Back in January 2016 I wrote an article for NZ Aviation News that focused on the massive increase in popularity of consumer level UAVs, or drones as they are more commonly referred to, and the mid-2015 adaptation of the Civil Aviation Rule Parts 101 and 102 put in place to regulate that category of remotely piloted aerial system (RPAS to give it yet another official title).
Three years on, having been both flying a variety of these craft commercially as well as working as a regional airline pilot, I have been having recurring discussions with my peers around several key themes that I thought might be worth sharing with the broader aviation community.
To begin with, it seems the mainstream media continue to breed negative perceptions of drone operators, being quick to stigmatise the user base with click bait headlines relating to supposed misuse of camera-equipped quadcopters reported in suburbia spying on private citizens.
This sort of article typically generates hundreds of comments below it from the misinformed reader base, calling for a blanket ban on drones, building a perception that the majority of us who fly such a craft must have a cowboy-like mentality and do not adhere to the CAA published rules—which often then get paraphrased to create further confusion among the general public.
A frequent example of this would be the countless “news” stories published that include a bullet pointed fact stating drones must not be flown within 4km of a published airfield in New Zealand, which is only the first sentence of CAR rule 101.205.
This rule actually continues, permitting such activity if the aerodrome operator authorises the flight, an observer is in attendance if the airfield is uncontrolled, and the pilot is either the holder of a CAA-recognised Part 61/149 licence or under the direct supervision of such a person.
This has led to the police being called on a colleague of mine who was using a UAV to photograph an industrial property adjacent to Palmerston North Airport at the request of the building management. He had all the above-mentioned boxes ticked, having had the no-fly zone around the airport unlocked from the craft manufacturer’s built-in protection while in direct communication with the chief controller at NZPM.
As it happened, that was the second time in a week he had been approached in public and questioned on the legality of his work, which he was happy to show evidence of on both occasions—but he shouldn’t have had to. Imagine a world where we walked up to a bus driver and demanded to see a driver’s licence before taking a seat, or asked shop owners to dig out their import licence before paying for goods!
Paradoxically, the same mainstream media absolutely love to promote drone shot footage for their televised news shows as they engage in a ratings race against their rival organisations to break a story first.
The aerial overview offered from an elevated perspective can showcase a scene with greater context than traditional ground-based cameras, and the very same organisations that publish critical stories of illegal drone use then go ahead and broadcast footage to the nation, often sent in by a freelance operator who is in blatant breach of CAA rules!
A textbook example of this was the widely publicised coverage of the southern right whale nicknamed “Matariki” filmed by an amateur drone operator in Wellington Harbour in close proximity to the Queens Wharf helipad and the international airport last July. The footage clearly breached several CAA Part 101 rules as well as the Marine Mammals Protection Regulation that states that, when flying below 600m above sea level, one must maintain a horizontal distance greater than 150m from marine mammals.
Another topic frequently debated is the possible hazard that consumer-sized drones pose to manned aviation, something particularly relevant to me as I spend a fair percentage of my own time in the air, and I am growing ever conscious of the possibility of a drone strike.
A Colmar Brunton survey conducted for the CAA in 2017 calculated that there are 281,428 New Zealand resident drone users, with another 199,806 (six out of every 100) overseas visitor users each year. With statistics like that, it’s not surprising that 126 RPAS Air Proximity Reports have been officially filed by pilots in New Zealand to the CAA since 2015, with 36 of these categorised as “near collision” according to data supplied directly from the CAA upon request when researching this article.
From personal experience, I have had to discontinue an approach after company traffic ahead reported a near-miss on final for 23L at Auckland, which happened to be the second day in a row that an unauthorised high-altitude drone sighting had disrupted air traffic at the airport.
Such events seem to becoming the new normal, with internal procedures put in place by Airways NZ for shutting down airspace (either arrivals or departures from a certain vector) for a period of 25min from the time of the sighting to cover the battery endurance of a typical off-the-shelf consumer drone.
In March 2018, NZ92 inbound from Tokyo diverted to Ohakea from Auckland after a rogue drone was reported operating at 1400ft at a position 5nm along the final approach path from runway 23L, passing within 5m of the widebody Boeing. Twenty other inbound aircraft were also put into holding patterns until the 25min no landing restriction was observed, collectively costing multiple airlines many thousands of dollars’ worth of fuel and lost time as well as causing knock-on delays network-wide.
Less than a month later I can also remember the day another heavy on final approach announced on frequency that they believed they had possibly ingested a drone into their engine, with the result that all following arrivals were promptly suspended and seven other inbound aircraft put into holding patterns.
