FAA Taking a Look At News Corp's Use of Drone

nonprofiteer writes "The News Corp iPad newspaper has a drone they've been using for news gathering — mainly flying it over disaster zones in N. Dakota and Alabama. However, FAA regulations on drones are very restrictive at the moment, and they're not supposed to be used for commercial purposes (law enforcement is free to use them). The FAA is now examining The Daily's use of its drone. Could this set a precedent for how private businesses can use drones?"

Comments

FAA Shutdown

[MindStalker]

Hold on, I thought News Corp has effectively shut down the FAA and they were running just essential safety services.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[faedle]

Yes. And what do you think investigating the safety of unlicensed aircraft falls under?

Re:FAA Shutdown

[PopeRatzo]

Yes. And what do you think investigating the safety of unlicensed aircraft falls under?

Not only that, but the FAA employees who are still on the job keeping the public safe in the air, are doing so at their own expense. As in, "not getting paid".

Interesting how public employees are often characterized as "mooches" and "leeches". I wonder how many members of the Tea Party (at least the few who are not on Social Security or disability) would ever put in a day's work for free.

These FAA employees are what's known as "public servants" and they are apparently more honorable than the Republican senators who ran out of town on vacation rather than fund the agency whose job is regulating air traffic and air safety.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[OverkillTASF]

I'm a fan of the Tea Party (I won't go so far as to call myself a member, since it's kind of like Anonymous in that regard... It is what you want it to be) and I've done more free work at my current job than I care to think about. I've also volunteered quite a bit of my time to causes slightly more important than my job. I have a feeling that if I thought my job was keeping planes from falling out of the sky, I'd probably keep doing it through a "blip" in my paycheck. Also, if I thought I would be potentially fired on the resumption of my pay. Would you really be comfortable walking away from your job just because the pay stopped temporarily? Don't pretend that wouldn't be held against you...

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Ceiynt]

I'm an air traffic controller in the US. We're getting paid. It's our support and design engineer people that got hosed, as they are paid out of the unfunded trust fund thing, not controllers. Controllers and admin are paid under the regular payroll budget. About 7000 or so FAA employees are on unpaid furlough, and about 10000 contractors are without contract. It basically affects projects to expand or renovate airports. As to the "not getting paid" part, when the federal government almost went on furlough earlier this year, we(controllers) would have been working without pay.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Anonymous Coward]

How did News Corp shutdown the FAA? It is the politicians refusing to come to a vote on an FAA budget that has part of the FAA shutdown.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a feeling that if I thought my job was keeping planes from falling out of the sky, I'd probably keep doing it through a "blip" in my paycheck.

And this is where people get you.

"Your job is important and saves lives. We're gonna cut your pay."
"Well I'll quit then."
"You don't consider saving lives more important than money?"
"I do. I guess I'll keep working for lower pay."
"Alright, we'll see you in a few months when we cut your pay again."

If a job is so important that it would cost lives if people went on strike or quit, why are you messing with their pay in the first place? Why aren't they being paid an INCREDIBLE amount, equivalent to at least, I dunno, an entertainer?

I'm pretty sure the work that any competent FAA employee is worth more than a vast majority of sports stars, popular movie/television stars, popular musicians, and other celebrity figures. And yet they get paid a pittance in comparison.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[phantomfive]

Would you really be comfortable walking away from your job just because the pay stopped temporarily?

Yes. I can't speak for other industries, but as a programmer, if a company can't pay me, I take it as a bad sign and immediately start looking for another job. Employers like that just abuse you and take advantage.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[jhoegl]

Ah, so you like it when the employer has so much power over you that you wouldnt chance being fired. Instead, working long late night hours at the expense of your sanity, your family, and your friends?
While they get to go home, enjoy their friends, family, and insanity of having a fully stocked fridge of Grey Goose.
GG sir, you have been sold the "american dream", except you arent living it, you are just dreaming it...

