Big increase in drone encounters with commercial aviation.

On Monday a Jet Blue flight hit a drone on approach to JFK, a helicopter reported one in the area on the same day, and a United Flight reported a near miss (100').

I personally have had two encounters in the last year:

1. About six months ago I was flying from the PCola area down to Boca in my airplane. Passing just north of Tyndall I encountered a medium-sized drone mostly stationary north of the base at about 5000'. A friend was with me and she saw it first. No ADSB and not talking to anyone. I called approach and they did not have it on radar, a plane in trail of me reported it as well.

2. About 8 months ago departed Charleston Exec Runway 9. Approach turned turned me north then west and climbed me through the Class C. Passing 5000' My passenger and I both saw very large drone 1000' below us and clearly inside the Charleston Class C. It clearly had a gimbal payload. I called and they were not tracking it...they clearly got very worked up.

Whether it is hobbyist or something more nefarious, there does seem to be an increase and it seems like a easy asymmetric attack vector towards the airline industry.

What are you airline folks seeing out there?

Only one anecdote, on arrival into DFW maybe a year ago, aircraft ahead of us reported one at about 7000’ MSL and about a mile off his right wing, we both continued arrival to RWY36L, uneventfully. Never saw it.

Funny you mention this, I’ve wondered when some idiot, maniac, terrorist, saboteur, etc… was going to fly one into an airliner, or a train, bus, ferry, etc…

Edited Tuesday at 12:58 PM4 days by Clark Griswold

If anyone isn't already reading the HAF Daily Current Ops Update on SIPRNET on a daily basis, I'd strongly encourage them to do so!

There's a link to it on the BaseOps Intellipedia page (yes, BaseOps has an Intellipedia page!), just search for 'Air Force Operations Group'.

I just added the direct link to the briefs.

When someone dies is usually when changes occur. Usually*.

One of the fire bombers from the LA Palisades fire hit a drone on the wing leading edge. Oops said the operator. He plead out, $65K restitution, 150 hrs community service ISO wildfire efforts.

In 2011 a Herc (Niagara I think) hit an RQ-7 Shadow, which wikapedia says is 250-450Lbs and 14ft wingspan. Herc landed, Shadow crashed. Not getting into the gritty on who was responsible, just showing the potential damage.

*DCA

A TXARNG UH-60 involved in Guadalupe River flood rescue operations near Kerrville was forced to make an emergency landing after being struck by a privately operated drone on 7 July 2025. The drone was reportedly flying inside a TFR established to protect SAR aircraft working the catastrophe.

The Black Hawk landed safely, but officials said a critical emergency-response asset was removed from service pending inspection and repairs.

There needs to be far more severe penalties for drone issues. The FAA tried with part 107, and I’m sure that has helped, but let’s face it - there are thousands of dipshits who buy a drone online and just let it rip. They’re the ones who need severe penalties when they cause a midair, fly in TFRs, etc. Thankfully most of my back country flying is remote, but we have seen an increase in drone “events” IVO fires that are closer to more populated areas in the last couple years. I’m surprised there haven’t been more midairs with aircraft supporting fires or other disasters.

Wonder if making the operators use a radar reflector add-on is worthwhile? These folks hovering in airport airspaces and other sensitive areas will probably ignore a rule/law like that (just answered my own question, huh?).

The liberals already have the answer to this question.

Just classify them as Assault Weapons? The black ones with automatic suppressors, muzzle loading magazines and pistols grips are the most dangerous. There’s no reason a private citizen needs to have a ghost drone.

On 7/1/2026 at 11:40 AM, disgruntledemployee said:

In 2011 a Herc (Niagara I think) hit an RQ-7 Shadow, which wikapedia says is 250-450Lbs and 14ft wingspan. Herc landed, Shadow crashed. Not getting into the gritty on who was responsible, just showing the potential damage.

As I recall, that was in the pattern at Sharana LZ, which was King Kong of the AFG LZs. 2 Engine assault at 7000 PA to a 4000 foot strip (IIRC) in an H-model. That's tough. Army pleaded that the C-130 ran over them going the same direction....but with no IFF turned on.

Edited yesterday at 02:50 PM1 day by FourFans

4 hours ago, FourFans said:

Army pleaded

The Army is negligent with nearly all things UAS; they go full retard as a matter of doctrine.

50 minutes ago, brabus said:

The Army is negligent with nearly all things UAS; they go full retard as a matter of doctrine.

FIFY

All of the encounters mentioned above are "mostly" accidents. Imagine when someone TRIES to hit an airliner...

2 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

All of the encounters mentioned above are "mostly" accidents. Imagine when someone TRIES to hit an airliner...

Or decides to make one the size of a Shahed track the ILS/FAF on a low IFR day. Maybe it gets picked up on radar in time.

3 hours ago, ClearedHot said:

All of the encounters mentioned above are "mostly" accidents. Imagine when someone TRIES to hit an airliner...

Yup or builds one or many with a camera, small image recognition system and goes into the engines on final just after the FAF.

Other than massive land setbacks to geographically isolate the airport plus several layers of different anti drone systems, how else could you defend against this?

Just posting to show the speeds these are achieving

Father n son team built drone reaching 400+ mph

https://www.businessinsider.com/drone-warfare-interceptor-guinness-world-record-bells-fastest-quadcopter-ukraine-2026-1

1 hour ago, fire4effect said:

Or decides to make one the size of a Shahed track the ILS/FAF on a low IFR day. Maybe it gets picked up on radar in time.

There's some, but not a whole lot, of energy/maneuverability stabilized above ref, below landing weight, on a 3 degree path.

Not near as much (read: damn near none) during second segment climb. That's what I'm worried about. At least at my home drome I'm crossing the fence typically above 2.5k' and accelerating past 220kts.

1 hour ago, Clark Griswold said:

Yup or builds one or many with a camera, small image recognition system and goes into the engines on final just after the FAF.

Other than massive land setbacks to geographically isolate the airport plus several layers of different anti drone systems, how else could you defend against this?

They don't need an image recognition system...

Story time - My first tour in the five-sided wind tunnel was 2005-2006. I was at Quantico for school before that so had three years in the Northern Va area. I was always into RC airplanes and flew at a nice grass strip on the west side of town off Route 50. I was out there was weekday afternoon and there was only one other person out there with me. When I pulled up I noticed he was sitting in a chair and wearing some kind of goggles. Next to him was an antenna system mounted on a tripod. I watch him fly for a bit and noticed he was not looking at his airplane. When he landed I walked over and we had a chat, he was testing a home built system that pushed video from a camera in the plane to his goggles. We talked for a while and told me he posted a few videos of his set up and some of the flying on Youtube. He then gave me his channel on a card. A few days later I looked at his channel and while watching a video noticed and airliner go through his frame...a cold chill ran down my spine when I saw the airliner. The field was a few miles from Dulles and almost all of his videos caught an airliner in the frame making an approach to the airport. I immediately put that together with another project I was working in a small strategy cell I was assigned to in the Pentagon. In short, a just the previous two years prior a group of hobbyists flew an RC airplane autonomously across the Atlantic Ocean. I pitched the project to my boss and got some seed money. Long story short I proved an amateur could build an autonomous airplane that could lift a 20 warehead/payload, fly with a GPS auto pilot and hit a target at range or via FPV for under $1000.00. This was 2005...I wrote it up and tried to run it through the system only to be laughed at and ignored.