keensg
President, geoResource Technologies, Inc.
I was at a public meeting on the use of drones last night and it occurred to me that the FAA is going about the regulation of drones in entirely the wrong way. With 80% of people in favor of using drones for conservation and less than 30% in favor of using drones for law enforcement, why is the FAA regulating the drone hardware and flight parameters rather than specific uses?
Two DJI S900 flying a grid pattern at 200 feet carrying a Sony Nex-7, during daylight and in line-of-sight, by a trained operator for commercial purposes is identical in the eyes of the FAA - regardless if one is mapping the migration patterns of the Painted Turtle with the aim of saving an endangered species and the other is flown by a private investigator spying on you. But the public sees those two uses as vastly different.
The danger is, if we are not careful, that the concern for the unpopular uses of drones may sweep away all the good uses in a backlash against the technology. Towns are already regulating the use of drones on a local level, out of a concern for privacy and they generally do not have any caveats for beneficial uses.
At the meeting, the over-riding concern was for privacy rights and private property rights. These are legitimate concerns - but why should the conservationist (or educator, or farmer, or engineer) suffer for the sins of the private investigator (insert your own bad-guy here)?
One of the concerns of the meeting, was the whole drone regulation debate being grabbed by large (read: military hardware) companies in an aim to monetize an aerial highway system but walking all over the private property rights of individuals with scant concern for individual privacy rights. I am used to being an apologist for the military use of drones (which I am against), but do I now need to also defend my (beneficial) drone usage against billion dollar companies who only care about money - or am I being too sensitive?
If the FAA primarily regulated drones related to their usage (say a list of approved uses) and secondarily by safety and flight parameters, I would not feel the need to the defend beneficial uses of drone technology because people are already on my side. I know, I know - the public comment period for draft FAA regulations is open.
Well I am off to fly a mission to save baby orphan penguins and film them with kittens playing with string and put the video on YouTube.
Two DJI S900 flying a grid pattern at 200 feet carrying a Sony Nex-7, during daylight and in line-of-sight, by a trained operator for commercial purposes is identical in the eyes of the FAA - regardless if one is mapping the migration patterns of the Painted Turtle with the aim of saving an endangered species and the other is flown by a private investigator spying on you. But the public sees those two uses as vastly different.
The danger is, if we are not careful, that the concern for the unpopular uses of drones may sweep away all the good uses in a backlash against the technology. Towns are already regulating the use of drones on a local level, out of a concern for privacy and they generally do not have any caveats for beneficial uses.
At the meeting, the over-riding concern was for privacy rights and private property rights. These are legitimate concerns - but why should the conservationist (or educator, or farmer, or engineer) suffer for the sins of the private investigator (insert your own bad-guy here)?
One of the concerns of the meeting, was the whole drone regulation debate being grabbed by large (read: military hardware) companies in an aim to monetize an aerial highway system but walking all over the private property rights of individuals with scant concern for individual privacy rights. I am used to being an apologist for the military use of drones (which I am against), but do I now need to also defend my (beneficial) drone usage against billion dollar companies who only care about money - or am I being too sensitive?
If the FAA primarily regulated drones related to their usage (say a list of approved uses) and secondarily by safety and flight parameters, I would not feel the need to the defend beneficial uses of drone technology because people are already on my side. I know, I know - the public comment period for draft FAA regulations is open.
Well I am off to fly a mission to save baby orphan penguins and film them with kittens playing with string and put the video on YouTube.