Just came across this, not sure if this had been discussed before. I tried to search for it but did not get any hits.

It's both incredibly dangerous and awesome at the same time. I'm not condoning it, it could have resulted in a bad day for a lot of people. Since I'm a big avaition buff as well as a photography nut, could there be a middle ground where something like this is done, but definitely not this dangerously as sudden wind shift would have ended this badly.

https://fstoppers.com/aerial/dumb-and-d ... ake-269289

I just hope we don't start seeing this type of selfies soon.

Awesome shots. Well done.

Does anyone have a link to the original video?

Here's a link to the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qo39UcZU28

Personally, I don't think this particular drone shot was a particular flight safety issue. Clearly the drone operator was keeping a close watch on the plane, and should the plane have begun turning toward it, the drone operator would have quickly descended out of danger. He was at least 500 meters off the plane's flight path...

That said, this sort of operation cannot be condoned - all drone operators cannot be counted on to be as competent or as attentive as this operator clearly was, and had an idiot been operating it, all we would have seen is a story about an EK A380 blowing a GP7200 on departure from MRU for reasons unknown, and maybe a year later we would've heard about it being a drone strike...

It's just a matter of time.

Siren wrote:

Personally, I don't think this particular drone shot was a particular flight safety issue. Clearly the drone operator was keeping a close watch on the plane, and should the plane have begun turning toward it, the drone operator would have quickly descended out of danger. He was at least 500 meters off the plane's flight path...

It's easy to say that after the fact.

We do not know how close he was because there is no means to judge distances.

An operation like this could be approved by a civil aviation authority when done for PR purposes and appropriate precautions are taken, including the bit where the flight crew knows where the drone is. But not with passengers are aboard.

This is better than FSX !

DocLightning wrote:

An operation like this could be approved by a civil aviation authority when done for PR purposes and appropriate precautions are taken, including the bit where the flight crew knows where the drone is. But not with passengers are aboard.

I did say that this sort of activity can't be condoned. Period, full stop. While there was no mishap here and while I do I think this particular drone operator was competent, we can't give them the benefit of the doubt. This should never have happened in the first place - and if I gave you that impression, I do apologize for not being clear enough.

Emirates should hire that drone photographer. That footage is as good as $Million shoots.

As a photographer, I have debated over the past year as to whether a drone for commercial shooting might be a good investment, at the end of the day, I decided against it due to all of the increasing rules and regulations, especially for commercial shooters like myself. Now, this video pops up and will no doubt go viral, make the news, panic will ensue amongst the flying public, leading authorities to tighten the noose to the point that it will not be worth shelling out $700.00+ for a toy that you can not play with. Needless to say, should there ever be a collision between a plane and drone, especially one that results in casualties, this hobby will likely die.

Sad really, that it only takes one to ruin it for everyone else.

Hopefully the person is found and charged!! This kind of stuff needs to stop, only a matter of time before some clown runs one into an aircraft.

Having done drone photography around aircraft, this video is hard to watch. I was the photographer who did drone video for the recent United 747 event and it took hours of planning and calling to pull it off. This type of shot should be harder to take, in reality, it’s quite easy and that’s the sad part.

Drones shoot Hellfire missiles at tanks. This is a lame little quadcopter.

SPREE34 wrote:

It's just a matter of time.

Till what? A DJI bounces off a plane and no one notices except the drone owner who now needs a new drone.

32andBelow wrote:

SPREE34 wrote:

It's just a matter of time.

Till what? A DJI bounces off a plane and no one notices except the drone owner who now needs a new drone.

More like a DJI causes a GE90 to go boom in a very big way, triggering a major incident... It's just a matter of time.

until it flies into an engine

A dji would not make an engine go
Boom. These engines ingest so many birds and gigantic chunks of ice on a daily basis.

As a DJI Mavic Pro owner, I'm both fascinated and appalled by this video; mostly the latter. Yes, the footage is just amazing, but intentionally taking off just outside the geofence area of a civilian airport, then keeping at an altitude where it could potentially impact flight operations, and rather than keeping it stationary, allowing your craft to drift closer to the projected flight path of an A380 in a critical phase of flight? Just insanely irresponsible.

32andBelow wrote:

A dji would not make an engine go
Boom. These engines ingest so many birds and gigantic chunks of ice on a daily basis.

