Originally Posted by
Hydro Junkie
Blue Angel 6 was very lucky. I know they were flying slightly further apart than their usual 36" between aircraft but the only pilot looking forward was the flight leader in #1. That said, had he seen the drone, there wasn't:
1) time or room enough to take evasive action as a formation
2) time or room enough to take evasive action as single aircraft
Since all of the pilots are keying off of either #1 or, in the case of solos 5 and 6, slot plane #4, not one of the pilots other than the lead would have been able to see, warn of or avoid the drone. That could have resulted in at least one plane damaged with varying degrees of losses up to all six planes going down if the leader in plane #1 had hit the drone and been unable to maintain control. Had the planes gone down, being over a city at the time and even with the stay home order in effect, there still could have been civilian casualties as well as the chance of lost pilots since there really isn't room for a safe ejection from the delta formation
All of which is true. No argument.
But please tell me again how RID would have:
- prevented this, since there was no TFR in place, only a NOTAM
- prevented the operator from obviously violating the 400’ rule
- prevented the operation of a drone in close proximity to full-scale aircraft
Listen, I was as appalled at this as any of us. That could have been me in a B767, at roughly the same speeds and closure rates. But RID will do nothing to prevent this sort of thing. The only thing RID will do is maybe allow for easier identification of the operator. That is if they even have it onboard.
I wonder if the better system would be to bank on the narcissism of the operators, and their insatiable need to post this stuff on YouTube.
R_Strowe