Post by auntym on Jan 29, 2015 13:34:59 GMT -6
devoid.blogs.heraldtribune.com/15143/the-new-scapegoats/
The new scapegoats?
By Billy Cox, Herald-Tribune
/ Tuesday, January 27, 2015
The quadcopter drone that crashed into the White House lawn on Monday may have been innocuous, but at some point there’s going to be a disaster — and everybody sees it coming. The global skies are getting more cluttered by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) morphing into increasingly bizarre and complex designs, and regulators can’t scramble fast enough to keep up with the galloping technologies, many of which now employ stealth configurations.
In November, The Washington Post reviewed FAA records and discovered pilots had reported “a surge” of near-miss incidents since June 1, where drones came within a few feet or seconds of colliding with conventional aircraft. In an environment where the odds of potentially catastrophic encounters are accelerating, could an unintended consequence be getting more critical eyes on UFOs?
The usual suspects are growing more and more unusual
Since 1999, the nonprofit National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena has been studying The Great Taboo — preferring the less loaded acronym UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena) — from flight-safety perspectives. NARCAP’s concerns aren’t so much over mid-air collisions — UAP apparently don’t obey the laws of traditional aerodynamics and are agile enough to turn on a dime — as they are about pilot reaction. NARCAP researchers scoured FAA cases dating back to the 1950s and discovered the biggest danger was a tendency by pilots to overcorrect when confronted by the often abrupt approach of UAP. No fatalities on file, yet, but a few injuries here and there, and certainly a potential for disaster anytime a pilot attempts a sudden evasive maneuver.
Inject drones into that lengthy FAA track record and things get dicey real quick. In a 2013 report titled “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Unidentified Aerial Phenomena: Can We Tell Them Apart?,” NARCAP’s Richard Haines and Wayne Reed drew distinctions between UAP and UAV. To mention a few, drones can be pretty noisy; UAP are largely mute. Unlike UAV, most drones have range, altitude and speed limitations. UAP maneuverability makes even the most sophisticated drones look archaic. “Unless something basic has been overlooked in this overview,” states the report, “it seems reasonable to assert that none of the UAV that are reviewed here are able to disappear suddenly from sight, execute instantaneous ninety degree (or other angles) turns, accelerate at extremely high speeds, hover in complete silence or perform small, constant radius somersaults or corkscrew flight around a single point, suddenly change shape or size (without changing their orientation or distance from the viewer) — all of which UAP have been reported to be able to do.”
CONTINUE READING: devoid.blogs.heraldtribune.com/15143/the-new-scapegoats/
The new scapegoats?
By Billy Cox, Herald-Tribune
/ Tuesday, January 27, 2015
The quadcopter drone that crashed into the White House lawn on Monday may have been innocuous, but at some point there’s going to be a disaster — and everybody sees it coming. The global skies are getting more cluttered by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) morphing into increasingly bizarre and complex designs, and regulators can’t scramble fast enough to keep up with the galloping technologies, many of which now employ stealth configurations.
In November, The Washington Post reviewed FAA records and discovered pilots had reported “a surge” of near-miss incidents since June 1, where drones came within a few feet or seconds of colliding with conventional aircraft. In an environment where the odds of potentially catastrophic encounters are accelerating, could an unintended consequence be getting more critical eyes on UFOs?
The usual suspects are growing more and more unusual
Since 1999, the nonprofit National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena has been studying The Great Taboo — preferring the less loaded acronym UAP (unidentified aerial phenomena) — from flight-safety perspectives. NARCAP’s concerns aren’t so much over mid-air collisions — UAP apparently don’t obey the laws of traditional aerodynamics and are agile enough to turn on a dime — as they are about pilot reaction. NARCAP researchers scoured FAA cases dating back to the 1950s and discovered the biggest danger was a tendency by pilots to overcorrect when confronted by the often abrupt approach of UAP. No fatalities on file, yet, but a few injuries here and there, and certainly a potential for disaster anytime a pilot attempts a sudden evasive maneuver.
Inject drones into that lengthy FAA track record and things get dicey real quick. In a 2013 report titled “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Unidentified Aerial Phenomena: Can We Tell Them Apart?,” NARCAP’s Richard Haines and Wayne Reed drew distinctions between UAP and UAV. To mention a few, drones can be pretty noisy; UAP are largely mute. Unlike UAV, most drones have range, altitude and speed limitations. UAP maneuverability makes even the most sophisticated drones look archaic. “Unless something basic has been overlooked in this overview,” states the report, “it seems reasonable to assert that none of the UAV that are reviewed here are able to disappear suddenly from sight, execute instantaneous ninety degree (or other angles) turns, accelerate at extremely high speeds, hover in complete silence or perform small, constant radius somersaults or corkscrew flight around a single point, suddenly change shape or size (without changing their orientation or distance from the viewer) — all of which UAP have been reported to be able to do.”
CONTINUE READING: devoid.blogs.heraldtribune.com/15143/the-new-scapegoats/