Re:FAA Shutdown

[PopeRatzo]

'm a fan of the Tea Party

That's fine, but could you please try not to fuck things up for the majority of the country while you're at it?

Would you really be comfortable walking away from your job just because the pay stopped temporarily?

You might feel differently if you had a family to support.

And you might feel differently if you were ever asked to work without a paycheck for a month or more, as the employees of the FAA are doing. I'm not talking about going into the office a few weekends to finish a project and still getting you check every two weeks on schedule, I'm talking about "You're not getting paid at all, and by the way, you no longer have the right to bargain collectively, which is the very thing that made the United States into a 20th century superpower and created a growing (at the time) middle class and brought prosperity and upward mobility to hundreds of millions of people in the last 75 years of the twentieth century before Ronald Reagan decided to treat air traffic controllers the same way he later treated his diapers.

By the way, this was only 18 months after Ronald Reagan had asked for the support of the air traffic controller union, promising to fight for their rights to collectively bargain and to give them what they were fighting for in their contract dispute. He told them that in writing, too. Not surprisingly, the letter to PATCO (the air traffic controller union) did not make it into the Reagan Library, though a copy exists (or maybe the original) at the Labor & Industry Museum.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[utkonos]

You're all really funny people! Obviously you have only worked in the US or in the west. Go to Russia or Ukraine or anywhere in the former soviet bloc. You won't find any employers who pay on time every time. You only option is to go to a different employer who will also be iffy on paying on time. The problem is that most of your salary is "chyorny" meaning black: not taxed and not reported in the company's clean books (every company in Russia has two sets of books, one for the government and the other with the true numbers in it). Often because of the nature of black salary it is handed to you in an envelope filled with cash. So, therefore there is not always enough cold hard cash to pay everyone on time. It is not uncommon for the accountant to go to the local Sberbank and even though her account has more than enough money, the bank does not have the cash for the withdrawal.

Americans are spoiled by being paid on time more times than not.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[utkonos]

Not to mention Ukraine, where the Hrivnya (local currency) is so unstable that your employer pays you in $100 bills. Yes, that's USD. Ukraine effectively runs on the USD, only Benjamins, BTW. So, when you get paid, you have to take your money to an exchange to get it turned into Hryvnya, and guess what? On Fridays there is no money in the exchange.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Larryish]

Drone?

As in, Glen Beck?

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Chibi Merrow]

Thanks for mentioning us contractors, most of the news stories don't seem to care much about us...

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Hylandr]

So why aren't you in line with your app?

- Dan.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[hairyfeet]

Question: If your money is THAT unstable, and they are already paying you in USD, then why isn't everyone just using USD? It seems like the logical thing to do and it wouldn't be the first time a non US country has used USD, usually because of the same thing you're going through.

As for TFA they really need to nip this shit in the bud, because we ALL know what will happen if they allow this. The next thing we hear will be some chopper or piper cub will end up crashing because some drone was chasing Titney Spears and didn't notice the plane it was heading straight towards while trying to get some great tit shots for the cover of the rag mag.

Sadly I'd say a good 85%+ of the media in the USA right now is celebrity chasers and something like this, where they would have the ultimate "electric eye" to spy on when Lohan falls of the wagon or the next reality star pukes in front of some club? Oh yeah no risk of abuse with THAT idea.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Chibi Merrow]

And you might feel differently if you were ever asked to work without a paycheck for a month or more, as the employees of the FAA are doing.

Just to be clear, only 40 FAA employees have been asked to work without pay. The rest (who weren't involved in critical safety ops) weren't even given the option and were sent home. Those 40 will be paid once this is all worked out, and they will not under any circumstances walk off the job because they fought tooth and nail to get that position. We've lost a few of our best pilots in the past because they immediately jumped at the chance to work as a safety inspector, and if any of these guys walked off the job there is a line a mile long of people waiting to take their place and work for free on the hope they'd get repaid when things go back to normal.

