The Hangar

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Jay Carr

00:05

@Shalvenay I think the cost of running that test might be beyond most facilities though. Engines aren't exactly cheap, even old ones.

ratchet freak

the data can be worth a lot if it can help an engine survive a few minutes more after ingesting a drone

Jay Carr

I agree, but the question is how to convince someone that you are right, and that it's worth wrecking a rather expensive engine on.

ratchet freak

or go to the FAA and suggest that drone strikes should be accounted for like bird strikes. (or tickle NASA's curiosity)

Jay Carr

I guess I just keep thinking it ought to be fairly self evident that a drone hitting an airliner's engine as the plane is taking off would be, you know, bad.

It's not rocket surgery, as a friend of mine used to say.

ratchet freak

but so would a bird and you want the engine to survive long enough after it ingests the thing

Jay Carr

00:19

Right, but the big difference between a bird and a drone is you can't tell a bird to stay away from an airplane. But, with proper regulations and training, you can tell virtually all drone pilots to stay well clear of an airport.

ratchet freak

doesn't help the guys struggling with the controls when the one guy violating the regulations loses his drone in their engine

Jay Carr

Fair, but I'm not sure you could ever build an engine strong enough to deal with a drone anyway. It's all plastics and metal, where as living organisms are largely water and combustable material.

Granted, maybe this is what you are after anyway. Why not see how drone proof and engine is and if reasonable upgrades can be used to protect a jet from a drone, right?

At least a really small drone...

Shalvenay

00:59

@JayCarr -- aye, it'd be very interesting to compare the damage from ingesting a 4lb drone to what was observed during tests with a 4lb bird

@JayCarr -- re: cost -- it's on par with a birdstrike test. not cheap, but worthwhile.

12 hours later…

Jay Carr

12:37

@Shalvenay @ratchetfreak It looks like the FAA is a few steps ahead of us (which isn't a huge surprise, but is good to see.) nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/…

That story literally came out yesterday. Apparently NBC was in our chat room along with the FAA and they decided we had a good idea so they're going to set up testing ;).

3 hours later…

voretaq7

16:06

@Shalvenay @JayCarr "Thaw the chicken." does not apply to the drone testing rig.

2 hours later…

Jay Carr

17:55

Anybody here have the patience to explain a bit about how ADFs work? I read the wikipedia article on them, but I'm having a hard time following exactly what is going on: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…

@casey or @voretaq7 or @anyone who understands?

casey

@JayCarr easy, a needle points directly at the station broadcasting the signal

all an ADF knows how to do is point at the source of the signal

(secondarily the tuners often over the AM broadcast radio band, so you can listen to radio stations too)

Jay Carr

@casey Right, I'm actually trying to go a level deeper than that. Needles are not known for their magical ability to point at radio signals :). It said there was a little motor that moves the needle about, but I don't understand how it knows it's actually pointed at the signal.

casey

@JayCarr you'd have to ask someone who knows a bit about RF reception. Something in the antenna design and receiver logic can determine what direction the strongest signal on that frequency is coming from.

it doesn't point necessarily at the station, just the loudest thing (e-m radiation) on that frequency.

e.g. if lighting strikes, the needle will generally jump to point at that momentarily

which led to very early strike finders

fooot

18:12

@JayCarr I don't claim to understand all the details but I liked this explanation of the principles behind direction finding.

DEF CON 21 - Balint Seeber - All Your RFz Are Belong to Me

►

Also some interesting aviation stuff in there.

casey

18:31

he summed it up best as "RF is black magic" :)

voretaq7

18:49

@casey . . . I thought that was the primary purpose?

(and isn't the secondary purpose that you can hand your laundry from the sense antenna wire if you're camping at Oshkosh?)

@fooot That presentation is basically "How ADFs work" - if you want a real great lesson in manual direction finding get yourself an old (OLD old) console tube radio - the kind that are about the size of a juke box. They usually have a rotatable antenna coil.

casey

19:02

@voretaq7 or an planar HDTV antenna and a TV that'll display RF diagnostics. an exercise I had to go through to maximize the number of channels I can receive.

voretaq7

19:16

@casey . . . I know nothing about digital broadcasting (and I want to keep it that way!) :)

Also I'm very angry at imgur right now for taking my lovingly-crafted PNG graphics and converting them to crappy JPEG that made my text fuzzy.

Stupid imgur.

casey

indeed, that is stupid of them

NathanG

@casey The exclusion in 91.1(a) is aircraft regulated under FAR 103 (balloons, kites, unmanned rockets and unmanned balloons) and FAR 101 (ultralights).

Anything else that's an "aircraft" falls under part 91.

voretaq7

well to be fair the images were kind of large (1+ MB), and the text is still legible so I'm not too angry. But still! :P

NathanG

And the FAA can fine a non-certificate holder. See FAA v. Pirker - they fined a drone operator $10K; they settled for $1100.

engadget.com/2015/01/23/faa-drone-pirker-case

casey

@NathanG interesting. @JayCarr ^^^ some more stuff for your law question

voretaq7

19:22

@NathanG The definition of "UAV"/"UAS" is also partially clarified in the "FAA Modernization and Reform Act" but hasn't made it into 14CFR yet (faa.gov/uas/model_aircraft)

casey

@voretaq7 i sent my wife a 20 meg PDF with 2 color gradient layers each with ~500 colors and lots of transparency going on between layers. Her work laptop died just trying to open it, let along trying to spool it to a printer

voretaq7

specifically they talk about the distinction between those things (which they consider and regulate as aircraft) and "model aircraft" (which they have authority over but generally don't care about as long as you're not stupid)

@casey Why would you DO that?!

(I'd just send the PDF to the printer directly. Our printers speak PDF. :-P)

casey

I had to reduce the color levels and manually flatten the file before she could even work with it.

yea, I could print it locally just fine (but only b&w, i wanted to see how the color interactions looked in print), but her system did not like it

Jay Carr

@fooot Thanks!

@NathanG Gee if only my question hadn't been closed, because this actually helps answer the question (so thanks!)

@NathanG I'm not sure if you can still put an answer on it, but here's a link to my question. You've at least got some information on part of it... aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/18849/…

casey

@JayCarr you can't answer closed Qs

Jay Carr

19:47

@casey Can you comment at least? I really wish they hadn't closed that question...I swear people didn't read my argument that it wasn't the same thing. Either that or I'm not as good with persuasive essays as I'd hoped.

fooot

19:58

@JayCarr Your question is really close to the other one. In its original form it wasn't really clear how it was much different. Your edit addressing the other question is good and I don't know why the last two reviewers voted to close.

Jay Carr

@fooot Well, it does make me feel a bit better to know you feel that way. Especially since I wrote the addendum in response to your comment :). If enough people read the whole thing, I think they may change their minds...

Maybe if I changed the title...but I'm having a hard time thinking of a good replacement title that encompasses the whole question.

fooot

@JayCarr Maybe... What actions would the FAA take against a drone pilot if they flew a drone into class B airspace?

Jay Carr

What legal actions would be taken against a drone pilot if they flew a drone into class B airspace? <-- how about that? Just because it allows for criminal possibilities?

fooot

Sure, that works. I think rephrasing the "what would happen" part will help distinguish it and emphasize what you want to know.

1 hour later…

Jay Carr

21:32

@fooot There we are, thanks :)

2 hours later…

Stack Exchange

23:45

Q: Why do you guys not fill out your "about me" section?

So many times I have wondered who the users who are answering the questions are, what they do and what experience they have. I mean, I will occasionally answer a question if I think I can contribute but I like it known that I'm not a pilot and others will will be more likely to know what they're ...