Representation for Commercial sUAS

filmfly

filmfly

Member
I appreciate the info being shared here and the discussions about what we can do. Yes the FAA's upcoming Notice of Proposed Rule Making shouldn't be a surprise to us, but it could very well be a disappointment. As Old Man indicated, we are likely about to see a primary example of why our industry members need to organize.

Thank you to everyone who has already signed up at ACUAS.org to become an early member of the Association of Commercial Unmanned Aircraft Systems. It's great to see so many of you are eager to see improvements, and right now membership numbers are the first thing we need. I hope to see the rest of you who have posted your interest and support here sign up as well!

We've been working hard to be able to present our message better, and the ACUAS.org website has been updated and expanded! In addition to a new look, it now includes more information about our mission and what we plan to do. Take a look, and please continue to send your ideas on the improvements you would like to see and what you would like ACUAS to do for you.

Also, thank you to all the people who have already volunteered to get involved and contribute! It's exciting to see our momentum grow. Indeed, in addition to building our membership numbers, ACUAS could still use more volunteers and partners. Check out the volunteer section on the website, or just drop me a line at david@acuas.org if you can help in any way.
 



Av8Chuck

Av8Chuck

Member
The entire appeal rested on the definition of "aircraft" and whether Pirker violated the all encompassing catchall for the FAA "safety" of others. There are a couple of interesting issues with this, now the judge has to determine if any of the flight was conduct in an unsafe way, they provided some specifics of flying under a crane, in a tunnel with moving cars, and that someone walking on a sidewalk had to move in fear of being hit, all of which could be dangerous and they could equally have been conducted safely. I wouldn't want to be Pirker in this case, there's a lot of cover-your-a$$ going on here...

I think since people who want to fly sUAS commercially aren't willing to stand up for their own rights, we're screwed anyway, but an interesting aspect to this ruling is its definition of "Aircraft," the part of our community who is really getting hammered here is the hobbyist.

The law is a bit like statistics, they will continue to parse every word until they get the law to be what they want it to be and do it as many times as necessary.

This sucks on so many levels...
 

J

jdennings

Member
Yep.
What's interesting is that the NTSB decision says nothing about commercial vs non-commercial. The only thing it does is affirm that the Zephyr was aircraft per FAA
definition of “a device that is used or intended to be used for flight in the air.”

So is my boomerang and the paper airplane I may have flown this morning ... Now also subject to the FAA's whim, along with every single model aircraft flown in the US.

The legal battle will continue ...

​
 


Old Man

Old Man

Active Member
We are being told what this administration has been telling us through their actions for the last 6 years; that the government in omnipotent, above the law, and it can do whatever it wants to whenever it wants to. Many that have been in business and gone to courts to collect money from contract defaults learned this a long time ago and it comes down to the "Golden Rule" The man with the gold makes the rles and our government can "print" as much money as it needs to battle you in court. You'll go broke long before you case is heard, let alone adjudicates. That the NTSB appeal went on favor of the FAA should come as no surprise. Those researching the number of times where the NTSB did not ultimately side with the FAA in the appeal are very, very few.

The dangerous part of this ruling is the broad authority the FAA was granted in defining aircraft, operations and airspace. A question above referenced paper airplanes and boomerangs. With the language exposed so far the answer to your question would be yes, they are airplanes. If it moves through the air independent of a physical attachment to a device on the ground, it's now an airplane. Stand by for a little bit and watch the FAA language end up redefined as "air vehicle". The big UAV outfits have been calling their stuff by that name for quite some time, and those companies are the ones in the background calling the shots the government is listening to.

FYI, Trappy can appeal this decision should he elect to obtain continued representation but the fight gets real tough from here on. OTH, my personal opinion has Trappy acting pretty much an a$$ in most everything flight activity he has participated in while in our country and that he in some ways single handedly started the war for airspace a lot sooner than it would have happened had he stayed in Switzerland.

For the rest of us, take a look at our national seal. The one with an eagle having a claw full of arrows. The message there is "united we stand". If we think we can deal with this as individuals and not as a large, organized body, we'll all learn the accuracy of the cliche' "divided we fall".
 



Av8Chuck

Av8Chuck

Member

Pirker’s attorney, Brendan Schulman’s comment on the decision was:

"While we disagree with the decision, today’s NTSB ruling in the Pirker case is narrowly limited to whether unmanned aircraft systems are subject to an aviation safety regulation concerning reckless operation, an issue that the NTSB has said requires further factual investigation before a penalty is imposed. The more significant question of whether the safe operation of drones for business purposes is prohibited by any law was not addressed in the decision, and is currently pending before the D.C. Circuit in other cases being handled by Kramer Levin. We are reviewing the options for our next steps in the Pirker case."
 

J

jdennings

Member
Gary Mortimer said:
Well said OM
Click to expand...

+1.
What baffles me with this NTSB decision is the following: let's ignore for a moment the inherent absurdity of interpreting *any* "device that is used or intended to be used for flight in the air" as aircraft, and agree with it at face value, fwiw, along with the FAA and NTSB view that as such they are subject to all applicable FARs.

Now one of these these forbids said aircraft to be flown "in a careless or reckless" manner, the actual FAA point of contention.
Ok, fine.

Now if I apply the exact same FAA or NTSB line of reasoning and ask myself, as a good law abiding citizen, what I can or cannot legally do when I want to throw or "fly" my boomerang, paper airplane, frisbee or god forbid, model airplane or "drone", commercially or not, I also find that one of the applicable FARs also forbids aircraft to be flown under 500 feet.

Now what? Doesn't it now follow that I cannot fly *anything* whatsoever? Anything?

Somewhere, somehow, there has got to be a legal argument destroying the FAA case based around this contradiction and absurdity. It was used in the original motion to dismiss, but obviously it was not enough.