Yes, I am serious, this is how hard people actually fight for those particular jobs.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[The1stImmortal]

So now that USD isn't too stable either, the Ukraine will be switching to Euro?

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Wild_dog!]

I thought it was 70k contractors. I know that the ones where I live are not working and this is during the best time of year to finish up. We have 6 months of snow on the ground and it isn''t so lovely to work in the winter conditions.

I wish congress would get off their lard-donkeys and get to work for those who need the work at this critical time. They need to get their pay cut until they fix this mess.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Frangible]

Actually I can assure you that here in the good ol' USA not getting paid on time is pretty common. Even though it's technically illegal and the employer owes you penalty wages. (what are you going to do, sue them? when they have no cash to pay you in the first place?)

Not saying it's as bad as Russia, but I've been hit by it personally more than once.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[hedwards]

It's illegal to work off the clock around here, and with good reason. If they don't pay you file a complaint with the relevant agency and get your money, or at least a lien or some other guarantee of being paid. Working for free is really, really bad and it shows a certain lack of respect for your time and the well being of workers in general.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[hedwards]

To be honest, when I started reading about that I became quite happy that I no longer fly. I'm not concerned with controllers purposely doing a half assed job, I just know what it's like to work the same job even as the resources to do it get cut and mistakes are more or less inevitable when that happens.

The amount of work and the standards don't necessarily decrease just because the funding does.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[MichaelSmith]

And you might feel differently if you were ever asked to work without a paycheck for a month or more, as the employees of the FAA are doing.

Just to be clear, only 40 FAA employees have been asked to work without pay. The rest (who weren't involved in critical safety ops) .

I think its pretty horrifying that the US federal Government is going to operate with volunteer safety inspectors. Surely the only safe way to proceed would be to shut down aviation, or pay their people.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[moortak]

With the situations in Greece, Portugal, and Ireland the Euro isn't at its most stable either.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Serpents]

Not to troll but if it goes on like this the safest option to travel across the US will be by car or train. And if other countries become concerned with degrading safety of US airlines it'll be ships for you if you want to go to Europe... Seriously guys, why don't you just vote all those idiots from their offices? You're a democracy, aren't you?

Re:FAA Shutdown

[VJ42]

Would you really be comfortable walking away from your job just because the pay stopped temporarily? Don't pretend that wouldn't be held against you...

I'd sue for Constructive dismissal, but then I live in the UK where we actually have some employment rights.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[stiggle]

Until the government changes and re-prioritises its spending & services. Then you're privatised out and have to reapply for your old job through a contracting agency as the new organisation doesn't want any permanent employees to cut the benefits they need to provide them.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[PopeRatzo]

You're a democracy, aren't you?

You're joking, aren't you?

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Serpents]

I should have written "some of your politicians claim US is a democracy". Still, some people believe it...

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Anonymous Coward]

a) The tea party isn't like anonymous. First if all it is a registered, organized political party that claims their platform is based on reduction of government spending. In reality the tea party is more like lulzsec: a bunch of teenage 'anarchists' that are 'doing it for the lulz' b) This isn't the same as doing your job through a blip, this is paying to do your job despite your employer being incredibly negligent and incapable of doing their own jobs. These FAA folks aren't just taking one for the team, they are paying their own airfare and expenses to do the job. c) You would think the least the commercial airlines could do is belly up some free flights for them, since it is their customers and their planes the FAA is protecting. Where's that self regulating free market I was promised?

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Dog-Cow]

Russian roulette could also be a multi-billion $ industry.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[tehcyder]

Would you really be comfortable walking away from your job just because the pay stopped temporarily?

Yes. Only a moron wouldn't.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[GooberToo]

at their own expense. As in, "not getting paid".

As in will get back pay.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[therealkevinkretz]

"That's fine, but could you please try not to fuck things up for the majority of the country while you're at it?"

Give me a fucking break. Next year's spending will be about $200B lower, making a small dent in a *deficit* of $1600B. 2021's projected budget will now be $5.3 trillion instead of $5.5 trillion, lowering by about $200B the projected *increase* from today of $2 trillion.

