My county has even gone so far as to pass an extremely onerous ordinance requiring drone operators get a sign off from every person whose property you may film from a UAS because irresponsible people have made it an issue. I could argue how childish this rule is in the first place, since I can take a picture of somebody's back yard with a high power zoom lens from a hill and be in the clear - but it's the perfect example of the tragedy of the commons that has come from not only lax rules, but people rampantly violating what rules there are without a care.
I just hope the FAA finds a sensible middle ground between the ill-fated section 336 regs and section 107. I'm more than willing to pass a knowledge test, and if I need to buy a $X (where X is $200 or less, hopefully) transponder to affix to my UAS then fine - but can we at least make it easy to do online?
I'm inclined to think this is more a consequence of insufficient enforcement. We have a lot of laws and regulations and are rarely enforced, and thus often violated. That this happens with drones is hardly a surprise.
When you regulate something and cover far far more stuff then you should, you get this behaviour.
Is it strictly necessary to protect airspace around major airports all the way to the surface for five miles? Probably not. But we have designed a hugely complex, life-critical system around that and many other assumptions, and we can’t just go changing things willy-nilly. This is aviation, not computing. We do not “move fast and break things.” The consequences of getting this wrong aren’t just tweaking some syntax and trying again. The consequences are destruction, death and bereavement.
I’m sure we’ll eventually get to a point where drones are more readily integrated into the system. For now, humans have the priority. And if that means you have to fill out a little web form while the people charged with maintaining the system work through all the implications, I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
An example is the FAA has sections of uncontrolled space up to 1000 ft over the Hudson river in NYC, which is in the busiest airspace in the USA in the most densely populated area, dead center in the space of 3 of the largest airports in the world. They decided that in the interest of sightseeing aircraft that they would give an area for this despite midair collisions (one recently), and an actual plane landing in the Hudson once through this space. The area 400ft AGL around airports several miles out is much less treacherous than this and perhaps a discussion should be had to see if it can be given in the interest of drone pilots.
Just a tip, but discussions don't usually start with calling the existing, time-proven system "draconian and unnecessary." Air traffic rules exist mostly to keep people alive. If that interferes with your hobby, that's unfortunate, but the priority should be maintaining the safety levels while accommodating the hobby as much as reasonably possible, not establishing some kind of equality between manned flight and hobbyists.
It's also worth noting that R/C pilots had a high enough barrier to entry that they generally policed themselves pretty well. Now that anyone can buy and operate something that can be hazardous to manned aircraft, things have changed significantly. The system needs to account for that level of inexperience and disregard.
> If people die well we'll pivot to a new model.
I reworded that to better reflect reality.
Current airspace requirements–politically-motivated and misguided tho they may be at times–are mostly written in blood. You'll find most aviators have a healthy appetite for the risk of aviation, but at the same time generally won't be interested in taking a "let's tinker with it and pivot after people die" approach.
>I wasn't advocating "flying craft there anyway and if there's a crash well we'll pivot to a new model".
2) The airspace over the Hudson appears to be class E, which is controlled. By definition, only class G airspace is uncontrolled.
3) The actual plane landing on the Hudson was an airliner in the middle of an emergency. Landing on the river was certainly not part of their planned activities for the day. The pilot-in-command is allowed to deviated from the rules to the extent needed by the emergency.
I'm sure the FAA is still hotly debating how drones will be treated, but it's a government organization used to old technology and moves slowly. Silicon valley will run laps around the regulations until the VCs get bored and fund something else.
So far the comments from very knowledgeable people seem to say well a plane could fly in there in some exceptional circumstances and then could happen to encounter a drone that is operating in visual range under 400 feet and something could possibly happen. This is also considering that the sky is filled with birds many larger than drones.
SO, the Hudson area is not as heavily regulated as it should be following standard procedure. There is however some sort of regulation to it and it is, I assume, monitored. Everything else would just be plain suicide. One can safely assume that the FAA came up with that perticular piece of regulation after putting some thought into it. Pretty much the same approach they are taking with drones.
