Up close and personal encounter with a UAV @ 6000 MSL

gismo

gismo

Touchdown! Greaser!
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iGismo
Flying home from Pontiac yesterday I was cruising along at 6000 talking to Lansing approach when something caught my eye. The closure rate was high enough that I only got to see it for about 10 seconds but it appeared to be a medium sized RC airplane. My first impression was of a bird but it was very obviously man made, both in shape and color. I believe it was about 3 ft long and about 1 ft tall and it was at my exact altitude +/- 5 ft. I think I missed it by as little as 50 ft laterally. Kinda woke me the h&// up.
 
Yeow! Not something I'd want to encounter.....

And probably not military - the mil units are much larger.
 
Mylar balloon? If it wasn't military, as Bill suggests, what would it be? Are there "civilian" UAV's that fly as high as 6000' over the CONUS?
 
TangoWhiskey said:
Mylar balloon? If it wasn't military, as Bill suggests, what would it be? Are there "civilian" UAV's that fly as high as 6000' over the CONUS?
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It didn't look like any balloon I've ever seen, definitely not a weather balloon. It also remained at my altitude for as long as I could see it, I'd think a helium balloon would be climbing.
 
Straight from the AIM =

7-6-4. Unidentified Flying Object (UFO) Reports
a. Persons wanting to report UFO/Unexplained Phenomena activity should contact an UFO/Unexplained Phenomena Reporting Data Collection Center, such as the National Institute for Discovery Sciences (NIDS), the National UFO Reporting Center, etc.
b. If concern is expressed that life or property might be endangered, report the activity to the local law enforcement department.
 
Obviously some RC Modeler not following the guidelines of the AMA. People like that will ruin RC flying for everyone.

If it was a civil UAS, then it should have had "flight following" and squawking for ATC to see it.
 
There are folks out there building UAV's as a hobby. Some of them are freaking crazy.

One of them I read -- guy programmed this glider to fly home. He would launch it via a weather balloon to high altiude, like 60,000 feet or something. By that point it had drifted a long ways from upper-level winds so it had to get above the winds to be able to glide back. It would then fly back, calculate winds, and then deploy a parachute to land on a target. Bunch of other crazy features.

It was done in Canada but did enter U.S airspace: http://members.shaw.ca/sonde/
There are other folks doing it out there in the R/C community. Some of them controlled remotely via camera, others flown completely by themselves using GPS.
 
wsuffa said:
Yeow! Not something I'd want to encounter.....

And probably not military - the mil units are much larger.
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Not necessarily. They have some that will fit in backpack that can easily fly that high.
 
ASRS report with time of contact and Long/Lat? What did Lansing say, before and after? That was a lot closer than mine.

I was in VMC heading towards Palmdale, CA and clipped the corner of a NOTAM'd permenant UAV area. What are the odds that I spent > 3 minutes just inside a 5 corner, 250 sq mi box? Same alt, opposite direction, 1/4 nm off my stbd wing. They don't see and avoid, their field of vision was something like 20* laterally.

Glad you're safe.
 
Yeah, please report these things before I run into one. I'll bet it was some new military toy being tested by an unwary unit. It would take a seriously sophisticated RC airplane to fly at those heights.
 
Totally unacceptable. Next time shoot it down. :mad3:
 
steingar said:
Yeah, please report these things before I run into one. I'll bet it was some new military toy being tested by an unwary unit. It would take a seriously sophisticated RC airplane to fly at those heights.
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Regular RC planes can make such altitudes- the radio is still within range. I'm not saying it was or wasn't military- but high and no interfering signals, one can fly an RC plane up there.

As Jesse said, the model people have built more sophisticated planes.
 
Anthony said:
Totally unacceptable. Next time shoot it down. :mad3:
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top_gun_goose_and_maverick1.jpg


"Only, we were inverted."
 
Cap'n Jack said:
Regular RC planes can make such altitudes- the radio is still within range. I'm not saying it was or wasn't military- but high and no interfering signals, one can fly an RC plane up there.