Birds don't have lithium-ion batteries. Granted, it's probably not going to cause a catastrophic failure but an explosion, no matter how small, is going to have a different result than a straight impact which is what the engines are designed for and test against. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before manufacturers start loading DJI's into their chicken cannons though.

32andBelow wrote:

Awesome shots. Well done.

Safety last, right? As long as you get some "awesome shots".

EA CO AS wrote:

As a DJI Mavic Pro owner, I'm both fascinated and appalled by this video; mostly the latter. Yes, the footage is just amazing, but intentionally taking off just outside the geofence area of a civilian airport, then keeping at an altitude where it could potentially impact flight operations, and rather than keeping it stationary, allowing your craft to drift closer to the projected flight path of an A380 in a critical phase of flight? Just insanely irresponsible.

Separated is separated in a ATC. We move giant planes 1000 feet away from other giant planes. We allow another plane to climb through another planes altitude while maintaining visual separation. Yet we freak out when a guy flies a tiny drone outside the restricted area?

32andBelow wrote:

Separated is separated in a ATC. We move giant planes 1000 feet away from other giant planes. We allow another plane to climb through another planes altitude while maintaining visual separation. Yet we freak out when a guy flies a tiny drone outside the restricted area?

Yes, because the drone operator is not in contact with ATC. The drone does not have a transponder and is therefor invisible to ATC, they don't know where it is. ATC can only plan such operations if they know exactly what is where and with a drone they got no way of knowing, it could be anywhere and you can't rely on the drone operator to keep it in a safe place. With a little bit of wind the drone might just blow into the path of an aircraft and there's nothing anyone can do about that.

Flying drones around an airport is just incredibly dangerous and I hope those who do will get caught and face huge penalties, plus their drones get confiscated of course.

32andBelow wrote:

Separated is separated in a ATC. We move giant planes 1000 feet away from other giant planes. We allow another plane to climb through another planes altitude while maintaining visual separation. Yet we freak out when a guy flies a tiny drone outside the restricted area?

I don't think that the drone flying outside the restricted area is the issue... The issue is separation. You said yourself that there's 1,000ft separation for aircraft to other aircraft. There has to be something similar in place for drones to aircraft as well. In fact, I'd be surprised if there wasn't already a requirement for drones to maintain a certain distance from other aircraft.

Unrelated to this topic but how many A380s does EK send to MRU each day? We can see one exiting the runway before the second one takes off. I am surprised to see such a capacity to Mauritius from a single airline.

Normally this would concern me, but the guy is an A380 Captain so he probably knew what he was doing.

PatrickZ80 wrote:

32andBelow wrote:

Separated is separated in a ATC. We move giant planes 1000 feet away from other giant planes. We allow another plane to climb through another planes altitude while maintaining visual separation. Yet we freak out when a guy flies a tiny drone outside the restricted area?

Yes, because the drone operator is not in contact with ATC. The drone does not have a transponder and is therefor invisible to ATC, they don't know where it is. ATC can only plan such operations if they know exactly what is where and with a drone they got no way of knowing, it could be anywhere and you can't rely on the drone operator to keep it in a safe place. With a little bit of wind the drone might just blow into the path of an aircraft and there's nothing anyone can do about that.

Flying drones around an airport is just incredibly dangerous and I hope those who do will get caught and face huge penalties, plus their drones get confiscated of course.

How is that different than a Cessna flying VFR. They aren’t required to talk to anyone and aren’t required to have a transponder.

EGTESkyGod wrote:

32andBelow wrote:

Separated is separated in a ATC. We move giant planes 1000 feet away from other giant planes. We allow another plane to climb through another planes altitude while maintaining visual separation. Yet we freak out when a guy flies a tiny drone outside the restricted area?

I don't think that the drone flying outside the restricted area is the issue... The issue is separation. You said yourself that there's 1,000ft separation for aircraft to other aircraft. There has to be something similar in place for drones to aircraft as well. In fact, I'd be surprised if there wasn't already a requirement for drones to maintain a certain distance from other aircraft.

thats only the limitation for IFR to IFR. A VFR aircraft could theoretically fly much closer and isn’t required to talked to ATC. The drone clearly has the aircraft in sight since he is taking live video.

mict wrote:

Unrelated to this topic but how many A380s does EK send to MRU each day? We can see one exiting the runway before the second one takes off. I am surprised to see such a capacity to Mauritius from a single airline.