Nothing's getting "fucked up". These are not even "cuts" in spending - they're minor reductions in the rate of growth of spending - and frankly, not enough to fix our economic problems. Before your mouth starts watering thinking about punishing the "rich", confiscating *all* taxable income of everyone making $114,000 and above (which isn't "rich") still wouldn't eliminate the defict.

Spending is the problem. Pointing out and fighting to fix it isn't "fuck[ing] things up for the majority". Spending more and more, year in and year out, in good economic times and bad, is what's fucking things up.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[KeensMustard]

I'm a fan of the Tea Party (I won't go so far as to call myself a member, since it's kind of like Anonymous in that regard... It is what you want it to be)

Well, it isn't "what you want it to be". What it is is a PR campaign, conceived by a PR company, and funded and some very rich and powerful people, for the purposes of ensuring that their agenda steers America. And that agenda is to keep grinding the poor and middle classes into the dust while ensuring that cooperations pay no taxes and get access to lucrative government work - funded by the poor and middle classes. Reverse wealth re-distribution. When the Tea Party says "we want the government out of our pockets" by our they mean cooperations - and when they say "we want the government out of our lives" they mean they want private cooperations to provide the services that would otherwise provided by the government - they want those contracts. They cherry pick from US history (and whose history could not be cherry picked to tell whatever story you wanted?) to create the illusion that this was the society envisioned by Americas founding fathers. And they carefully construct an illusion that makes the Tea Party seem like a party of scrappers, of ordinary folk espousing the ideals of ordinary folk, when really, those people are just unpaid advertisers of big business and continuing the status quo, while America sinks.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[GameboyRMH]

I know! And also selling voyeur cam pics of people inside their own homes! We should get rid of privacy laws, it's so 1980s! Won't somebody think of the shareholders?

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Chibi Merrow]

Oh I agree. The Senate should have funded the FAA, no question. But I just wanted to make sure no one thought that thousands of FAA workers were being forced to work without pay.

No, instead, they're collecting unemployment checks... So they get paid less money at a greater cost to the taxpayer for no value being created. WTG Congress.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[yt8znu35]

The FAA battle is about union busting, a mainstay of your Teabagger buddies. I guess expecting public employees to work for free is the logical next step in the minds of Teabaggers.

If every FAA employee not getting paid would cease reporting to work and seek other employment, the matter would be resolved much faster.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[JoeMerchant]

Why aren't they being paid an INCREDIBLE amount, equivalent to at least, I dunno, an entertainer?

Start with the fact that there are hundreds of Government employees for every (highly paid) entertainer.

You can continue with the risk vs reward aspect where most entertainer wannabes are out there waiting tables, painting houses and mowing lawns while they wait for their "Terry Fator" moment to happen, and they're more likely to win the lottery playing once a week than they are to ever get his lucky break, regardless of how talented they are.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[JWW]

I agree that what it is now is a PR campaign. Thats not what it used to be, but that is what it is now.

I have no time for a "fiscally conservative" Tea Party that won't even look at cutting defense spending and is too scared to propose real meaningful reform of Social Security and Medicare.

I am downright outraged at the new Tea Party litmus tests for "socially conservative" policies. The Tea Party was intially all about spending because really, in the end that all that matters. But now they're all cowtowing to the old neocon social values.

The Tea Party was hijacked by the last remaining vestiges of the neocons. But it did start out as a movement attempting to put the breaks on the runaway spending of TARP and Obama's stimulus. It's just not that anymore.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Cyberax]

Stop spewing crap.

First, the days of delayed salary are gone. Now it's incredibly easy for a worker to get salary from their employer, even if it bankrupts the employer.

Second, double bookkeeping in Russia is essentially gone now. Mostly because it's ridiculously easy to detect.