As Jesse said, the model people have built more sophisticated planes.
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Of course the planes can fly that high, but keeping the under control using visual surveillance from the ground becomes problematic. I simply thought that given the zeal of the military and border control authorities to test and use new UAVs, the presence of a UAV was more likely than a highly sophisticated amateur RC aircraft. Obviously I don't know what the thing was, just that I don't ever want to see one in my sky.
 
smigaldi said:
Did you say anything to ATC about this?
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Yes, I advised them of the device shortly after seeing it go by and another aircraft on the freq. queried them as to my location. I hadn't thought about ASRS but that does seem like a good idea and I'll be doing that soon.
 
gismo said:
Yes, I advised them of the device shortly after seeing it go by and another aircraft on the freq. queried them as to my location. I hadn't thought about ASRS but that does seem like a good idea and I'll be doing that soon.
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Did they say anything back? Could they see it on radar or knew what it was? If it was a surprise to them I am astonished they did not want you to work with them on filling a report of some sort.
 
kkoran said:
Not necessarily. They have some that will fit in backpack that can easily fly that high.
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Most of the backpack units are used by domestic police agencies because they won't carry enough of a sensor payload for mil use (that's not to say the Mil won't use them if suited for the mission, but they're not designed for mil use). The Killer Bee (military) has about a 6' wingspan, but doesn't look like an ordinary RC plane. Most other "small" UAVs designed for mil use are 15' or greater wingspan (fuel capacity is an issue).

If I had to make a guess, I'd say this is some kind of privately owned RC plane that someone flew high or lost control of.
 
steingar said:
Of course the planes can fly that high, but keeping the under control using visual surveillance from the ground becomes problematic. I simply thought that given the zeal of the military and border control authorities to test and use new UAVs, the presence of a UAV was more likely than a highly sophisticated amateur RC aircraft. Obviously I don't know what the thing was, just that I don't ever want to see one in my sky.
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You've got people that are building and flying UAVs that are completely automated and glide from about 70,000 feet and down, traveling hundreds of miles, landing on a target in front of the launch site many hours later.

There are also a lot of FPV pilots -- that are flying via video link and radio link. This requires line-of-sight but they can still go pretty damn high and several miles. A lot of RC airplanes have insane power-to-weight ratios so climbing 10,000 feet isn't impossible.
 
jesse said:
You've got people that are building and flying UAVs that are completely automated and glide from about 70,000 feet and down, traveling hundreds of miles, landing on a target in front of the launch site many hours later.

There are also a lot of FPV pilots -- that are flying via video link and radio link. This requires line-of-sight but they can still go pretty damn high and several miles. A lot of RC airplanes have insane power-to-weight ratios so climbing 10,000 feet isn't impossible.
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What are the FAA rules concerning this?

Blast a rocket off that weighs more than 1 lb or goes above 1000AGL and you have to have an FAA waiver. What you describe could be even more of a flight hazard and should be somehow coordinated with ATC.
 
smigaldi said:
What are the FAA rules concerning this?

Blast a rocket off that weighs more than 1 lb or goes above 1000AGL and you have to have an FAA waiver. What you describe could be even more of a flight hazard and should be somehow coordinated with ATC.
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I have no idea what the rules are -- but I'm pretty sure most of them don't either. Comforting huh? lol
 
jesse said:
I have no idea what the rules are -- but I'm pretty sure most of them don't either. Comforting huh? lol
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Take a look at this:
http://members.shaw.ca/sonde/risks.htm
That guy was doing it in Canada -- although his glider did enter US airspace..and he did write somewhere that it was legal in US airspace (not sure what makes it legal)
 
smigaldi said:
Did they say anything back? Could they see it on radar or knew what it was? If it was a surprise to them I am astonished they did not want you to work with them on filling a report of some sort.
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Lansing Approach said they didn't have it on radar which doesn't surprise me given it's size and the distance from their antenna. The controller was interested in talking about it but I don't think he felt like filing any reports.
 
gismo said:
Lansing Approach said they didn't have it on radar which doesn't surprise me given it's size and the distance from their antenna. The controller was interested in talking about it but I don't think he felt like filing any reports.
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Hmm maybe they are in on the conspiracy to cover it up.....

tinfoilhataub2.png


LOL!
 
wsuffa said:
Most of the backpack units are used by domestic police agencies because they won't carry enough of a sensor payload for mil use (that's not to say the Mil won't use them if suited for the mission, but they're not designed for mil use). The Killer Bee (military) has about a 6' wingspan, but doesn't look like an ordinary RC plane. Most other "small" UAVs designed for mil use are 15' or greater wingspan (fuel capacity is an issue).