Hahaha, I was thinking the same. Great footage, but very interesting to see two A380s on the runway! There is obviously a big demand for holiday tourist to Mauritius.

32andBelow wrote:

thats only the limitation for IFR to IFR. A VFR aircraft could theoretically fly much closer and isn’t required to talked to ATC. The drone clearly has the aircraft in sight since he is taking live video.

True, but even in VFR conditions you are supposed to maintain a 500ft distance from any person, structure or vehicle if my memory of UK Air Law from 10 years ago is correct. Granted, this wasn't in the UK and this may well be more than 500ft separation. The point is there still needs to be sensible separation. Honestly I think the footage is great but I also share the same concerns that someone not so skilled may cause an incident.

Clearly 32andBelow is a drone driver.

This was careless - and at any point the 380 could have started a turn and ingested that unnecessary POS. If you suck something like that through the motor, at a minimum you're returning to the field as a precaution.

Birds are bad enough, lets not add to the frey.

Will a drone trigger a TCAS alarm?

Edit: no, because drones do not have an active transponder

There's an interesting video about Gatwick on YouTube from Business Insider titled;
'Map shows the chaos that ensues when you fly a drone to close to an airport'
It shows all the aborted landings, extended holding times and some fuel diversions.
Delays went on into the evening.

Bo)am
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdfVIds ... ture=share

barney captain wrote:

Clearly 32andBelow is a drone driver.

...and at any point the 380 could have started a turn and ingested that unnecessary POS.

This was my thought too, a left turnout by the 380 and those two aircraft are in the same bit of sky.

One of these aircraft was operating according to a set of rules that have been agreed internationally and developed over the last one hundered or so years to provide safe separation of aircraft, while the other was being operated with the knowledge of just one person (we assume). I can't believe people are defending that!
To say that the drone would not damage the 380 is reckless in the extreme. Yes, the chances are the drone would do no more than cause a few scratches to the airliner's paintwork but that is trusting to luck, and in aviation safety we should be trusting in thorough planning, not luck.
For such a photo-shoot to happen, the crew of the 380, the drone pilot and ATC would have needed to have an extensive planning briefing first. We can assume this did not happen!

By contrast, although a little off topic, look at how much planning goes into an aerial photo-shoot when done professionally.

https://youtu.be/dFCQJ5sYGtI

Siren wrote:

32andBelow wrote:

SPREE34 wrote:

It's just a matter of time.

Till what? A DJI bounces off a plane and no one notices except the drone owner who now needs a new drone.

More like a DJI causes a GE90 to go boom in a very big way, triggering a major incident... It's just a matter of time.

Not that I am supporting this kind of behaviour, but the only hardest part in a recreational quad-copter is a 2-inch engine. Everything else just pulverizes.

Whiteguy wrote:

Hopefully the person is found and charged!! This kind of stuff needs to stop, only a matter of time before some clown runs one into an aircraft.

Charged with what exactly?

The thread in the first link shows that the drone was clearly outside the legal exclusion zone, and as mentioned above it's also clear that the pilot had taken a lot of care in positioning the drone to be a couple of hundred metres off the flight path and at the right height when the aircraft passed.

From my point of view, this drone posed no danger and was certainly not breaking any rules. Furthermore, its obvious that the pilot was considerate of any risk and had avoided it. I bet (s)he was also in two minds about posting it since justifiable pride in the result conflicts with expecting exactly this kind of backlash.

If the drone operator was in-fact an A380 pilot, does it occur to anyone with all these concerns that (s)he could have talked to the pilot flying the A380 to confirm flight path and possible lift-off point before-hand? I can see that as a definite possibility, especially if they were friends and co-workers.

exFWAOONW wrote:

If the drone operator was in-fact an A380 pilot, does it occur to anyone with all these concerns that (s)he could have talked to the pilot flying the A380 to confirm flight path and possible lift-off point before-hand? I can see that as a definite possibility, especially if they were friends and co-workers.

Perhaps if this was an A380 pilot he did it fully legally so draw attention to why the existing rules are poor.

exFWAOONW wrote:

If the drone operator was in-fact an A380 pilot, does it occur to anyone with all these concerns that (s)he could have talked to the pilot flying the A380 to confirm flight path and possible lift-off point before-hand? I can see that as a definite possibility, especially if they were friends and co-workers.

sandbender wrote:

32andBelow wrote:

A dji would not make an engine go
Boom. These engines ingest so many birds and gigantic chunks of ice on a daily basis.

