Fox news report Drone Invasion



Ronan

Member
My keyboard hates Fox News... they made me slam my head into it multiple times...

picard-facepalm.jpg
 

TahoeTim

Member
What part of the video wasn't true? I am a private pilot and have flown rc aircraft since I was a kid. I am into drones now and am concerned about the freedom of where we can fly them. No longer do I need to join a club nor do I have to go to a flying field. That makes our sport a target to unskilled people with more money than brains to buy one and ruin it for all of us. A couple of people I know locally own Fpv phantoms and they have no prior rc experience. It's true that the majority of these pilots will quickly crash and leave the sport but at what cost to the drone reputation?

Don't get me wrong. I hate regulations, especially the FAA but a little control is needed I'm afraid.
 

Old Man

Active Member
Ed,

I don't disagree with you but based on some of what I've been hearing, we may be facing a lot of control. The poor regular RC guy may end up taking a super hit for something they've no responsibility for and end up only being able to fly at AMA sanctioned, meaning club, fields. From what I've heard, FPV will be over. No line of sight limitations, just over. We can blame it on Trappy, we can blame it on the Phantom menace, but neither would be the true cause. It's going to be about control of the public, and letting some big money players make a lot more big money that will make the circle of money that all those involved grab from continue to go round and round.

It doesn't matter which one people join but I most strongly suggest everyone become a member of some organization that professes to be a spokes body for out craft and hobby. Very shortly the lack of organization will be what closes the door on much of what we do. All those groups need to come together to make a voting block large enough to be noticed by all sitting in office.
 

FerdinandK

Member
What causes more danger?

People with more money than brain buying a car, a gun or a phantom?
Guns are legal phantoms are not?

The biggest danger for Multirotor hobby are people talking about regulating other people, but this is not limited to Multirotors.

best regards
Ferdinand
 
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Old Man

Active Member
Ferdinand,

There's one basic premise that has held true forever. Guns don't kill people, people do. It would be appreciated if you left firearms ownership out of multirotor discussions.

As for regulations, where reasonable and intelligent people are concerned education should be capable of minimizing risk but as has been so well proven we are frequently not dealing with reasonable and intelligent people. So we have come up against far too many situations where the actions of one have threatened the safety of many. Hence a need for some level of regulation AND education. Since the sellers have done nothing to effectively educate their customers and social media has done little to expand safety awareness the task unfortunately falls to someone else to do the dirty work.

In our country we have two other issues to deal with. Over regulation through over reaction and corporate profit motifs. Unfortunately the latter also influences the former since the profit motifs of large aerospace corporations help feed the regulators (government) that seek total control of the people that elect them. Some may find that allegation far fetched but all the supportive proof needed to validate can be found in the massive increase in citizen surveillance and data acquisition. Completely in violation of our Constitution in this country but that fact is being ignored by the politicians and the courts. sUAS are perfect tools for such activities, and have been used heavily for this purpose all over the world. I know this to be true because I have been part of those activities. For the record, I'm also quite biased in favor private citizen firearms ownership.

All that could bring us back to guns and the need to make them socially unacceptable in order to ease passage of legislation to take them away from the public. A government cannot have total control of the population until the population is disarmed. That has been well established world wide. From there we could easily get into government conspiracy theories, where, unfortunately, this country has been seeing too many "theories" experiencing complete validation. Government does not like competition, nor do large corporate revenue generating activities, and heavily regulating the people's use of airspace activities serves both entities perfectly. Make the regulations difficult to achieve and only those with the resources available to comply will have that cake, and eat it too.
 
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TahoeTim

Member
I see the safety issue secondary to the privacy issue. I don't want my neighbors filming in my yard but the pro want to take real estate videos. The solution is to let the neighbors know when you are going to film. However, no one wants to take the time to be courteous.
 

Av8Chuck

Member
This was not a "Fox New Production," it was a local fox affiliate production that was done pretty well.

The issue isn't whether drones are going to be regulated, its how and who gets to do the regulation and for what reasons particular regulations get implemented. What influence does an individual drone pilot have on that regulatory process? I'm guessing based on the response from drone enthusiasts that they either believe this will not effect them or they will have no effect, so why bother. Either way doesn't bode well for the future of of this hobby or profession.

You can't be a chimp and do business with a gorilla. In this analogy the FAA and large DoD contractors are the gorillas and we are the chimps. What does it take to become a gorilla? We can become a sovereign nation, form our own government and make our own rules. We can become a large multinational corporation with enough influence to gain access to the FAA rules committee. Or if we want to have any hope of influencing this process all of the individuals who feel compelled to post and comment on threads like this one could/should join together so that all of those individual voices become part of a large group.

Go join ACUAS.org, help them add your voice to the regulatory process.
 

Av8Chuck

Member
I see the safety issue secondary to the privacy issue. I don't want my neighbors filming in my yard but the pro want to take real estate videos. The solution is to let the neighbors know when you are going to film. However, no one wants to take the time to be courteous.

When did the FAA become the regulatory body for privacy issues? What gives the FAA the right to define privacy and what mechanism do they have to enforce their version of privacy?
 

OneStopRC

Dirty Little Hucker
In reality, if privacy is a concern of the masses, they need to look around them. Traffic signals have cameras on them, interstates, hotels and much more.

The cameras are something the media is playing on, just to make the drone sound worse than it is. What they failed to mention is, how loud these drones are. It is not like someone is going to be perving through a window at someone. Besides all that, what do people have to hide?
 

Ronan

Member
When did the FAA become the regulatory body for privacy issues? What gives the FAA the right to define privacy and what mechanism do they have to enforce their version of privacy?

FAA is a federal agency, so they have all the rights.

They can dictate, without passing anything through congress or a legal body:
Where you can fly anything.
If you can fly anything.
If you can make money from flying anything.
If what you fly is safe (they decide).

They can do more than that of course. But that's pretty much how the FAA acts, or at minimum, is perceived by people based on FAA history, actions and what it feeds the media.

To me, living in a apartment complex next to the water, 2 minutes from downtown Annapolis, it's alright to have single engine airplanes fly under 400 feet pulling giant ad banners over residential area's, police helicopter flying under 400 feet at which ever time they want (they woke us up this Sunday, at around 7am), almost buzzing some of the taller tree's in the area. That's perfectly fine, safe and acceptable to the FAA.

But if i want to charge money for my work (aerial imagery utilizing the latest in sUAV's, everything in complete safety, always under 400 feet), suddenly i'm breaking the law. Which law i don't know, no one at the FAA has ever been able to tell me, or the police when they snoop around. But my business, my employee's and myself, are treated as criminals, at at least at suspects.

Something smells fishy... hmnn... I also can't stand the media reporting 'drone invasion' and other headlines to catch people's attention, or make a small news into something overblown. It's unprofessional and disgraceful...
 
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maxwelltub

Member
also for the record, my main issue was with the style of editing. I wanted to vomit. I wont comment on the rest because its all been said
 

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