Drone collides with Black Hawk over the UN in New York.

[The Editor]

Another senseless and apologetic post, by the Editor. I can see just fine at 2000 feet away, with 20/20 vision.

No you cannot. The best the human eye can resolve is 1/60 arc. That is the limit of human eyesight at best.
Are you saying that if you can 'see' the aircraft at <600m and you look away, you are then able to require something the size of the Spark in the sky at that distance?

And for your information, if you only possess 20/20 vision your visual acuity certainly is not up to resolving 1/60th arc.
You would need 20/15 or even 20/10.
Not trying to be funny/awkward. Just stating facts. You can't change the laws of Physics or biology.

 

[MyLittleDrony]

Probably that tw4t casey

 

[Blue Baron]

No you cannot. The best the human eye can resolve is 1/60 arc.

That would be around 350 m VLOS for a Spark. I loose sight at about 250 m. However, I can spot it farer away at dawn with the flashing lights.

However, somebody with better eyes may be able to spot it farer away. Because your 1' limit applies to the ability to separate two dots, not to discern a single spot against a background. If not, we wouldn't be able to see any stars at night at all. Stars are all sub arcseconds ...

 

[The Editor]

That would be around 350 m VLOS for a Spark. I loose sight at about 250 m. However, I can spot it farer away at dawn with the flashing lights.

However, somebody with better eyes may be able to spot it farer away. Because your 1' limit applies to the ability to separate two dots, not to discern a single spot against a background. If not, we wouldn't be able to see any stars at night at all. Stars are all sub arcseconds ...

And requiring that dot in the sky after looking away/down at the screen?
That can be more of a challenge.

 

[Blue Baron]

And requiring that dot in the sky after looking away/down at the screen?
That can be more of a challenge.

We all know that aquiring the dot is more difficult, as the area of sharpest vision isn't necessarily aimed at it. No need to state the obvious here.

 

[lofty]

I think drones will have to sense and avoid manned aircraft (which in turn must be equipped with a 1000m (*) radius gps location emitter). That's to include helicopters, small planes, baloons, ultra-lights and para gliders. To be frank, I wonder why this isn't all already in place, five years after recreational drones have been introduced.

As an intermediarte measure of course, you can always instrument a helicopter to receive DJI wifi signals and display them on the map... Guess what, with password 12341234, you could actually receive their telemetry ...

__
(*) this gives the drone a 15s time window to escape a 150 mph helicopter; which should be no problem for a transmitted trajectory.

Unfortunately the power consumption and weight added by a powerful radio transponder is a large factor.

 

[Blue Baron]

Unfortunately the power consumption and weight added by a powerful radio transponder is a large factor.

That's old tech thinking.
Even the Spark's radio signal can be easily fetched from kilometers away, one just needs to standardize part of the transmission protocol.

While we're at it ... How about legally opening FCC radio strength above 50 m heights in the EU? Would hugely increase flight safety for everybody w/o negative impact on ground WiFi.

BTW, the EASA (European Aviation Safety Agency, the EU counterpart to the FAA) publicely discusses drone detection mechanisms for forthcoming versions of their harmonized drone rule proposal. Maybe, it is time XXXpilots.zone/com joins the discussion, if only the forum had a craft-independent merged section ...