Third, Hryvnia (UAH) is fairly stable against the USD. It crashed exactly once in 10 years, because of the global financial crisis. Certainly, most organizations don't pay their workers in USDs. Why would they? You can't spend USD in Ukraine without exchanging them into UAH and employer can generally negotiate substantially better rate than at street currency exchanges.

PS: I'm an employer in Ukraine. And yes, I pay salary on time. No, it's not "black" salary.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[geekoid]

A blip? you mean 2-3 months worth of pay. I guarantee you they don't make enough money the rest of the year to consider that a 'blip'. how rude.

" I've done more free work at my current job t"
liar.

" I've also volunteered quite a bit of my time to causes slightly more important than my job"
irrelevant to the topic.

If your boss said you won't get paid for 3 months, would you continue to work your 8-16 hours a day?

Would any of the pilot? attendants?

" Don't pretend that wouldn't be held against you..."

So your argument is slavery is OK if there aren't any other 'jobs'?

Re:FAA Shutdown

[geekoid]

If you take into account entertainers the make more then most government employees, it's no where near 100 1.

A mediocre juggler can make 6 figures.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[kilfarsnar]

I have a feeling that if I thought my job was keeping planes from falling out of the sky, I'd probably keep doing it through a "blip" in my paycheck. Also, if I thought I would be potentially fired on the resumption of my pay. Would you really be comfortable walking away from your job just because the pay stopped temporarily? Don't pretend that wouldn't be held against you...

I agree, you are correct. But this is really one-sided. At any job, I trade my labor for money. From the employers' point of view, no labor, no money. I don't get paid if I don't work! But then you have situations in which the employer expects labor for no money. It's not just this one, I have heard of many. And like you say, if you refuse, once things are back to normal you're fired; for not working for free!

Re:FAA Shutdown

[geekoid]

" they fought tooth and nail to get that position. "

og, well. Then it's fine for them to not get paid while congress is on vacation. What could go wrong.

Now, if only a plane full of Tea Party 'leaders' would crash into Glenn Becks house, all would be good.

No, not really. I'm just frustrated that the Tea Party can't actually look at facts, understand the constitution, or see how regulations is what made the US a Superpower.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[geekoid]

yeas, probably about a 20th of their normal pay. If they are getting unemployment, they will need to pay back the difference when they get paid for work during the period the collect unemployment.

I really doubt they qualify for unemployment, citation?

Re:FAA Shutdown

[myth24601]

These FAA employees are what's known as "public servants" and they are apparently more honorable than the Republican senators who ran out of town on vacation rather than fund the agency whose job is regulating air traffic and air safety.

You do realize that Democrats are a majority in the Senate, and that the decision to adjourn before addressing the FAA funding was done by the majority leader, right?

Why let facts get in the way of a good partisan rant.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[geekoid]

"Give me a fucking break. Next year's spending will be about $200B lower, making a small dent in a *deficit* of $1600B. 2021's projected budget will now be $5.3 trillion instead of $5.5 trillion, lowering by about $200B the projected *increase* from today of $2 trillion."

so... big number scare you?

"confiscating *all* taxable income of everyone making $114,000 and above (which isn't "rich") still wouldn't eliminate the defict."

WTF is that?

Spending is NOT the problem, people like YOU are. short sighted SOB who do NOT understand what a country nedes to do.

Fuck heads like you run around screaming TAXES stop TAXES are fucking idiots who would drive us back to the 19th century.

Here is the correct question pea-brains like you can't seem to grasp:
What SERVICES do we want the government to do, and how are we going to pay for it.

Anything else is just trying top use an emotional response to scare people.

Fixing it is EASY.
Let the Bush Tax Cuts expire. I know, crazy idea to get republicans to live up to there end of the agreement.
Raise min. wage a buck and a half
Raise the limit SS is tax for to 200K.
Continue to get out of the mid east

I am a middle class American. Tax me another .5%. Unlike you, I don't mind paying for the services I use. and the services need to maintain a health society, even for service I don't use.

