No - I’m talking about snagging them in the power lines that are ubiquitous everywhere. Low-level flight is impossible in any urban or suburban area. It’s bad enough for “real” pilots on approach — even with the orange balls on the power lines!
I didn’t ever have an unexpected encounters with P-lines but my friend in a Robinson R22 got all wrapped up with a cherry tree.
“Low-level flight is impossible in any urban or suburban area. It’s bad enough for “real” pilots on approach — even with the orange balls on the power lines!”
I have been working on my VTOL cert. It’s completely different coming in fixed wing at 150kn vs 20kn or less in a heli. People routinely land helis in fields and yards for medicvac and highend upper class airtaxi. Think Hampton’s or Highland Park. These vehicles will never be flown by anyone but a fully licenced PPL with a VTOL cert the FAA is NEVER going to allow anything short of that. So yes it will always be a real pilot in command. Modern LIDAR has gotten so cheap look at AI cars for the proof. LIDAR can map in 3D in real time wires of few millimeter in diameter day or night the lasers are infrared so sunlight is irrelevant.
One of the universities I work with has a full sized drone helicopter. It’s part of the remotes sensing, geospatial, and geodetics group of which I’m staff consultant from time to time. Having one of my Master’s from this uni before I got a PhD elsewhere. It’s a ROV based on a two seater human helicopter. It’s flown with GPS and dual(forward+downward) LIDAR while carrying a very expensive stereoscopic imaging and imaging LIDAR down looking payload so three LIDARs. In the down scan you can see every power line from above clear as day in the LIDAR point clouds. The logic of the autopilot also automatically recognise and avoids lines, trees and birds which also show up in LIDAR at 200m the pixel rez is in the single millimeters 3D in XYZ space. This heli is so large it fills a FAA flight plan when inside Mode B or C to SFC airspace, even in Class E/G a notice is given to the ATC so aircraft in the area in VFR can see and avoid. It carries an ADSB so any other aircraft that’s has ADSB-In will see it and there TCAS will automatically give avoidance. Every commercial aircraft has ADBS and TCAS.
Point is like a large drone these will only be allowed to fly by licenced people.