Dave, I didn't see the mission set for this particular flight, but this aircraft was on a sanctioned patrol. When enforcing a no-fly zone or restricted area, it is common (and absolutely permissible) for a military aircraft to be at a low altitude such as was described here. A drone operating at above 400 feet AGL (and required to yield to any actual aircraft) is twice (and solely) at fault in this particular instance.
Bill, agreed. That said, it's the UAS' in the vicinity of the airport that is particularly scary... and we get reports of that ALL the time. There's nothing like sharing an ILS with a quadcopter.
Peter, it's a great question. The drone I saw was not at night. The point that I was illustrating is that they'd be MUCH easier to see at night.. My DJI looks like a Christmas tree when it's turned on and I know that were that in the air, I could see it a lot better. Perhaps they ought to be equipped with high intensity strobes.
As for the flying low stuff... that's what we do. Low, close to the trees, and fast. It's a preferred flight profile. That said, we never fly that like that over people's homes. Just in more forrested areas. They are "flight corridors" but someone without a pilot's lic would have no idea how to look or identify those types of things
Kills me when people call them Choppers.... yuck!
Anyway.... here are my thoughts....
I am dual-rated Commercial Pilot both in fixed wing and rotary wing and have a decent bit of experience. I recently acquired a DJI Phantom (which I love by the way) and really enjoy flying it. Now, having flown that and knowing how easy it is to get ahold of those things, it terrifies me as a pilot. Were I to encounter my DJI Drone while in low-level cruise flight in a helicopter, it would create a huge hazard.
I think that UAS operators of anything that can fly above 100 Feet AGL should be required to attend (at a minimum) some sort of ground school. Right now you can pick one up off the shelf and go fly it... if it doens't have protective/restrictive software, some of these things can really go quite high. If operators are serious about becoming "licensed drone operators" that will create a lower demand of folks and perhaps weed out the less competent ones that think its okay to flight in