Birds don't have lithium-ion batteries. Granted, it's probably not going to cause a catastrophic failure but an explosion, no matter how small, is going to have a different result than a straight impact which is what the engines are designed for and test against. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before manufacturers start loading DJI's into their chicken cannons though.

I have a question. Why isn't there a mesh in front of the engine? Is it 1) loss of thrust from airflow reduction or 2) it would be ineffective at that speed or 3) the mesh is a greater threat to the engine than the birds/drones?

Looking at the map - and comparing that with what is seen in the video (especially last second view to the other side) - drone is somewhere above the town of Blue Bay, 1.4 miles from the end of the runway.
In US FAA requires that

when flown within 5 miles of an airport, the operator of the aircraft provides the airport operator and the airport air traffic control tower ... with prior notice of the operation....

I would say that makes sense for airports outside FAA jurisdiction as well..

Siren wrote:

DocLightning wrote:

An operation like this could be approved by a civil aviation authority when done for PR purposes and appropriate precautions are taken, including the bit where the flight crew knows where the drone is. But not with passengers are aboard.

I did say that this sort of activity can't be condoned. Period, full stop. While there was no mishap here and while I do I think this particular drone operator was competent, we can't give them the benefit of the doubt. This should never have happened in the first place - and if I gave you that impression, I do apologize for not being clear enough.

My comment wasn't directed at you. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Would appear the operator broke several parts of Regulation 91C (assuming it was a recreational flight, they're completely shafted if was commercial)
http://civil-aviation.govmu.org/English ... -DRONE.pdf

On the face of it, it looks effing reckless to me. Hopefully the operator will be, at the very least, firmly re-educated.

32andBelow wrote:

PatrickZ80 wrote:

32andBelow wrote:

Separated is separated in a ATC. We move giant planes 1000 feet away from other giant planes. We allow another plane to climb through another planes altitude while maintaining visual separation. Yet we freak out when a guy flies a tiny drone outside the restricted area?

Yes, because the drone operator is not in contact with ATC. The drone does not have a transponder and is therefor invisible to ATC, they don't know where it is. ATC can only plan such operations if they know exactly what is where and with a drone they got no way of knowing, it could be anywhere and you can't rely on the drone operator to keep it in a safe place. With a little bit of wind the drone might just blow into the path of an aircraft and there's nothing anyone can do about that.

Flying drones around an airport is just incredibly dangerous and I hope those who do will get caught and face huge penalties, plus their drones get confiscated of course.

How is that different than a Cessna flying VFR. They aren’t required to talk to anyone and aren’t required to have a transponder.

The Cessna pilot has more at risk than the drone operator. Much more incentive to maintain legal separation.

32andBelow wrote:

How is that different than a Cessna flying VFR. They aren’t required to talk to anyone and aren’t required to have a transponder.

I don't know about other parts of the world, but here in the Netherlands the rules for VFR flying are a lot more strict than that. Over here VFR aircraft are required to contact ATC and are required to have a transponder. Even gliders are obligued to have a transponder and have it turned on when they're in the air, and even they must contact ATC. This is to prevent ATC from sending IFR aircraft into an airspace where VFR activity is taking place. In case an aircraft, no matter how small, is seen on radar but doesn't have a transponder on or doesn't contact ATC the Air Force sends a couple of fighter jets into the air to intercept this aircraft. This goes for something as small as a Cessna as well.

I can imagine in parts of the world with less traffic the rules aren't as strict as they are here, but this is very busy airspace and that requires very strict rules. The transponder duty for gliders is fairly new, only since a couple of years. It was introduced after some incidents had happened, a few near-misses that could easily have gone wrong. It's easy for a fast moving IFR aircraft to miss something as small as a glider, by the time you see it it's mostly too late. Imagine what a drone must be like, there's no way they're going to see that.

exFWAOONW wrote:

If the drone operator was in-fact an A380 pilot, does it occur to anyone with all these concerns that (s)he could have talked to the pilot flying the A380 to confirm flight path and possible lift-off point before-hand? I can see that as a definite possibility, especially if they were friends and co-workers.

Interesting. Didn’t consider that, definitely possible.

enilria wrote:

If the drone operator was in-fact an A380 pilot, does it occur to anyone with all these concerns that (s)he could have talked to the pilot flying the A380 to confirm flight path and possible lift-off point before-hand? I can see that as a definite possibility, especially if they were friends and co-workers.

