On 6/26/12 5:51 PM, Chris Albertson wrote:
On Tue, Jun 26, 2012 at 3:59 PM, Jim Lux<[email protected]> wrote:
I did some calculations last year, and if Los Angeles decided to put up a
UAV 24/7 to replace things like helicopters, we could expect a crash into
the city about once a week.
But they could be made very safe for only a little bit of money. Say you
add a rocket deployed parachute triggered by ground proximity. These kind
of chutes are made large enough for light aircraft.
Lots of other things to do for safety like a video camera that is monitored
and then you'd know in a minute if the aircraft was going the right way.
No, that doesn't make it safe.. it still fails (engine failure is most
common) it just potentially allows you to crash somewhere less
obnoxious. I suspect that the overall system reliability of a UAV is
*substantially* lower than a military jet. They're not doing things
like multiple redundant communication links on different bands, or
redundant control systems or redundant anything (all of which commercial
aircraft have)..
Dropping a UAV by parachute onto a school is not quite as bad as
augering into a pre-school, but not by much. Or in the middle of the
freeway during non-rush hour.
When I was getting my pilots license, I used to have bad dreams about
having an engine failure flying along PCH in Malibu at 1500-2000 ft, and
trying to decide whether to land on PCH (tons of wires) or the beach
(tons of people). We used to have discussions about whether it's better
to land on the freeway going with traffic (lower closing velocity but
you're coming up on people from behind) or going against traffic (people
will see you coming and hopefully dive for the shoulder).
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