisions that cause an injury or fatality to passengers on board an aircraft will occur every 100,000 hours of 2kg UAS flight time, or once every 187 million years of operation. This appears to be an acceptable risk to the airspace. “
The claim of “safety” with regard to the Radio Identification requirement in the FAA’s recent NPRM is backed by nothing more than hot air. There’s been no evidence that a risk analysis has been done. In fact, the only evidence favoring these new rules is from the Commercial Drone Association:
“We understand why model aircraft proponents want to remain exempt, as they have been flying safely for decades. However, times have changed, and hobbyists are no longer flying alone,” said Lisa Ellman, Co-executive Director, Commercial Drone Alliance.“
The CDA has no real interest in safety, they want to ensure that “their” airspace isn’t cluttered with us dangerous recreational model aircraft flyers.
Yes, we’ve been “flying safely for decades”. EIGHT DECADES. Over 80 years with nothing but a small handful of documented fatalities. Read the study above to see the number of deaths & property damage were caused by birds. Maybe the FAA should concern themselves with tagging every bird they can get their hands on. THAT is where the real danger lies.
Comments
Leave a Reply