From what I have heard, it's an AF A380 pilot who posted the video, not necessarily the one who shot it.

enilria wrote:

I have a question. Why isn't there a mesh in front of the engine? Is it 1) loss of thrust from airflow reduction or 2) it would be ineffective at that speed or 3) the mesh is a greater threat to the engine than the birds/drones?

I think you may have answered your own question correctly. All these are valid. I think there were some Russian jets which have a grill that goes in front of the intake for certain gravel field operations. I doubt that is used in flight even for that aircraft or if that is feasible for large jet engines deployment.

Could also very well be that he was an A380 pilot, spoke to the other A380 pilot and because he was a pilot and perhaps had flown into the airport on several occasions had seeked approval to do this for the sake of publicity? In smaller countries it might take talking to a few people before they just say "as long as the pilot knows, sure".

neomax wrote:

exFWAOONW wrote:

If the drone operator was in-fact an A380 pilot, does it occur to anyone with all these concerns that (s)he could have talked to the pilot flying the A380 to confirm flight path and possible lift-off point before-hand? I can see that as a definite possibility, especially if they were friends and co-workers.

Interesting. Didn’t consider that, definitely possible.

Sure it's possible and in that case it would indeed be safe, but still it would be a violation of the rules since drones are not allowed to fly there.

If I'm driving my car and I come up to a junction with a red traffic light this means I got to stop. It could very well be safe to drive on, there could be no other traffic within miles, but still it's not allowed. The rules say I got to stop if the light is red. This is a similar thing. It may be safe, but it's still not allowed.

32andBelow wrote:

PatrickZ80 wrote:

32andBelow wrote:

Separated is separated in a ATC. We move giant planes 1000 feet away from other giant planes. We allow another plane to climb through another planes altitude while maintaining visual separation. Yet we freak out when a guy flies a tiny drone outside the restricted area?

Yes, because the drone operator is not in contact with ATC. The drone does not have a transponder and is therefor invisible to ATC, they don't know where it is. ATC can only plan such operations if they know exactly what is where and with a drone they got no way of knowing, it could be anywhere and you can't rely on the drone operator to keep it in a safe place. With a little bit of wind the drone might just blow into the path of an aircraft and there's nothing anyone can do about that.

Flying drones around an airport is just incredibly dangerous and I hope those who do will get caught and face huge penalties, plus their drones get confiscated of course.

How is that different than a Cessna flying VFR. They aren’t required to talk to anyone and aren’t required to have a transponder.

That's true in uncontrolled airspace. But any airport that has an A-380, in the U.S. at least, would be a Class B. That requires ATC clearance and a transponder to enter, and the airspace size is measured in miles.

neomax wrote:

Normally this would concern me, but the guy is an A380 Captain so he probably knew what he was doing.

exFWAOONW wrote:

If the drone operator was in-fact an A380 pilot, does it occur to anyone with all these concerns that (s)he could have talked to the pilot flying the A380 to confirm flight path and possible lift-off point before-hand? I can see that as a definite possibility, especially if they were friends and co-workers.

Redwood839 wrote:

Could also very well be that he was an A380 pilot, spoke to the other A380 pilot and because he was a pilot and perhaps had flown into the airport on several occasions had seeked approval to do this for the sake of publicity? In smaller countries it might take talking to a few people before they just say "as long as the pilot knows, sure".

I don't think you're reading the article correctly.

The quote from the article is: "As this point, there is no information about the identity of the pilot. The video had originally been published on Facebook by Thierry Paris who describes himself as an A380 captain for Air France. He wrote in the video caption (auto-translated): “That's what a little crazy guy managed to do with a drone in Mauritius. Hello flight safety!!!”"

They are not saying that the Air France A380 captain is the pilot of the drone. They said "There is no information about the identity of the pilot" which refers to the drone pilot. The AF Captain simply posted the video on his Facebook and said "that's what a little crazy guy managed to do with a drone..." Where he got the video, the article doesn't say.

The drone was flying in at least Class C airspace.
"Mauritius Control Zone (CTR) Circle 15 NM radius centred on DVOR/DME “PLS” 20 25 12.1S 057 39 44.6E - Sfc-3,500ft - Class C

Contrary to Mauritius regulations (91 particulary 91c) linked to in post #41

So there ends the story, flying illegally under Mauritian law.