[Sharpy01]

Originally Posted by mwavesdave

Hey, it all sounds great, but I've been there, done that. ANy UN mission, especially in the Congo, is on a shoestring budget, your protection is next to nil, and your life isn't worth 2 cents. You also have to be very careful, UN or not, not to slide into the "mercenary" category. Also, for military missions, UAVs do one thing well, and one only. Kill people. Think you're up for that? Try a 95% PTSD rate for UAV types in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's sure exciting to start, but the reality soon sets in. I had a really great 8 month tour in Afghanistan, but sure took it's toll afterwards. Yup, I'd do it again, but that's what the taxpayers pay me to do. Not everyone can or should be trying to do it, it's no game, and the stakes are life and death.

No disrespect to your duty in Afghanistan, but the work you and the UAVS do, we must assume was work that would have to be done one way or the other and the less of the good guys in harms way, the better.

As for UAVS only being good for killing, you are wrong. I've been operating small, practical mission specific systems in civil airspace since 07 and have proven efficient, timely and save considerable funds if used properly.

[mwavesdave]

No disrespect felt, so no worries, I was specifically referring to UAVs being contracted for/by UN for foreign ops in places like the Congo. Not there for survey work, or pipeline inspections. There are of course many cool civillian applications for UAVs, and I hope they flourish, the potential is certainly there. Myself, and many others have had to deal with the darker side. All I can say about that on an open forum, is I can promise people they never, ever want to have to deal with what we did. Focus on the civil potential, and it will be a cool, rewarding experience to be sure. Now, when it came to protecting our troops, and taking on insurgents planting IEDs, or ambushes, I had no issues with what we did there. Sadly, there's a whole lot more to war than anyone can possibly fathom, without being there. Sucks the human race never seems to learn.

[Sharpy01]

Fair enough.

Been on the civil side of the "dark side" for enough years to understand what lays between the lines and not challenge those who actually do, as opposed to the armchair pilots.

Were you working with ING or MDA crews?

[mwavesdave]

MDA contract on the HERON UAV. On the positive side, what a great bunch of guys we had supporting us. They faced the same risks, i.e. rocket attacks, etc. They were ex-military, so had a keen understanding of our needs, and went above and beyond to support the round the clock operations. Life in a war zone is strange, to say the least, with moments of insanity, yet moments of busting your guts laughing. In spite of the bad, I'm glad I volunteered. My father had been a tank commander in WW2, and had tired to convey some of what he went through to me, over the years. While he passed in 2001, I have a much closer bond now, than I did when he was alive. That's saying a lot, considering how close we were all those years. My 8 months there is an experience that has certainly changed me, but over time it's been a change for the better.

There is certainly a huge opportunity for non-military UAV use, I think there will be growing pains, and a lot of push back, especially from the airline side. It will be interesting to watch the developments. For me, I'm going to stick to flying for a living in Sea Kings (I love them!!!!!), and RC for fun!

[Thunder Chicken]

Cool to see a college course in this field. However I believe the demand for the civil market in Canada is a long ways off. Using quads for simple missions seems logical, but is there really a cost savings to hiring an aircraft with a pilot? Until a UAV can see and avoid me flying my J3 piper cub around (I don't need a radio or transponder in it) they will be limited to where they can fly. (at least I hope so! Other pilots see and avoid, even birds try to avoid if they hear and see ya coming!)

[bcsaltchucker]

well they should not fly in civil airplane airspace at all generally, at least until the whole system is changed so everything that flies must have a transponder - and a much smarter future tech transponder than the usual ModeC unit found in planes today. I think that is inevitable.

[ronnieo]

Originally Posted by mwavesdave

Hey, it all sounds great, but I've been there, done that. ANy UN mission, especially in the Congo, is on a shoestring budget, your protection is next to nil, and your life isn't worth 2 cents. You also have to be very careful, UN or not, not to slide into the "mercenary" category. Also, for military missions, UAVs do one thing well, and one only. Kill people. Think you're up for that? Try a 95% PTSD rate for UAV types in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's sure exciting to start, but the reality soon sets in. I had a really great 8 month tour in Afghanistan, but sure took it's toll afterwards. Yup, I'd do it again, but that's what the taxpayers pay me to do. Not everyone can or should be trying to do it, it's no game, and the stakes are life and death.

