Ag Pilots Upgrade Windshields Against Drones

Agricultural pilots are increasingly looking to upgrade the glass in their cockpits due to growing prevalence of drones in their airspace, and they’re advocating for several policies to make the technology as safe as possible.

During the winter, agricultural pilot Leif Isaacson upgraded the windshields of his crop dusting planes to reinforced glass.

Isaacson, owner of Desert Air Ag in Terreton, explained that he, like many in the industry, is taking precautions to protect his employees from a new and rapidly proliferating perceived airborne threat — commercial and residential drones.

Agricultural pilots have been involved in every step of discussions to keep safety at the forefront as the Federal Aviation Administration rolls out new rules to facilitate the use of drones in a host of industries.

Isaacson travels the country talking about safety to agricultural aviation association members with a program called Aerial Applicator Support System. Drones are among the hottest discussion topics.

“We’re trying to make applicators aware, our growers aware and the general public aware you need to use these responsibly,” Isaacson said.

He’s especially concerned about residential drone use, noting hobbyists sometimes use drones to video agricultural pilots in action.

Rod Thomas, an agricultural pilot who owns Thomas Helicopters in Gooding, Idaho, said protecting cockpits with reinforced glass will be one of his next upgrades.

“The other glass is fine when we’ve taken birds, but a drone isn’t soft like a bird,” Thomas said.

One of his pilots has already had a “near miss” with a drone. A couple of years ago, he said a hobbyist’s drone chased his aircraft. His pilot managed to avoid it.

“We will hit something sooner rather than later,” Thomas said.

Jared Storm, owner of Nebraska-based Hershey Flying Service, has developed a safety glass he’ll be marketing this fall, touted as eight times stronger than conventional agricultural aircraft windshields.

“I could see a safety need in the industry as drones become more commonplace,” said Storm, who believes birds still pose a greater safety threat to agricultural pilots, but sharing airspace with drones is a growing concern.

FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said no collisions have been reported yet between drones and manned aircraft. The agency has issued 44,000 licenses to commercial drone pilots and has initiated 50 enforcement cases during the past couple of years for improper drone use.

Gregor said FAA is researching systems to detect unauthorized drones flying near airports and has developed a smart phone app called B4UFLY, alerting drone pilots when it’s not safe to fly in a given area.

In August 2016, FAA adopted a rule making it easier to fly drones commercially. Gregor said the agency’s next step will be allowing unmanned aircraft to fly over people, in certain circumstances, and beyond a pilot’s line of sight.

Andrew Moore, executive director of the National Agricultural Aviation Association, said his organization has mailed out thousands of fliers regarding drone safety as part of an ongoing campaign. Moore said NAAA’s Colorado affiliate conducted a demonstration in which it was nearly impossible for agricultural pilots to spot drones flying in their vicinity.

Moore said NAAA has been advocating that farmers who plan to use drones to carry special drone liability insurance policies. NAAA also backs requirements for drones to be brightly colored and fitted with strobe lights, and has urged manufacturers to include technology to make them easy to track, and enabling them to automatically sense and avoid other aircraft.

Source: Capital Press

2 comments

  1. “Their airspace”?? The airspace belongs to all pilots regardless of class or type.

    “… he said a hobbyist’s drone chased his aircraft. His pilot managed to avoid it.” is pure hyperbole. The top speed of most small drones is well below the stall speed of any winged aircraft; this is as ridiculous as the claims in the FAA drone sighting database by airline pilots that “the drone followed me”. It only happens in your imagination.

    This is typical fear mongering and catering to the paranoid. The panic, here, is completely out of any sort of proportion to reality.

    Keep the risk of personal drones in perspective.

    There have been more than a million hours of flight of small drones in the U.S., yet there is not one verifiable report of a collision between a small drone and a manned aircraft. Not one. There is also not one verifiable report of a drone crash in the US that resulted in a serious injury as defined by the NTSB* to someone not connected to the flight. Not one. It is a safety rate that all other segments of aviation would be jealous to have.

    * A band-aid is not a serious injury. CFR 49 §830.2 contains the definition of “Serious Injury” that the FAA and NTSB use in their aircraft and vehicular accident statistics.

  2. Happy to hear that a drone must be painted in a bright color, our birds are insigna white and dayglo and anyway in some situations are hard to see, a black one is a nonsense not to consider that the sun can heat the structure well above the working temperature of the autopilot.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *