Another USG agency, the FAA. These are narratives from official reports of sUAS events. And that's just a very small subset of them. After I posted this, I found several others that were even more concerning.

Oh, and there's the firefighting planes grounded, the sUAS flying in prohibited airspace (like White House), falling and injuring people on the ground, etc.

You believe everything you read on the Internet in a public forum?

Sky falling again today?

There are some that are so steadfastly rooted in the past, that they can't see that the operating environment has fundamentally changed. The 80 year safety history was established in a vastly different technological and cultural time. Just like is happening with other aspects of our society, the ability to film something and then have millions of people see it within a few seconds creates powerful incentive to act first and think later. The addition of easy to fly sUAS, BLOS technology, and GPS aided self navigation have only made it even easier for irresponsible behavior - irresponsible behavior that is resulting in hundreds of sightings per year.

College studies are notoriously false. NTSB reports are only when their is an accident. Near miss reports can be found on the Aviation Safety Reporting System or ASRS. http://asrs.arc.nasa.gov/index.html

I found only four near miss reports when I used UAS for the aircraft. But even more were reported as UAS on the second aircraft. It takes 60 days so I don't think the fire fighting reports would show up yet.

With reports from Dallas, we are coming closer to that.

"MD88, AT 300 FEET OBSERVED A UAS FLYING 100 FEET OVER SHIPS 1 S NEW ORLEANS"

"ONT ATCT OBSERVED A UAS AT UNKN ALTITUDE OPERATING .5 MILE NE OF ONT. ONTARIO ARPT PD RESPONDED TO FIND OPERATOR SHOOTING SCENES OF TRAIN ACTIVITY"

"WHILE DEPARTING THE BAY AT FERNANDO LUIS RIBAS DOMINICCI ARPT REPORTED A PHOTOGRAPHIC UAS PASSING APPROX 100 FEET ABOVE THE ACFT"

"MILITARY HOOK24, TYPE NOT REPORTED, AFTER LANDING AND TAXIING, OBSERVED A UAS MANEUVERING ON THE WEST SIDE HALF MILE OFF RUNWAY 17R BETWEEN 100-150 FEET."

"MOONEY M20C REPORTED NMAC WITH A UAS WHILE HEADING SE AT 1,800 FEET 7 SE SLE. PILOT REPORTED UAS PASSED 50 FEET BELOW ACFT HEADING N"

"KENAI ATCT ADVISED DE HAVILLAND DHC3 REPORTED A UAS AT 800 FEET WHILE ON BASE TURNING FINAL FOR RUNWAY 1L ENA"

"NEWS HELICOPTER, AT 1,500 FEET VCNTY MCCHORD CLASS D AIRSPACE REPORTED A UAS HOVERING WITHIN 50 FEET OF THE ACFT"

"MESA PD HELICOPTER AIR UNIT, REPORTED NMAC WITH UAS, 50 FEET AWAY FROM HELICOPTER AT SAME ALTITUDE OF 600 FEET 4.5 E FALCON FIELD ARPT"

"SEATTLE TRACON REPORTED CIVIL AIR PATROL 4698, CESSNA C182, REPORTED TAKING EVASIVE ACTION TO AVOID A NMAC WITH A UAS (NO UAS DESCRIPTION PROVIDED) AT 1,200 FEET 12 S SEATTLE ARPT"

"CESSNA C303 REPORTED A UAS BELOW HIS ALTITUDE WHILE ON RIGHT BASE TO RUNWAY 34"

"LIH ARPT MANAGEMENT REPORTED OBSERVING UAS IN VICINITY OF ARPT SERVICE ROAD, NORTH OF LIH TERMINAL BETWEEN 1200L-1230L. UAS CROSSED AIRFIELD SOUTHEAST"

"DE HAVILLAND DH8C, VANCOUVER, CANADA-SEA, OBSERVED A BLUE UAS HEADING NW PASS 100-200 FEET BELOW LEFT WING WHILE 7 W SEA"

"AN INDIVIDUAL WAS APPREHENDED FOR OPERATING A UAS OUTSIDE OF A PRO BASEBALL GAME AT CITI FIELD STADIUM"

