Originally Posted by
N410DC
Even the FAA admits that the first incident may or may not have involved a UAV. It's interesting to note that this aircraft is owned by an aerial imaging company, which stands to loose a lot of business from camera-equipped drones.
The second incident involved a very large military drone that is not available to the general public.
As far as I know, there have been no confirmed reports of a civilian UAV colliding with any full scale aircraft.
I think a midair collision between a UAV and a full scale aircraft will happen, eventually. However, I think the chance of a fatality in the aftermath of such an incident is unlikely. If a C-130 can survive an severe airborne impact with a 185 pound drone, a hobby grade drone has little to no chance to cause a fatal accident. Even if a UAV is ingested into a jet engine, the pilot will shut down the engine, the engine's integrated fire extinguishers will douse any fire, and the pilots will land the aircraft safely, just has they have dozens of times in a simulator. No twin-engine aircraft can certified unless it is capable of climbing on a single engine, and jets can generally take off on one engine after they reach a certain speed.
I did mention it was unconfirmed didn't I? I have seen many bird strikes. Even repaired a few. Most just leave round dents. Sometimes the dents are bigger and odd shaped depending on the where the strike is in relation to the rib and sometimes they will penetrate. I have yet to see one that left a gash with a long dent to the side. There is always the possibility I am wrong but my 30 years of aircraft maintenance experience suggests otherwise. I have seen good tree strikes do less damage than what that leading edge shows. But, back to birds, a 3 pound bird made of feathers, meat and hollow bone can penetrate a windshield or wing if it hits right. What will a hard plastic and steel model do while weighing more and possibly flying faster? Take a minute and consider the possibilities, especially for a windshield strike on a small aircraft with only one pilot on board. There are drones for civilian use already above 50 pounds fortunately the problem children so far seem to be using small craft. How big will Amazon's need to be to deliver packages? True, it is the aircraft of an aerial photography company but how many operators actually fly in the same airspace they do? Cops, ambulance, radio/TV and ag pilots are the only ones I can think of. If it happened over a city you can remove ag pilots from the list unless they are spraying mosquitoes. I find it hard to believe they would do a couple of thousand dollars damage to their aircraft for a hoax. Not to mention the week of lost work while it is getting repaired and painted.