If I had to make a guess, I'd say this is some kind of privately owned RC plane that someone flew high or lost control of.
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You are apparently not familiar with some of the UAVs the Special Ops guys have.
 
jesse said:
Take a look at this:
http://members.shaw.ca/sonde/risks.htm
That guy was doing it in Canada -- although his glider did enter US airspace..and he did write somewhere that it was legal in US airspace (not sure what makes it legal)
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Oh your all overacting the guy who did it says the risk is minimal


From the site above:

" First, some statistics. The general aviation (ie, light aircraft, not transport category aircraft) accident rate is on the order of 10 incidents per 100,000 flight hours, with about 1% of those mid air-collisions. So as a ball-park figure, put the mid-air rate at 1 / 1,000,000 flight hours. A small UAV's risk of collision should aim to be below this level. In other words, there should be no substantial additional risk......"
 
gismo said:
Lansing Approach said they didn't have it on radar which doesn't surprise me given it's size and the distance from their antenna. The controller was interested in talking about it but I don't think he felt like filing any reports.
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If it was not mil then then the only reasonable explanation can be it was a RC or something similar, those things hardly come up on the radar and the size is just about 3ft of an average RC and if the operator is high up enough he/she can get a good LoS range along with audio and video feed, but there is something strange here, how can an RC be developed to maintain an exact altitude 6000 ft in this case, any explanations abt this?:blueplane:
 
himz.falcon said:
If it was not mil then then the only reasonable explanation can be it was a RC or something similar, those things hardly come up on the radar and the size is just about 3ft of an average RC and if the operator is high up enough he/she can get a good LoS range along with audio and video feed, but there is something strange here, how can an RC be developed to maintain an exact altitude 6000 ft in this case, any explanations abt this?:blueplane:
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Because some of the RC aircraft being developed by the amateur RC community are capable of flying themselves very precisely. Sensors and computers are really small now -- it isn't too incredibly difficult to program software to fly a simple RC airplane. There are products out there already built as well.
 
jesse said:
Because some of the RC aircraft being developed by the amateur RC community are capable of flying themselves very precisely. Sensors and computers are really small now -- it isn't too incredibly difficult to program software to fly a simple RC airplane. There are products out there already built as well.
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I'm pretty sure I could easily build a control system that would let me pick a heading and altitude via my remote control transmitter and have the RC airplane hold those quite well. I have no idea if this particular craft was flying autonomously or under someone's direct control, either is feasible but if they had a camera they didn't see me as there was no reaction that I could discern on the part of the UAV. The only things I know for certain is that it was man made and too small for a human occupant.
 
AdamZ said:
Oh your all overacting the guy who did it says the risk is minimal


From the site above:

" First, some statistics. The general aviation (ie, light aircraft, not transport category aircraft) accident rate is on the order of 10 incidents per 100,000 flight hours, with about 1% of those mid air-collisions. So as a ball-park figure, put the mid-air rate at 1 / 1,000,000 flight hours. A small UAV's risk of collision should aim to be below this level. In other words, there should be no substantial additional risk......"
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Technically, my experience confirms his analysis in that there was no collision, just a near-collision and the chances of the first are far less than the second. That said when something misses you by 5 or even 50 ft, it's emotionally too close for comfort even if the statistics say a collision was "unlikely".
 
kkoran said:
Visit your local Air Force recruiter.
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Sigh...you are sounding like a troll here- that's how it's coming across. You act like you know something and when someone asks for details- "go see someone else". If you meant otherwise, I apologize.

I'm interested, but not so interested I'll waste the recruiters time especially at my age and fitness. A recruiter is essentially a salesman, and I try not to sales reps' time unless I figure I'm a customer.
 
smigaldi said:
What are the FAA rules concerning this?
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The FAR's apply to these aircraft ("Except as provided in paragraphs (b) and (c) of this section and §§91.701 and 91.703, this part prescribes rules governing the operation of aircraft (other than moored balloons, kites, unmanned rockets, and unmanned free balloons, which are governed by part 101 of this chapter, and ultralight vehicles operated in accordance with part 103 of this chapter) within the United States, including the waters within 3 nautical miles of the U.S. coast."). Since these aren't "moored balloons, kites, unmanned rockets, [or] unmanned free balloons," nor Part 103 ultralights (which must be piloted), they are legally required to operate per Part 91 unless otherwise approved. There is an AC providing guidelines for operation of r/c aircraft. Any operation of such aircraft outside the FAA-approved guidelines of that AC would be in violation of Part 91 unless an appropriate waiver is obtained from the FAA. Operation of an r/c aircraft as described by Lance would therefore be in violation of Part 91.
 
wsuffa said:
Actually I am, but can't discuss.

Those would not be in use where Lance is.
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No, but they can operate at that altitude. I can't imagine what a military one would be doing there either.
 
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