"EWR ATCT ADVISED SEVERAL TOUR HELICOPTERS AT 1,500 FEET REPORTED A UAS AT 600 FEET OVER THE BOAT BASIN OF THE HUDSON RIVER NEAR THE INTREPID SEA, AIR & SPACE MUSEUM"

"BOEING FIELD ATCT REPORTED CESSNA C172, OBSERVED A UAS AT 1,000 FEET 6.5 N BOEING FIELD ARPT ON THE EASTERN EDGE OF LAKE WASHINGTON HEADING EASTBOUND"

"BOSTON APPROACH REPORTED JAZZ AIR 7680, CRJ2, OBSERVED A RED UAS 2 NE AT 3,500 FEET NORWOOD AIRPORT. THE UAS MISSED ACFT BY APPROX 25 YARDS"

"SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA TRACON ADVISED PILATUS PC12, AT 5,000 FEET 5.7 S LONG BEACH ARPT REPORTED A NMAC WITH A QUAD COPTER"

"PROVIDENCE APCH REPORTED PIPER P28A, ENCOUNTERED A SMALL SILVER UAS AT 5,200 FEET 8 NE GROTON. ACFT MADE HARD LEFT BANK TO AVOID UAS"


And there's many, many more.

Based on what proof?

As coincidence would have it one of my co workers lives in the area where we currently have a wildfire burning. As of about 24 hrs ago he was 1 mile from the evacuation line. As such CAL Fire calls residents in remote areas to notify them that they may be subject to evacuation. According to my co worker the CAL Fire operator who had called him straight up told him that the fire would be more contained and he most likely would not have the possibility of evacuation had it not been for the fact they had to ground aircraft due to drone activity. He has a slight beef with me, knowing that I am " one of those R/C guys"

personally I don't mind having debates with reasonable people but in all honesty this thread has gone beyond reason. When the discussion is internet based where people in the discussion expect us to take what they say at full value however criticize others for believing things they read on the Internet, IMO I am no longer having a discussion with reasonable people. For me to maintain interest in a conversation everyone should keep an open mind, this one is way past that point.

Where has it been shown to be accurate?

..

Ready to fly, commercially sold, GPS enabled, self leveling, quad copters operating in the airspace in 1980 : not many (if not near zero)

Ready to fly, commercially sold, GPS enabled, self leveling, quad copters operating in the airspace in 2016: millions


How is that not a change in the operating environment?

Ok, then share with us an example applicable to this discussion.

The NAS is the operating environment. How has the NAS changed since 1980?

No..that's not what he said. But it is a good practice to read as much as possible on a given issue...and equally as important understand where that information is coming from as they usually have a bias, even more so when stats are involved.

Millions ready to fly, commercially sold, GPS enabled, self leveling, quad copters that were not in it before, are now operating in it. In addition to all those "model aircraft" that were there already, as well as an increase in commercial flights.

Speaking of an open mind......broadbrush generalizations about how challenging a quad to build and fly were thrown out the other day, is a revision on that forthcoming? I think I asked if you could build, wire, program and fly one. You never answered. Could you, or would there be "no challenge". Hydro was good enough to give a partial answer but tried to confuse the issue ad one of desire, rather than technical skill or challenge.

So are you disputing those FAA reports? NTSB reports are generated when there's an incident, like the mid-air between the model aircraft and the biplane. One that should not have happened - if indeed people are following the AMA's requirement that it's members give way to all manned aircraft. At least in that case though, it appears not all of them are.

Go back and read what I wrote. The "so what you are really saying" routine if getting old.

So if all these are operating in the NAS, who is responsible for managing the NAS and what have they been doing all this time? This didn't happen overnight.

It's been old. Same viscous circle over and over and over and over and over and over. Like complaining on a public Internet forum is going to change national policy:)

When the source is reputable, yes. I've personally known many naval aviators and never found one that I couldn't trust. Franklin also was a Prowler pilot, making him more credible to me than you are since I was in the same community for many years

How many pilots in those FAA reports are or were AMA members at the time the incident occurred? Your answer must be an integer value.

So how do you determine if the source is reputable?

Did you read the rest of that post? It answers your question completely