I am not a software engineer, therefor I am not commenting on software posts. Honest questions are always fine and welcome, but argueing against the FAA without any deeper knowledge of how air travel works is getting us nowhere.
FInally, the plane that landed on the Hudson had an issue with birds, didn't it? Only that you cannto do anything against birds, dornes are a different thing.
Class B airspace is already a Cone: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airspace_class_(United_States)... But, it's a cone people can understand without needing to know anything about the local airport which makes it very conservative.
#/media/File:Airspace_classes_(United_States).png){kind=link}
From the air, five miles is quite close to an airfield. There's a significant amount of activity in all directions of an airfield that near to it–you have straight-in pattern entries, overhead pattern entries, diagonal pattern entries, base pattern entries, downwind pattern entries, teardrop pattern entries, aircraft transiting the airspace, helicopters running one traffic pattern, single engine aircraft running another, multi-engine aircraft another, jets another, and sometimes heavies yet another, with everyone else avoiding all the wake turbulence they produce.
All of this happens mostly within 5-10 miles of the field. Not everyone has the same training and experience, there are students and instructors in the mix, equipment failures happen, radar coverage is far from perfect, meteorological and geographic factors often crowd an otherwise-open airspace so everyone's now operating in a greatly reduced footprint, and so on.
All this is further compounded by go-arounds (when an aircraft can't make an approach for whatever reason, either called by a pilot or a controller), which regularly throw the traffic around a field into a state of fairly instant disarray, as controllers vector aircraft rapidly away from each other to try to prevent any collisions from occurring.
If an emergency is declared the airspace may have an aircraft operating anywhere above ground level they deem necessary
This complexity is enough to keep you busy when everyone's hearing everyone, and being coordinated by an adept controller. Drone operators aren't listening to controllers when they operate, don't have great vantage point of the airspace, and would know almost nothing of what's happening above while they're flying.
Beyond that, I can think of several situations where a pilot might find the safest course of action is to bolt from an airfield at <1,000 feet AGL for a few miles. It's probably not an everyday occurrence at any particular airfield, but it's happened to me multiple times (and I'm far from a high-time pilot) and it probably happens daily, multiple times, somewhere in the FAA's jurisdiction.
Also, consider:
91.119 Minimum safe altitudes; general
Except when necessary for takeoff or landing, no person may operate an aircraft below the following altitudes;
(a) ·Anywhere. ·An altitude allowing, if a power unit fails, an emergency landing without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface.
(b) ·Over congested areas. ·Over any congested area of a city, town, or settlement, or over any open air assembly of persons, an altitude of 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a horizontal radius of 2.000 feet of the aircraft.
(c) ·Over other than congested areas. An altitude of 500 feet above the surface except over open water or sparsely populated areas. In that case, the aircraft may not be operated closer than 500 feet to any person, vessel, vehicle, or structure.
(d) ·Helicopters. ·Helicopters may be operated at less than the minimums prescribed In paragraph (b) or (c) of this section if the operation is conducted without hazard to persons or property on the surface. In addition, each person operating a helicopter shall comply with routes or altitudes specifically prescribed for helicopters by the Administrator.
·Helicopter operations may be conducted below the minimum altitudes set for fixed-wing aircraft. The reason? The helicopter's unique operating characteristics, the most important of which is its ability to execute pinpoint emergency landings during power failure. Further, the helicopter's increased use by law enforcement and emergency medical service agencies requires added flexibility in the application of many FAA provisions.
---
Plenty of drone activity happens over water, unpopulated areas, sparsely populated areas, etc.
Lastly, not all passenger aircraft are large jets.
Again, I can't recommend getting an hour or two of flying experience enough. HN commenters tend to have a high level of expertise within their respective domains, and perhaps as a result are almost famously prone to oversimplifying subjects outside of their domain expertise. It seems like every time an aviation-related thread comes up it usually highlights that tendency wonderfully.