Not people like you. You would have the whole fucking country revert back to a time where food was killing people, children dies in mass, problems with teeth killed people, and people where chined into their work place, and toxic waste was dumping into drinking water.

The 'debate' over the last few months was just the Tea Party being assholes and racists fucks who do whatever they can to get rid of a black president.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[geekoid]

Or someone who is dedicated. I know Dr.s that have gone without pay, and I wouldn't call them morons.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[SleazyRidr]

Except when the planes fall out of the sky and on to your car!

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Toonol]

True. The Tea Party started with (and still has) a very reasonable and responsible main principle; economic freedom and reduction in spending. As they have begun to get a little bit of a toe-hold in power, though, they've both watered down their primary focus, and brought in secondary, distracting, issues (such as social concerns).

They'd be better served concerning themselves only with economic issues, and not trying to be a full party with an exhaustive platform. They should be an independent, non-affiliated source that pressures all the parties and candidates into economic reform.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[jjk3]

No we are a democratic republic, and I would guess that most of the people on slashdot that participate in these discussions vote. I do and I can tell you I am not happy with my reps, but I do my best without devoting my life to it. The ironic thing with your post is I thik we would be in worse shape if the US was a straight democracy.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[phantomfive]

you no longer have the right to bargain collectively, which is the very thing that made the United States into a 20th century superpower

Collective bargaining made the US a superpower? Really? You don't think it had to do with the fact that we had a larger piece of land than the non-superpowers (except China, but they were too busy killing themselves last century)?

Re:FAA Shutdown

[geekoid]

Yes, cut the pay of congress, that way people who are rich can afford to be an elected government official. Genius.

I would cut their health care.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[phantomfive]

Seriously guys, why don't you just vote all those idiots from their offices? You're a democracy, aren't you?

Don't know if you've noticed, but we have been. There is a huge anti-incumbant sentiment in the US right now. But it's not like they come up for election every year.......

Re:FAA Shutdown

[geekoid]

Maybe, but they are still not getting paid AND it can(will) happen again.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[pnutjam]

About 20 years ago, the Republican party was co-opted by the [PHB / HR monkey / Sales asshat / Marketing drone] type. They have convinced many simple people that the sky is green. Nobody likes to be wrong, so these people cannot be convinced they were ever incorrect and the sky is really blue.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[LifesABeach]

What do you mean by "unlicensed"? I can fly my camera mounted RC Aircraft. And which law says the Press can't report on events? But it is News Corp. and I think their 4th world ways may be beginning to come home to roost. I for one see a need for "Freedom of the Press", but do not see a need for "it's OK to trespass, or invade ones privacy."

Re:FAA Shutdown

[judoguy]

One can't simply vote someone out of office. We have to vote someone INTO office. When there are few or no good people running, we are stuck with what we have unless you are advocating voting with a gun.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Honestly, I can't even figure out who is voting the idots in at this point. Everyone I talk to hates every single politicain they know by name. I can't figure out who the hell is actually marking the ballot boxes next to incumbents' names anymore, D or R.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Anomalyst]

A mediocre juggler can make 6 figures.

Ayup, it's really tough to keep 3 mediocres in the air at the same time.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[PopeRatzo]

Collective bargaining made the US a superpower? Really?

You bet. 100%.

You don't think it had to do with the fact that we had a larger piece of land than the non-superpowers

Canada has a bigger "piece of land" than the US and they're not a superpower.

Any other questions?

Re:FAA Shutdown

[PopeRatzo]

As in will get back pay.

Probably not. "Furlough" means "not getting paid, period".

Re:FAA Shutdown

[JoeMerchant]

If you take into account entertainers the make more then most government employees, it's no where near 100 1.

A mediocre juggler can make 6 figures.

