Larry Dighera wrote:
On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 21:51:05 -0000, Jim Logajan
wrote in :

Larry Dighera wrote:
How do you feel about sharing the skies with this little, wingless
UAV?

Appears to weigh about what a mature bald eagle would weigh (~14 lbs),
and has about the same altitude range (both about 10,000 ft).

Since there are a lot more eagles than UAVs, I'd be more worried about
an eagle strike than a UAV strike.

But an eagle's wingspan is between 72 to 90 inches
http://www.baldeagleinfo.com/eagle/eagle-facts.html, and they have
the ability to avoid aircraft. You'd have to have eyes better than
Yeager to see that little Honeywell UAV at two miles up, so you
couldn't count on the ground observer to see-and-avoid visually.

Hmmm. Better back up for me: I'm not clear now what the thrust of your
original post was. Was the intent to make a specific assertion (e.g. that
UAVs are sufficiently dangerous they should be carefully regulated) or just
throwing the subject open for discussion?

My own assertion is this: in any list of priorities that drive air safety,
regulation of UAVs is overkill and even takes time, money, and resources
away from dealing with higher probability risks.