I also didn't claim that all passenger craft were large jets, didn't claim that planes would NEVER have to enter space below 400ft AGL miles from an airport. In fact a single engine plane flying that low is even more dangerous as it has less redundancy. I've flown in them. Nothing is without risk and someone flying in a low approach like that has plenty of risk besides drones which are more significant than drones. Also we aren't talking about < 1000ft AGL, we are talking 400 which is a tremendous difference. Yes a controller can do a lot to clear airspace but they aren't going to clear wildlife, trees, and other structures which are a risk at that level or lower much greater than 2lb drones.
But realize that this is not only a rule at 400 feet. It's a rule at 100 feet, at 40 feet, at 10 feet, at 4 feet.
Surely you can agree that there is a certain height where it's safe to fly drones when there is an airport less than 5 miles but more than line of sight away. And surely you can agree that such a height is not zero feet.
Being limited to ~99.99% of the US is hardly a major issue for drone operators. Further, people are very poor at judging altitude consistently, and it's much easier to enforce 'don't' than try and enforce only up to 100 feet or something.
[1] The rules are confusing here but it looks like any airport can tell you not to fly if they want to.
Now, if you want more permissive rules around class D airspace that's IMO very reasonable. But, talking about class B as any airport is extremely misleading.
PS: Class C is again not that long a list, and still represents high traffic areas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Class_C_airports_in_th....
If the pilot is a little low on the glideslope, you're a little closer to the airport than you think, and your drone is a little higher than you think, you've got a collision. Now, these are all worst case deviations, and it might make sense for the FAA to draw the lines more closely, orient them with the actual approach paths, and perhaps have a lower altitude restriction (maybe 150 feet or so) close to an airport. As it is though, the 5 mile ring is a pretty reasonable, if conservative choice given the potential consequences of a drone hitting an aircraft on takeoff or landing.
Phantom 3, Phantom 4, Mavic, all track within a foot or so of the designated coordinates in 3D space.
Default settings have an altitude cap, no matter your momentum, you can’t accidentally or intentionally cross the cap. You have to go into configuration settings to override the cap and set manually to go any higher.
Modern models also come with awareness of FAA zones.
Emergency approaches are by their very nature often well below glide slope.
Perhaps more statistically relevant is that not everyone's altimeters always function correctly, are set to the correct airfield's most recent numbers, that in the potentially 50+ minutes since the last ATIS update the ambient pressure hasn't changed significantly, and lastly that all pilots–drone pilots included–are doing what they're supposed to and leaving sufficient margins.
Shoot enough approaches and you will likely realize that small, potentially dangerous objects piloted by untrained, unregulated, unmonitored, non-communicating pilots at 400' could quickly become a problem for you more readily than it appears from the ground.
Take off on a high-density-altitude day in an underpowered aircraft and you'll also appreciate the additional headroom.
To say nothing of the fact that I've owned drones that under LoS conditions just continue the last input received, which with inexperienced or irresponsible operators would be an input to climb.
"No way!" you say, without hesitation, because it's a rightly stupid thing to do. It's a pointless risk. That's always how bad stories start. The engineer points out the bad stories are just a list of the most egregious problems. You wouldn't even let the engineer ask for an exception or pay a fee to do it. He then says the only reason you're doing this is to hold back his career.
And that's just for software where a mistake doesn't mean someone dies. Tell me again how this is about "criminalizing competition" because that rings a little hollow.
A group of people who represent the status quo (large drone makers and currently operating commercial drone operators) are attempting to erect barriers to entry (licenses/exceptions) that will attach civil and potentially criminal penalties to the same behavior they engaged in (license/exception-free operation) to become successful. That is literally the definition of "criminalizing competition".
If you would like another example of this exact behavior without needing an analogy, see the fact that it is currently illegal in many US states to be a hairstylist without applying for a license (with a fee) and meeting minimum education requirements (with a fee)... _to cut hair_.
825,000 drones were sold in the U.S. in 2016 alone.
If you had 825,000 developers, who on many days did commits and didn't have any real issues, you may think differently.
I again, am pro regulation, but this is a _terrible_ argument.
Citation needed. If you want better arguments, you merely need read the rest of this thread. I wasn't arguing pro regulation. I was arguing how silly it sounds when someone calls this a move to "criminalize competition."
