[SystemSafety] RE : Drone Airprox Video

Peter Bernard Ladkin ladkin at rvs.uni-bielefeld.de
Thu Jun 6 14:44:12 CEST 2013


On 6 Jun 2013, at 12:11, Peter Bernard Ladkin <ladkin at rvs.uni-bielefeld.de> wrote:

> There must be a lot going on behind the scenes that we don't know.

I found an article (in German) about the flight of the Demo airplane to Germany. First, it didn't fly in US airspace. It flew up the West Coast, across the Northwest Territories and Newfoundland. Second, there were two approx. 10-minute communication blackouts between pilot and aircraft, during which the UAV deviated in both course and altitude from that planned. There are also reliability issues, apparently. None of this would surprise me.

Cassidian, the main electronics supplier of the EuroHawk, are a member of the MIDCAS consortium, which addresses sense-and-avoid and of which the program runs 2013-4. Sagem (Bertrand's company) is also a member. Then there is the British ASTRAEA project.

I talked to Gerald Traufetter of Der Spiegel this lunchtime. He asked me two things which I could not address effectively. Maybe someone here has a comment (attributable or not) that I could pass on?

1. There is a rumor that, when the Global Hawk flies in US airspace, it is accompanied constantly by chase aircraft.

2. There is a rumor of data link reliability problems, not just with breaks as in the Demo-airplane delivery flight, but in general download, because of the bandwidth required.


PBL

Prof. Peter Bernard Ladkin, University of Bielefeld and Causalis Limited


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