Drones are the current go to story for the media that depends on sensationalizing most everything. But, that tactic works as many here jumped to the same conclusions the media would like you to -- perfect little lambs.
Not long ago a helicopter pilot near LA I think reported he'd hit a drone and this particular drone must have been part cyborg as they found blood and feathers.
Pilots of all descriptions hate that there are drones and would love to have them banned. Better to kill off the competition before it threatens your job.
That is not to say a drone, particularly the larger ones, can't bring a commercial AC down though the odds are really slim. If a drone were to hit the prop of a civil AC it would likely cause the loss of the prop and therefore thrust and that could be a life threatening thing. Similarly, if a drone hits the rotor of a helicopter then the odds are high that the rotor will be destroyed and as there's no way to safely land a helicopter without a rotor the pilot and crew would almost certainly die. There are real threats and the biggest in my view is to helicopter pilots.
The FAA has an app for drone pilots called "B4UFLY" and it checks the area you wish to fly against the known no-fly zones and issues a go/no-go on the flight. Additionally, many drone makers are including geo-fencing into the drone firmware that prohibits flying within the many no-fly zones that now exist. There are, of course, older drones without the capability to do this, but overt time they will be crashed and taken out of service -- sooner or later most drones will bite the dust.
So, there is a large number of people from pilots to those that follow the sensationalistic reports from the media that would be OK with banning drones, but that would be very bad. There are many things that a drone can do better than any other tool and many things the can only be done by drones. In addition, there are tasks that are now done by helicopters, things like SAR, that will ultimately be better done by drones.
If a fleet of a dozen or so drones with FLIR were in use in upsate NY last summer it's very likely the two BG's that escaped from Dannemora prison would have been found withing a couple days. Even more importantly, being able to find someone lost in the desert or while hiking and being able to do that within one day will save lives. Add in bridge inspection and wind turbine inspection and a whole host of survey tasks that can be done by drones for a small percentage of what it would cost to do by helicopter. Any wonder what the real reason so many pilots want them banned?
Brian