Fortunately, the following engineering inspection revealed this was not the case. However, computer simulations conducted by Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering show that a small drone with a mass of 8lb (3.6kg) does indeed have the potential to cause an uncontained mechanical failure if sucked into a jet engine’s intake area.
Looking at the worst-case scenario, the simulation video concluded that the 8lb drone would rip apart the fan blades of a 9ft diameter turbofan engine running at takeoff thrust in less than 1/200th of a second, with the resulting debris thrashing about inside the engine core able to reach speeds of 715mph. The broken turbine blades would fragment as the fan crumbled and warp the engine block housing, contributing to catastrophic engine failure.
At the other end of the spectrum, lighter-weight GA aircraft are also at risk to reckless drone operations, with the University of Dayton Research Institute conducting a separate experiment designed to mimic a mid-air collision between a small drone and the leading edge of a wing of a Mooney M20. When the DJI Phantom 2 was launched at the wing in the laboratory, the drone did not shatter on impact but tore open the leading edge of the wing as it bored into the structure, damaging its main spar.
The test was intended to be a benchmark to compare the damage between a bird strike and a drone strike, with the drone in question representative of a typical hobbyist’s off-the-shelf craft and the wing selected to represent the structural thickness of a small commercial transport aircraft.
As a pilot, I shudder to think how the likes of some of the single-engine GA aircraft would handle an air-to-air impact, be it through the propeller arc, into a windscreen or through the surface panel. There are plenty of LSA out there clad in 0.8mm thick 2024-T3 aluminium sheeting which, based on the above research, would clearly result in a disastrous event, possible complete loss of aircraft, loss of life and no doubt a kneejerk reaction from the regulator that would cease UAV operations nationwide as a consequence.
What upsets me further is the general attitude of the online New Zealand casual drone user community, with many quick to point the finger and make light-hearted fun of manned aircraft pilots who report the drone near misses, insinuating that the drones observed were either a misidentified plastic bag or airborne bird due to lack of published proof.
I believe the source of this dismissive ignorance stems from a singular 2016 event at London Heathrow when the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) revealed there was inconclusive evidence of impact after a drone strike was reported upon landing by a British Airways crew, and the following official press release stated there was speculation as to whether or not the object sighted could have been a stray plastic bag.
That said, plastic bags (getting ever harder to find these days, although I did observe one blow across the final approach path last week at Invercargill!) tend to drift with the wind flow, and birds in flight flap their wings with a recognisable bouncy trajectory when spotted out of the cockpit windows.
The majority of casual drone operators in this country come from backgrounds in photography, filming and surveying, and as a general rule they have little or no actual aviation experience.
This disappointing apparent lack of professionalism and flippant regard to manned aviation safety is what causes me concern on a regular basis, with certain spokespersons within the community also pointing out that there is little or no repercussion for those that do break the law, as the manpower required to track down any reported offenders is better off spent pursuing “real crimes”.
When the occasional drone operator actually does get caught and ends up in front of the courts, the punishment doesn’t seem to match the crime. The Chilean tourist whose illegal drone flying prevented firefighting helicopters from accessing a bush fire in Central Otago last summer just had his $1700 drone taken from him as a penalty. Another tourist who managed to crash a drone on to a lane of Auckland’s harbour bridge in 2017 merely received an infringement notice and a fine of $500.
On a more positive note, there are now 110 Part 102-certified organisations throughout the country which have gone down the path of formally applying for and operating under a CAA operator’s certificate to a standard on a par with the manned aviation sector. These companies have a full exposition document, senior people interviewed and approved by CAA, maintenance schedules and training programmes. They operate with checklists and standard operating procedures, carry out preflight hazard assessments and have annual competence testing done by Part 141 examiners.
There are six separate CAA-approved training organisations, including Flight Test NZ and Massey University, which run training courses to induct these drone users into the jargon-heavy world of aviation, including VNC map reading, NOTAM deciphering, FRTO use and an in-depth breakdown of the legal aspect of the existing rule parts.
Contrary to my earlier statement, the level of professionalism I have witnessed from these course participants has been high, and it is just unfortunate that a few bad apples spoil the whole barrel when it comes to public perception.
The technology advances within the drone industry are moving at a phenomenal rate with the capability and payloads of the remotely controlled craft becoming ever more sophisticated and useful by the day.
Let’s hope that the future of unmanned aviation in New Zealand is a prosperous one and those drone owners out there operating negligently get made an example of to discourage this kind of behaviour elsewhere!
- Report and photography by Andrew Underwood.