The Relability of Drones

Remember that drone the sheriff's office in Montgomery county bought this past year?

The test flight didn't go as planned.  :)

via Examiner

Vanguard CEO Michael Buscher said his company's prototype drone was flying about 18-feet off the ground when it lost contact with the controller's console on the ground.   It's designed to go into an auto shutdown mode, according to Buscher, but when it was coming down the drone crashed into the SWAT team's armored vehicle.

The damage was not severe, according to Buscher, who described only some 'blade strikes' on the prototype drone that was being shown off to the Montgomery County Sheriff's tea

Here are some findings fro a GAO report on drones

The GAO study found that 65% of drone crashes were caused by mechanical failures.  The study analyzed Pentagon and NASA data on 199 crashes of drones on battlefields

The 73-page GAO study found 17-percent of the crashes studied were blamed on operator error and 12-percent were listed as unknown causes.