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General questions about Drones

Posted: Sat May 05, 2018 8:42 pm
by N861LIMA
Hi,

My very first post! First, I thank the PE team for providing professional and such an immersive environment even though I'm not a pilot IRL.

Secondly, I apologize if this topic have been discussed before but I can't seem to find any, so here goes:

Occasionally I'm seeing traffic that buzzes around airfields but not hearing anything in the frequency they're supposed to be in. Sometimes i encounter near-collisions on my usual routes.
A notable and common example is at the Catalina Island, where I always see a bunch of (at least 4 or 5) helicopter buzzing around, or simply taking off and landing, and sometimes at least 1 or 2 fixed wing low and fast flyby's (I believe I saw a Baron doing touch n goes as well). A quick check on PE Live map doesn't register these aircraft so I assume they are all drones.

Although it doesn't "hurt" as there seems to be no collision with these 'ghosts', it kills immersion if you announce on the CTAF your position, eg. on finals but a chopper is hovering directly on your path, or a Baron attempts a rather fast touch n go behind you and passes you by, and nothing on radio! So I guess my question would be, are we expected to just ignore these drones even if they seem to pose a "risk" ?

Cheers,
Santi

Re: General questions about Drones

Posted: Sat May 05, 2018 9:41 pm
by Kevin_atc
The lack of radio calls by the drones isn’t something that is meant to be ignored. If anything, it should train you to better your situational awareness as there are plenty of pilots in the real world who do not use CTAF frequencies for whatever unforgivable reason. Always keep your eyes open on PE, just as you would for real.

Re: General questions about Drones

Posted: Sat May 05, 2018 10:49 pm
by N861LIMA
makes sense, thank you.