If this were true, more guidance counselors would be recommending juggling as a career path. It takes more than being a mediocre juggler, you need to be a mediocre juggler who is also ... wait for it ... entertaining, and also committed to pursuing the career in entertainment. Not everybody with that skill can be gainfully employed doing it.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[PopeRatzo]

confiscating *all* taxable income of everyone making $114,000 and above (which isn't "rich") still wouldn't eliminate the defict.

You heard that on right-wing radio, and you repeat it like it's true. But it's not. Not even close.

And you don't even repeat it like the AM radio talkers tell you to. It's supposed to be "if you confiscate all the income of everyone making over $200k, it still wouldn't eliminate the deficit". By adding you're little qualifier "taxable income" you end up leaving all the loopholes in place. Of course if you do that it's going to come to very little because the loopholes were put in place for the benefit of those people.

The budget deficit today is about $1.4 trillion. The deficit in Bush's last year in office, the one he signed off on, was over $1.2 trillion and nobody knew what a "debt ceiling" was back then because he was white and Republican.

If you add 3 percent to the taxes of all income over $200k, and close all the corporate loopholes so they're paying the same percentage of the budget that they did when Ronald Reagan left office, the deficit curve gets bent back to the point where we show a surplus again in 2015. Three percent. No need to "confiscate" "all the taxable income". Just collect the amount that was collected when the country was in an economic boom.

Did you know that the collateralized assets of US banks is $65 TRILLION? Just the banks. It's not directly germane to this discussion, but I just found that out and I was surprised by the size of the number.

Also, did you know that the size of the deficit is almost exactly the size of TARP 1 and TARP 2 combined? That was when we bailed out the banks, at 100 cents on the dollar, for bad decisions they made all on their own. We didn't just give them a hand back to solvency, we made sure that they didn't lose a single nickel. They took that money and bought their competition, paid themselves huge bonuses and then turned that money into part of the $65 TRILLION that makes up their assets.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[cusco]

The military, which produces absolutely nothing of any value to any taxpayer and yet sucks down over half of the discretionary budget, is not a leech??? WTF???

Re:FAA Shutdown

[cusco]

with maxed out credit cards and own nothing

Gotta love those fiscally conservative teabaggers. You do realize that your entire platform is based on a lie, don't you? Grover Norquist, the guru of the neocons, was quite open about what they intended to do; run the debt up so high that there was no room left for anything but the military and interest payments and thereby shrink the Federal government down to the size where "I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the tub." (Direct quote from his web site.) If he hadn't had the financial backing of the same people who finance the TP and the Bushites he would have been just another traitorous loon, but instead he is the 'thought leader' for the entire neocon club.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[therealkevinkretz]

Whoa there. I gave you arithmetic (and no, big numbers don't scare me) and you reply with name-calling and bust out the caps telling us that "fixing it is EASY". Oh, and you ignore one of those important arithmetic points with a brainy "WTF is that?"

Here, I'll type it slower:

Next year's deficit: $1,600 billion.

If those Bush tax cuts on those bad "rich" people were expired (that's what you said was the EASY part, remember) it would lower the deficit to ..... $1,560 billion. Barely a fucking dent.

If the rich were taxed at 100% (defining the rich as those making $250K - I said $114K above but I find better numbers with the $250K and it makes my point just fine) - that is, if every penny of their income were taken, we'd still have a deficit.

I see you throw in the obligatory racist bullshit too, topping of a post devoid of reason or fact and full of angry young man indignace at whatever (s)he was fed by her newspaper or television.

Grow up.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Chibi Merrow]

Well everyone at my company does during the furlough, but we're contractors. There was some discussion about whether the Fed employees qualify, but none of them are around for me to ask. :)

The e-mail we got from FAA headquarters had links to info on how to file for unemployment, so I think they do, but I can't give you any proof offhand.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Chibi Merrow]

Hi. My company is one of the groups furloughed.

The temporary funding bill that was passed by the House (HR 2553) on 7//20 doesn't change any regs. It just funds the FAA and removes subsidies over $1k/ticket for airports within 90 miles of a hub. That line you've been fed about this being a fight over unions? It's a lie. Go look the bill up yourself on Thomas. I'd link to it, but Thomas links expire after 30 minutes. The Senate chose not to pass it to protect $3k+ ticket subsidies in Nevada.

