Drones could be a problem

            The article, “Here’s How Drones Do (and Don’t) Threaten Passenger Aircraft” interested me because I have a couple of friends that own drones and have been able to capture in-depth images from a bird’s eye view over landscapes for video projects and for fun. Sometimes in places where we probably weren’t allowed to have it, but I digress. It didn’t cross my mind that a drone could cause some serious damages to passenger aircrafts. This fall a U.S. Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter hit a drone as it was flying low over Staten Island (Hsu, 2017). This small collision damaged the main rotor blade, the transmission system, and the window frame of the helicopter (Hsu, 2017). This opened a lot of people’s eyes, (especially government agencies) that collisions like the one over Staten Island could become more common. Drones could also cause life-saving operations to be put on halt. Like when firefighters Montana had to stop what they were doing when there was an unauthorized drone flying by a fire on Rice Ridge because of the possibility of causing more damage. Depending on where you live, there are some locations where the flight of civilian drones is unpermitted and locations where it is permitted, as long as they don’t go over a specific height. There is also a small possibility of commercial aircrafts coming into contact with drones because there is a small moment in time where the commercial jet is in the same airspace as civilian drones during takeoff (Hsu, 2017). Even with all these possibilities of things going wrong, George Mason University Mercatus Center concluded that bird strikes are more common than drone collisions, and that only happens a couple hundred times a year compared to the 10 billion birds in the U.S. airspace.

            With technology growing faster, it’s interesting that a couple years ago drones were just an idea and now there are millions being made available to the public. I might even be interested in purchasing one. It’s important that a purchase of a drone comes with responsibility, not only because they can run up to be expensive, but to keep others safe as well.

-Roberto Elguera