The web is being turned into unusable crap by corporations like these. I wish there would be a law against advertising online. Then a lot of news sites and media sites would disappear but personally I would be very fine without their crap.
I observe that for me, as a subscriber, it works really well. I leads to the observation that getting articles from news sites and media sites for 'free' is being made progressively more annoying. At which point people unwilling to subscribe will stop visiting the web site.
I would hope that once publications have normalized into subscriber supported services they will no longer be compelled to play these games. But my expectations are low.
The problem publications will have is attractive new subscribers. Why would I pay money? Maybe I would really enjoy their quality, maybe not. In the past I'd find out because someone would leave a copy of the newpaper in the lobby and I'd read it. Now someone says this is great, but I've ready many articles somebody said was great that were not (some some seemed great until it was pointed out latter all the research was cleverly made up - they fooled me)
ADS-B is not a great solution, the latency/accuracy is such that you might know a drone is in the area, but seeing it and avoiding would be difficult. It's a lot easier to spot a small plane than it is to spot a drone.
As a pilot, I have had to avoid large birds more often than drones. They tend to actively avoid planes, which helps. Some sort of active avoidance, even super-minimal, on the part of the drones is likely to be more effective in reducing accidents.
I have only flown past what I believe seemed to have maybe been a drone (honestly, it could of been a bird but I swear it looked like a drone to me). I was taking off out of the Tampa airspace at about 1k feet AGL. If the drone did have ADS-B out, it might not give me the precise location to where i can do a 200' flyby, but just like any other aircraft avoidance, I could steer clear of the general area where it's at and at least know that there is something there.
My experience with ADS-B has been incredibly positive, I fly frequently in-and-out of the Tampa bravo, being my home airport and love the situational awareness. Sure it's not perfect but seems to be reasonably solid.
The biggest risk of having ADS-B is probably assuming there is nothing else out there if it's not showing up on traffic.
I'm not an expert on this matter, simply a consumer of the tech as a pilot myself. Regardless, it's interesting to listen to other pilots take on ADS-B. = )
I recall reading a proposal about this before, and I'll echo it here. There's already a solution to avoid aircraft collisions, mentioned in the article: ADS-B. Why not equip drones with ADS-B transceivers, enabling both drones and planes to be aware of each other's presence and avoid one another?
A counter argument I can anticipate is that with all those drones in the air, broadcasting ADS-B, they will clog up the system with too many signals. Those who make the argument aren't wrong. I propose a solution for that as well: reduced transmission power on drone ADS-B transceivers. Small craft have a minimum transmission power of 75W, and craft that can fly over 15000 ft or faster than 175 kt have to transmit at at least 125W. Few drones are going to be moving that fast or that high. So why not make them have say, a transmission power of 1W? I'd think that would be enough power to warn planes on approach to an airport to watch out for nearby drones, without clogging up the system with useless noise about drones the next city over.
ADS-B alone is insufficient for collision avoidance. In order to operate safely outside of special restricted airspace, drones would need to be able to visually see and avoid other aircraft.
ADS-B out is only mandated in an extremely limited subset of the airspace where drones will be likely flying (and then only after Jan 1, 2020).
ADS-B out is only mandated[1] in cylinders around class C and the 30nm ring around class B airports, in class A airspace (at/above 18000' MSL), and in class E airspace that is both above 10000' MSL and 2500' AGL.
In practice, that means that most of the volume of drone-navigable airspace does not require other aircraft to have ADS-B out transmitters.
In none of the airspace are other aircraft required to have ADS-B in receivers.
"See and avoid" is therefore both practically and legally[2] required.
Not to mention even in all those areas (except A and B airspace), there are still aircraft exempt from the ADS-B requirement. The mandate only applies to aircraft certificated with an engine driven electrical system, so gliders and piper cubs and those sorts of aircraft will still need see and avoid.
After the mid-air collision over Brazil in 2006 (https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/business/03road.html) I corresponded with a well-known pilot columnist. We didn't agree. I revealed myself to be a mathematician, and he revealed himself to be exactly the conformist one hopes a pilot following rules will be.
I observe planes holding their assigned altitudes to very close tolerances. It strikes me as completely idiotic to quantize these altitudes independent of heading, rather than scaling 360 degrees to 2000 feet (or pick your favorite modern units) and adding one's heading to base altitudes. Then planes won't cross each other's paths on a giving heading, avoiding accidents like Brazil.