Did you train out of Oromocto?

[mwavesdave]

I've had the terrifying experience of being handed over the EO/IR camera after take-off, only to see the complete underbelly of a Gulfstream in a 90 degree bank trying to avoid colliding with us. Yup, it was their fault, but given a jet full of people, vice a UAV full of circuits, it still would have sucked big time had there been a mid-air. There was also the much publicised case of the Austrailians, while training in Suffield, who managed to fly the UAV into the power lines over the Trans Canada. No clue how that one happened, but again, huge loss to anyone in the way. . . . I fly privately as well, and while always with a transponder, it's no guarantee the UAV crew is talking to ATC. They can and do lose link, which means an aircraft that is either out of control, or it follows a preset routine to try and re-establish link, and failing that, returns to base. When we started up the Shearwater RC Club, the Ops people were going to allow us to fly off of a parallel runway to the Sea Kings, during flying hours! I quickly shot that down, and once I'd explained to them about 250 MPH jets that weigh 20 pounds or more, they got the idea. It's a lot easier in restricted airspace to have altitude separations, corridors, etc, to keep different aircraft well separated. Even then, things go wrong. In uncontrolled airspace? Wow, that could get interesting, for sure.

[mwavesdave]

For Ronnieo, nope, that's the scan eagle folks, to us, that was an overblown RC airplane, with crap for sensors, and a penchant for crashing in the poo pond at KAF! lol We flew the HERON UAV, similar size, performance, and same motor as the Predator. I think we had far superior sensors to the Preds, and we had a lower altitude block, so made things even better for us. You can google the HERON and get lots of info on it. Amazing aircraft, incredible sensors. Only way you could hide from us, stay indoors. I certainly loved the sensor operator job. Bit boring for the pilots though, they get a keyboard, and a mouse. No joystick for them! Push button take-off and landing as well, you're just along for the ride for that. Our most swept up pilots flew manually the rest of the time, quicker reactions that way to what was going on. They were more a crew commander though, running the mission, vice concentrating on the flying. I could even fly the aircraft, if they were saturated with airspace management, and comms. That's the big issue with any UAV, any dummy can fly one. But the situational awareness, airspace management, and in the military role, communicating on 2 different radios and a chat network with 8+ different agencies, that's the hard part. There's a great book written by a US predator pilot that any RC/FPV/UAV nut should read.

[Sharpy01]

[quote=Thunder Chicken;1338323] Using quads for simple missions seems logical, but is there really a cost savings to hiring an aircraft with a pilot? [/QUOTE ]

Well, for the work we do and the variety of locations we work, we conservatively save
$3-5000 every time we need the pics. The real helis are the only thing that can come close to the quality images we pull off the quads. We get better quality and perspectives the real stuff can't touch with them.
The systems we are using, you can get between 25 - 30k now and between two offices we average 2-3 deployments a month. Well into the black within a year of service.

Originally Posted by Thunder Chicken

Until a UAV can see and avoid me flying my J3 piper cub around (I don't need a radio or transponder in it) they will be limited to where they can fly. (at least I hope so! Other pilots see and avoid, even birds try to avoid if they hear and see ya coming!)

Reality is, visual line of sight (VLOS) operations is where there things are at for a while with all operations restricted to 400 AGL and special provisions required to get into controlled airspace. Sense and avoid is pretty simple for quads....... We have a minimum of three crew during an operation; pilot, payload operator and a dedicated safety officer. Essentially three sets of eyes and ears to stay out of the way of any full scale stuff. Simply come down if any potential conflict becomes apparent.

.......... Most locations, if there is a conflict below 400 feet, ..... It's because we are unfortunate enough to be at the scene of a crash.

On a broader note, Transport Canada is never going to allow regular beyond line of sight operations until they are also convinced of safe integration. It should also be clear that all the regulations and technology in the world won't stop boneheads from being dumb. Professionals will be professional and boneheads will be boneheads.