Think about what your really saying, force people who take this seriously as a profession to pay a lot to purchase certified MR's and to get certified but allow idiots like this to do what they want. Why, because we get paid.
That's "performance punishment and non performance rewarding." Its A$$ backwards.
How many on this forum who want to make a living doing AP would launch in the middle of a crowd? Interesting thing is, as insane as this is according to the most recent interpretation of the hobby of sUAS's as long as that guy wasn't doing it commercially, just for the passion of it he may not have even broken the rules. But if I'm in the middle of a 40 acre ranch shooting aerial commercially I'm breaking the law.
So clearly what's happening isn't about safety nor are they employing common sense.
+1!
It's also interesting, I think, that normal people don't seem to recognize the danger in these things at all, as evidenced by this video. I went to Sparkfun Autonomous Vehicle Competition last month. I was having trouble with the yaw control of my heli. So I was working on it in the pits, and took the main blades off. I took it out to a clear area just outside the tent, and spun it up so I could see what was going on with the tail system. Immediately all these people gathered around to see what I was doing, and were standing way too close. I was not in a good mood and had to growl at them to stand back. I was seriously annoyed... why do you guys stand within 5 feet of a guy swinging a blender on a stick around?
And that's where the rest of your post really comes into play. I took the main blades off, and attempted to work in a safe way. I never fly near people. In fact, after I fixed the problem, I went for some test flights (it's just a 500, bad enough but not TOO bad). I kept walking out away from people (>200 feet) . And people kept walking through the area so I didn't fly. I had to keep moving. I ended up having to walk way far away, and just did a quick test at low altitude.
But, since I'd had a problem, and was not confident in the reliability of the system, I retired from the competition. I flew all the way to Colorado for this competition, and I didn't fly in it at all. Because I didn't think the system was proven reliable enough yet. It wasn't worth the risk.
Yet, I am having trouble getting UAV insurance, because they are afraid of the fact that I am a "Developer". One of them actually said that 'if he was using a proven system like a Phantom'... How sad is that?
