With all due respect to your experience, digging into the details of the FAA's data on these supposed drone encounters is telling:
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/drones-are-the-new-ufosFor example, this is a report from this year that the FAA categorized as a drone encounter here in my hometown of Atlanta:
> A VFR aircraft receiving ATC service reported passing an object approx 500ft below him at 095. The pilot described the object as round circular, red in color, and reported it could have been a drone or a balloon. A80 ATC did not observe any targets on radar in the vicinity of N7745.
A drone or a balloon? Might as well just chalk it up to swamp gas at that point.
Having been in aircraft looking out and having watched from the ground as my own quadcopter disappeared into the sky significantly closer than 500ft away, I find it extremely challenging to see most reports like that as credible. Yet, the FAA has no qualms with aggregating this junk data into a scary story to sway public opinion. Disappointing.
I'm curious. Have you personally, definitively witnessed a consumer drone in restricted airspace during approach?
For example, this is a report from this year that the FAA categorized as a drone encounter here in my hometown of Atlanta:
> A VFR aircraft receiving ATC service reported passing an object approx 500ft below him at 095. The pilot described the object as round circular, red in color, and reported it could have been a drone or a balloon. A80 ATC did not observe any targets on radar in the vicinity of N7745.
A drone or a balloon? Might as well just chalk it up to swamp gas at that point.
Having been in aircraft looking out and having watched from the ground as my own quadcopter disappeared into the sky significantly closer than 500ft away, I find it extremely challenging to see most reports like that as credible. Yet, the FAA has no qualms with aggregating this junk data into a scary story to sway public opinion. Disappointing.
I'm curious. Have you personally, definitively witnessed a consumer drone in restricted airspace during approach?