Or maybe I am just a wishful thinker ...
 

Av8Chuck

Av8Chuck

Member
I pointed this out in the other thread talking about this case:

"The trouble for hobbyists is the definition of "Aircraft" now includes "model aircraft" and it spells out the applicability of this definition. So this means that with respect to careless operation model aircraft are regulated under part 91, which in part states that you can't fly within 500ft of a person or property, yet Advisory Circular 91-57 outlines, and encourages voluntary compliance with, safety standards for model aircraft operators. The advisory circular directs such operators, for example, not to fly model aircraft higher than 400 feet above the surface."

So which is it?
 

G

Gary Mortimer

Member
Don't forget AC 91-57 was withdrawn by mistake early, expect to see it go now http://www.suasnews.com/2014/10/31737/ac-91-57-cancelled-model-aircraft-operating-standards/ All this has been coming since 2007, nobody there got organised and too many check points have been passed without complaint. Look what the UK FPV guys did they started with reall strict rules and as they have made safety cases each year the limits have been lifted. The USA is trying to start on day 1 with Global Hawk to Ladybird having regs instead of starting small and ironing out the wrinkles. The FAA has refused data from the rest of the world BTW.
 

Old Man

Old Man

Active Member
Making that worse is high dollar sUAS being about as safe and dependable as giant scale RC aircraft. For some classes (Tier 1 and 2) of commercial sUAS they are considerably less reliable than RC. For the giant scale RC enthusiast their planes typically crash because they pushed the limits of their own ability to control the craft in extreme flight maneuvers. For the big dollar outfits the crashes are due about 50% to equipment failures. However, the companies pushing for the regulations are concealing their true flight safety data.
 


gtranquilla

gtranquilla

RadioActive
"The FAA believes Mr. Pirker operated a UAS in a careless or reckless manner, and that the proposed civil penalty should stand.
Use of the term "belief" does not make for a strong case IMHO.
A judge wants to hear the term "convinced based on supporting evidence!".
Size, weight and speed of an sUAV has an influence on an individuals belief perception.
 

Old Man

Old Man

Active Member
That's one of the problems with the FAR's. Many, many of them are open to interpretation, which frequently differs between people on various sides of the activity in question. Law is supposed to be literal, which the basis of many FAR's are far outside of. Anytime someone can be taken to court and win a case that later goes to another court closely associated with the first court you can expect problems in conflicts of interest. To make that as bad as it can get is to open up the legal definition process of the final court to personal opinion. "Careless and reckless manner" is one of those terms completely open to individual opinion. Although common sense should come into play such thought processes are not recognized in law. Instead, things like "reasonable and customary", "actions of a reasonable man", etc., are what is used to define. They use things like angle of bank and climb to separate "normal" flight from "aerobatic", but when could either become deemed reckless? back to opinion.

I do believe Trappy is getting everything he deserves in this because he did, IMO, put people at risk in many of his activities. Trappy has never been about anything other than Trappy's self aggrandizement. Unfortunately the real effects of what he has done will be impacting the rest of the country for a great many years to come. A lot of people will be put out of business, a great many more will find their investments in time and equipment rendered valueless, and even more will find their hobby activities restricted forever. Pirker is for all intents and purposes, the founding father of the Phantom Menace Thoughtless Aviator group, and the harbinger of doom for aero modeling.
 

Old Man

Old Man

Active Member
Most of us have at some point complained about "this and that" relative to the FAA and upcoming regulations. What we haven't done a lot of is put to print our thoughts about what would or could be realistic and reasonable regulations for us to operate under. I'd like to expand on that a bit and see what our community thinks about how we might police ourselves if such were to be permitted. Of course that won't happen but the dialog could provide a lot of points to be used for discussion with federal officials when the NPRM comes about.

This kind of a discussion needs to cover a lot of topics. we have airspace, operator and maintainer training, record keeping, safety of the public, interaction with other aircraft, communications, medical certification?, and other areas that will need to be addressed. Not discussing this stuff will have us totally unprepared when the NPRM comment period is upon us. If you would, might you preface your input of a regulatory topic with a bold type identifier like I'll do below? The purpose is to permit easier topic recognition later.

Medical Certification
I'll start with a teaser that's certain to initiate some level of discourse with medical certification. I believe that anyone that will operate commercially should be found medically sound enough for all to be reasonably certain they aren't going to fall over on their face when flying sUAS. This implies meeting one of the current levels of FAA medical certification. I think the Class III (private Pilot) is enough but there is room to argue the Class II (Commercial Pilot) could be more appropriate.
 

pepper

pepper

Member
On the medical I will have to disagree. a person can get a LSA pilots license with no medical. granted no LSA pilot can operate commercially, it shows people are capable of operating an aircraft without the need of a medical. only a valid drivers license. even my class III is nothing more than read the chart and a tap on the knee. well, until I get over 40.
on the flip side, my my skydiving community, our tandem instructors are required to have a class III medical. I know paraplegic people that will not qualify for a Class III yet are very capable of flying commercially sUAV's.

I will say that there does need to be some sort of rating/training for commercial operations. as a pilot I understand airspace, weather, obstacles, and some of the FAR's. as a sUAV pilot it comes in handy knowing certain things as well as being safe in the air. there is no way I wasn't a sUAV flown while I'm taking off or on final. UNLESS it has been pre-planned.

but that's my opinion which is subject to change. :)
 

R

Ronan

Member
Well both my main clients have bailed after this recent 'turn of event'. They don't want to be bothered by the FAA.

Guess we aren't doing Christmas here at this pace!... It's back doing door to door for now...

Geez, the FAA could at least have the decency to let us pass certification... Meanwhile in UK, France, Canada, rest of the world... sUAV Business's are growing insanely quick...
 

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