Altitudes flown aren't independent of heading. Depending on whether you are VFR, IFR, flying magnetic east or west, you will fly at specified 500 foot increments.
Edit: I read up a little more about the accident, and it happened above where these rules apply. In any case, with problems like this where one plane isn't where it should be, I think the solution is to come up with better ways of ensuring clearances are complied with, not coming up with a system that is more tolerant of people violating clearances. Airspace is only going to get more congested and the only way do accommodate that safely is to have planes follow clearances to stricter and stricter tolerances.
Your suggestion would kill GA (general aviation) if you had to fly a specific altitude for a given direction. A good gust and a rusty pilot could rise or fall a couple hundred feet pretty easily. Size of the plane matters a lot too. Plus, what altimeter setting are you using? (What is 2000 ft? AGL? MSL? Pressure altitude?) You would also frequently be required to violate these altitudes to maintain VFR conditions because clouds are moving into your airspace. And how do you do something like circling a point? How do you enter a traffic pattern? You would hit task saturation in no time.
I say this as a math lover (physics degree holding) and a pilot. Currently we have a rule; "Odd pilots fly East", so you could be 3500,5500,7500, etc. Going west at 2500,4500,6500, etc. Everyone should also be using flight following for anything but a really short flight. And flight following is really going to help with collision avoidance.
In my experience flying, when you have one that is in your vision it's usually too late to make drastic changes. Birds in our area tend to dive when we are approaching them, if you see a bird above you it makes me very nervous. It never stops surprising me how little I seem to be able to do when I do see a bird, maybe a small nudge on the yoke. Also short final or just after rotation on takeoff seems to be where i've had most of my near-misses with them.
One of my closest strikes was taking off from RW9 at Keywest one morning. Scared the daylights out of me.
Flying out of there at night is not only daunting because of the darkness over the water after turning north but not knowing if there are birds waiting for me in the air. :P
Having had many birds avoid colliding with me I can pretty readily assure you that this is false, or at the very least not the whole picture. Most of the time they dive.
The paywall prevents me from finding out the economist's theory, but I can put forth my own.
The two movies Sully and Deepwater Horizon, which both came out in 2016, are near mirror images of each other in many ways.
Sully is partly the story about a pilot who has spent his entire career landing failing airplanes, effectively training him to do it again with higher stakes, where its never happened before. But its also the story of all of the regulation that has prevented all commercial aviation disasters since 2001. Sully may stay calm under pressure, but he's standing on the shoulders of giants. The flight attendants stick to their training. The port authority and the captains of the boats that rescue all of the passengers stick to their training. The NTSB even sticks to their training in certain ways. Plans were set forth, and followed. Even at the end of the movie, it is made clear that the NTSB's flaw was to control for all of the time constraints Sullenberger faced, all of the stress, and hid the fact that it was something like the 20th attempt in the simulator that was the first successful landing.
Deepwater horizon is the story about a company that has successfully captured their regulatory framework. There was inadequate training, inadequate safety measures, inadequate equipment to properly measure the specifics of the well. And so when the shit hits the fan, does everyone stay calm and exercise the plan to effect their continued survival? Nope, they all panic, and they nearly all die.
Planes and Trains are far safer than automobiles because of ratio of humans to engines.
As a public service notice, all of your comments for the last week or so are marked as dead. Some people like me view with show-dead on, and see them, but most people don't. I've vouched for a few of them as I come across them, but you might consider discussing the matter with hn@ycombinator.com. For what it's worth, my personal opinion is that some of your comments like this one are great, but it would be nice if you could be less confrontational in some of your others.
I've assumed that. I appreciate the advice. I got a little heated in the Berkeley Study article this week. I guess I get to a point when some things are plain as day to me, such as "Humans learn better when they are more awake than less awake", and then read people pontificate about how this is such a profound insight, and confirms a hunch they've had their whole life. Its like I can see myself getting wound up, but I can't resist correcting my detractors. It only get's worse when people can enumerate the trees, but roll their eyes at others claiming a forest.
I even knew going into my final retort to /u/dang that he'd swing the banhammer. But something in the back of my mind just said "hold my beer".
I fully agree that honey kills more flies than vinegar. But I'm also a Lord of the Rings fan. Pip and Merri only convince the Ents to go to war through forcing them to confront the clear cut forest. It was the Ents position, much like the US before WWI, that this too shall pass, and we shouldn't involve ourselves in the affairs of men/europe.
I'm not saying confrontation is always defensible, but its also not always indefensible.