To Wholesale regulations of all activity where by you have to seek "permission" from the regulators to do anything, and hope they will grant you a coveted "exception" to their prohibition.
it is sad that people still call that freedom
Most of the time "regulators" like the FAA are mainly there to limit the liability of commercial industries, as well as raise barriers to entry ensuring limited competition for those corporations
Why do you think major corporations advocate FOR government regulations of their industries
Why do you think Facebook WANTS the government to regulate them
Why do you think Amazon now WANTS the government to raise minimum wage
Government works for Large Corporations it does not work for the People. People like me, hobbyist that just want to be left in peace to enjoy our lives have are freedom oppressed under the thin guise of "safety" when in reality it is about money...
People like you are naive enough to believe the rhetoric, it is sad people are so willing to give up liberty for the promise safety never understanding that doing so means they lose both
THIS. A THOUSAND TIMES, THIS.
When I first got into flying drones and getting into it as a hobby, I read almost daily about idiots flying it within downtown areas and losing control, only to have them fall out of the sky. Or stories about spying on their next door neighbors, or flying so high they were in the airspace of commercial planes and near misses when a plane was approaching a runway.
I was just counting the days when this would happen. I knew it would happen because the reckless behavior of a few have ruined it for everybody. Having been doing this for almost 5 years, I felt like the FAA has to get involved sooner rather than later with all this stuff going on. I'm frankly surprised it took this long. Clearly they kept giving these people the benefit of the doubt, only to be disappointed time and again.
The Casey Neistat FAA case was clear evidence something had to be done.
How do the rules prevent a jerk from buying a drone (with cash, to remove even the faintest connection to himself) and go fly it near the local approach to film landing planes from air? There's no way to trace it back to you even if the authorities found the serial number from the wreckage.
> Most commercial flights operate in IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) where air traffic control system guarantees you separation from other aircraft.
IFR traffic is only separated from other IFR traffic and participating VFR traffic. At FL180 (~18000' MSL) and above-0, it's all IFR, but below FL180, IFR is not separated from non-participating VFR and is still responsible for "see and avoid" when meteorological conditions permit in all airspaces (even above FL180).
0 - Yeah, yeah, above FL600, you could be VFR again... ;)
When were drones ever unregulated? I don’t remember any such time. I remember that before 2016, the legal requirement for drone piloting was to have a pilot’s license, which most people ignored yet scoffed and complained about endlessly. In 2016 they made flying drones less than 55 pounds in class G airspace under 400 feet with line of sight without a pilot’s license or registration legal, but it was not unregulated.
I don’t think that jerks is the main problem here. Use of drones in the last 5 years has skyrocketed. The percentage of jerks could be going down dramatically, and still the accident rates will rise due to the sheer number of people playing with drones. There are many many times more people flying drones now than there were in 2010.
Anyone who’s used a drone more than a handful of times has crashed their drone, or had their drone lose control, or run out of battery mid-flight. Having flown many times and crashed a few, I might be a jerk and not know it, but I’m also 1) lucky I haven’t hurt anyone, and 2) in favor of mandatory registration and some, any, mandatory safety training for drones. Even ignoring FUD about airports and spying neighbors, I still think a little regulation is a good idea.
This is false, section 336 prohibited the FAA from making such a requirement for Model Aircraft which quad's and other UAV's are.
in 2016 the FAA attempted to impose new regulations on Model Aircraft, these regulations where found to be in-violation of section 336 and where struck down by the courts last year
This new law repeals section 336 stripping Americans of their freedom to fly model aircraft free from government intervention into their hobby
In any case, the point still stands that there was never a time in recent history that drones were unregulated. 336 is a regulation.
> This new law repeals section 336 stripping Americans of their freedom to fly model aircraft free from government intervention into their hobby
We’ve only had a limited, regulated freedom to fly for a short 6 years, and in those six years the drone market has changed to the tune of more than 10x [1]. In the last 6 years, accident rates have grown in proportion to the market size, and more than half the accidents are caused by technical failures [2]. What used to be a relatively inaccessible hobby by a few tens of thousands of people flying gas powered model airplanes, and only in parks because model airplanes require wide open spaces, is now tens of millions of people flying drones than can launch literally anywhere. I never used to see model airplanes flying around tourist destinations, and today I can’t go without seeing one.
