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Helicopter vs Drone..

Unless required by mission specifics (medivac, law enforcement, etc.), I believe the FAA minimum altitude for helicopters is 500 ft. AGL. This appears to be a news station helo and the article says they were flying "around 1100 ft" but it's unclear of that was MSL or AGL, but downtown LA has some tall structures. Notice how quick they were to incorporate the story of the stupidly flown drones that interfered with the firefighting efforts a month ago. Site feedback sure whipped up anti-drone sentiment. I'm having difficulty trying to figure what kind of drone design would have made the impact pictured.
 
I'm having difficulty trying to figure what kind of drone design would have made the impact pictured.


A big one.

There's a hole and rippled metal to the left of it.

I assume the metal is aluminum, so it could be easily damaged.

Maybe the camera assembly is to blame?

It may very well be an irresponsible drone pilot.

Or they hit a tool box when rolling out of the hanger.
 
That was an awful lot of damage from a drone made of mostly plastic. They did not mention the helo's altitude at the time of the incident or at least, I didn't hear it mentioned. And how fast were they flying at the time? A normal drone (not a FPV racer) drone is not going to be flying very fast to cause that much damage in my opinion. I too like pmshop's view on this.
 
A big one.

There's a hole and rippled metal to the left of it.

I assume the metal is aluminum, so it could be easily damaged.

Maybe the camera assembly is to blame?

It may very well be an irresponsible drone pilot.

Or they hit a tool box when rolling out of the hanger.
that last one is a distinct possibility
 
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Typical media, could not report the facts, so lets make some up.. if the Helo was indeed at 1100 ft, seems highly unlikely that there was drone up that high,.
 
I saw that new's story in the Time's this morning. It makes me think about a few photo's in the greater LA area that I've seen posted lately on the forum that seem to be taken at a much higher view than I used to get from looking out of a window at the Bank that I used to work for in Los Angeles. That building was at 707 Wilshire Blvd. and was 62 story's high. It had a heliport on the roof. ..kind of scary to think about drone's being in the airspace. just sayin...
 
I know the AS350 very well; have worked on it since 1981. The horizontal stab is aluminum, with the spar located about 24" aft of the leading edge. When you look at the 'soft' dent on the outboard side, I doubt very much that would have been from a plastic or metallic drone component. There would have been at least chord-wise scratches. Also appears to be some staining on top of the stab, juice of some sort, unlikely to be from a drone.

Bottom line; my money is on a bird strike.

#dronephobia

Fly safe, always ?
 
You see everything in the sky over Los Angeles. Balloons with strings attached are very common and I've even seen bunches of balloons in some sort of webbing. Bird strikes leave feathers. They might not even leave a dent but they'll leave feathers. I used to work at a flight school at HHR south of LAX. We kept seeing verticle lines on the leading edge of our trainers going right thru the paint to the skin. ..you guessed it..Kites. People fly them on the approach and departure end of the runway and..if you just happen to...uh..well...decrease your climb..or get a little low on final ..completely by poor planning of course...well I can see how the young could be tempted...;)
 
An Inspire could do that damage it weights about 8lbs
 
The cruise speed of the AR350 is listed as 150 mph or 287 kph. You may be surprised at how much damage even a light object can cause at those speeds. The smudge you see on the stabilizer is material transfer from whatever hit it. If it were a bird, it would be blood, feathers and bone.

In the end, if it's proven to be a drone, this does not help those of us who enjoy the hobby and do pay attention to the rules, or at least don't stretch them to dangerous limits.

Just my opinion.
 
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What about that weird dent the video showed at 2:15? Could that have been from a propeller? Those things get pretty high RPMs. Just the Spark idles at 12,000; couldn't imagine what the bigger drones go at.
 

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