If you were flying before 2012, think about the fact that more than 90% of the people flying today have less than 5 years experience, and about half have less than 1 year experience. Also pretty likely is that the majority of drone pilots today are children under 20 years old.
If that doesn’t make you think a small amount of regulation is a good idea, consider that the drone market is still expected to triple or quadruple in the next 5 years, so in short order the majority of drones flown will be piloted by someone who hasn’t flown yet, and has never thought about any of these issues, or about safety, nor ever considered flying some sort of god given right. For both our sakes, I think asking those people to register and do a small amount of safety training is a good idea. While you can, you don’t have to view this as intervention, there are legitimate reasons to regulate hobbies that cause potential harm to others.
[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/drone-sales-in-us-chart-2017...
[2] https://expandedramblings.com/index.php/drone-statistics/
To remove hobby / amateur flying to make way for the Pizza Delivery and Police Surveillance Drones in that valuable airspace
The other thing to consider is that drones are not more dangerous than birds, and they don't fly near airports and they don't form flocks.
Now there will be way more use for small UAV than manned aviation, so one logical thing to do is strictly separate the airspace (400ft- for drones 500ft+ for planes, increase 100ft every 5 years) by preventing manned aircrafts from flying low, in particular on near the coasts, just give them a few dedicated zones for airports and helicopter work, and open most of the rest to unmanned.
0-100 property Owner controlled
100-400 Hobby non-commercial
-400 the FAA does not need to be involved at all
400+ Commercial and this is where the FAA comes in and provides regulations for Commercial UAV and Manned Aircraft to operate in this Commercial Zone
leave us Hobbyist alone.
Maybe we could let quite drones (not sure of the dB at ground level that would be acceptable) fly over cities and that would push the development of quieter flying systems.
Also last I checked no drone I have ever seen is louder than my Lawn Mower, Weed Eater, Snow Blower, Trimmer, leaf Blower, Table Saw, Chop Saw, Metal Grinder, or 100 other pieces of equipment I have that is perfectly legal to use on my property
I can sum this up simply: jerks ruin everything. Drones were unregulated and would remain so, except for people being jerks.
Pilots have areas they can't fly below a certain altitude because the noise would rile up wildlife, like flocks of birds; jerk drone pilots, oblivious to this, started zipping through those areas and national parks, scaring up the wildlife (and annoying people), which led to them being banned around national monuments and parks.
Drones have also interfered with commercial approaches at airports in Class B airports so they became banned around airports, unless permission is granted from the airport. The FAA came out with regs requiring you to register, and you had to make sure you acknowledged that you had to be permission to fly in class B airport, from the airport. Simply stated, it was so that if you were an jerk and your drone crashed, or you injured anyone on the ground they could find you. Seems reasonable to me.
The new regs are just an incremental update. Many flights operate on VFR (Visual Flight Rules), which is basically "see and avoid." Most commercial flights operate in IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) where air traffic control system guarantees you separation from other aircraft. Of course, they can't see small drones on radar, so they can't vector you around them or talk to the drone operator. There was a case where a black hawk was struck by a drone last year, requiring an emergency landing. The NTSB ultimately found the guy through the manufacturers serial number, because he his drone never returned.
There have been many, many bad actors using drones to harass neighbors, spy on women, and it's getting ridiculous. When a licensed pilot has an accident, they know the NTSB and FAA will investigate. You file a safety report and own up to any mistakes, or it will be very bad. The NTSB is very thorough and is primarily interested in keeping future accidents from happening. However, drone pilots run away abandoning their hardware.
I think the next iteration will be drones required to have transponders, so air traffic control can see them, and a pilot who has TCAS can see them also. This just means they will be become more expensive, and over time, hopefully transponders and ancillary avionics will become cheaper on aircraft as these companies push into general aviation.