Was it dick to include that in the bill? Probably. But if keeping the FAA working was that important, they would've held their nose and passed it anyway. The subsidies were more important. That's all there is to it.

I'm not defending the Tea Party here, just pointing out this particular instance has nothing to do with them, or with what you've been told.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Chibi Merrow]

Everyone hates everyone else's representative, their representative isn't the problem.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[phantomfive]

You bet. 100%.

How do you figure? You're the first person I've ever heard suggest that idea.

Canada has a bigger "piece of land" than the US and they're not a superpower.

They don't have the population to match.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[RockDoctor]

"Alright, we'll see you in a few minutes when we cut your pay again."

FTFY

Remember, we are talking about a capitalist society (TINSTAS*) here, so cutting costs to lower than your competition is essential to increasing the profits of shareholders and senior management (as if they were non-overlapping groups).
Everything else doesn't even make it to being counted, let alone being secondary.

(*) There Is No Such Thing As Society, in the words of extraterresstrial monstrosity, "The Maggon".

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Serpents]

Honestly, I can't even figure out who is voting the idots in at this point. Everyone I talk to hates every single politicain they know by name.

We have a similar problem where I live. However, I feel that in our case it's much easier for independent candidates and small parties to be heard and elected, while in the US it's either R or D (and frankly there's not much difference if you look from the outside).

Re:FAA Shutdown

[Grygus]

Their being on Unemployment probably doesn't cost the taxpayers anything; it's insurance. They paid into it. They money they're getting now is their own money coming back to them. The payout is scaled to their old pay but has a low cap, so they most likely won't get back what they've already put in. Unemployment, unless you haven't been working very long, isn't an entitlement program.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[utkonos]

The reason they don't just use the dollar is that they only trust 100 dollar bills. Many smaller bills, unless they are crisp new bills, will not be exchanged anywhere. Also, the country is corrupt to the point that they don't trust themselves printing their own money. The Hrivnya is printed in Canada and shipped to Ukraine.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[utkonos]

Perception is 90% of it. If you go to Ukraine you will understand just how strange the mentality is there and how hard it is for people to change. They have the perception that the USD is a great stable thing, so the country runs on 100 dollar bills. You also have to keep in mind that it is illegal to use anything other than the Hrivnya, so day to day payments are made in Hrivnya and large payments are made in USD. It is not uncommon to see expensive items such as a car or a bottle of old whiskey in a 5 star restaurant with the price listed in USD rather than Hryvnya.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[RoFLKOPTr]

I wonder how many members of the Tea Party (at least the few who are not on Social Security or disability) would ever put in a day's work for free.

Speaking strictly about the construction industry here, as I have little experience anywhere else. I find that it's typically the Liberal union members who wouldn't ever dare touch a tool without being paid to do so (even the guy who runs the fucking elevator refuses to touch the little handle that he has to pull to make the thing go up and down on his break... even though he's sitting right there doing nothing) while the more Conservative individuals who work for open shops tend to have no problem with doing a little work off the clock. I'm one of those more Conservative-leaning non-union individuals and I've stayed a half hour late taking a delivery. I've missed lunch for the same reason. I've sometimes started working early simply out of boredom. And it's a give and take... there's some wiggle room for sitting around a few minutes extra after lunch. It's alright if you're busting your ass and you need to sit down for a little while to take a breather. Sometimes we leave a half hour early before a long holiday weekend and still get paid the full hour. While the union guys kind of just meander around the jobsite without any dedication to their job or pride in their work... all they're doing is watching the clock so they can start cleaning up 30 minutes before the end of their shift and be back at their cars at the end of their shift.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[RoFLKOPTr]

Not to troll but if it goes on like this the safest option to travel across the US will be by car or train.

As long as ATC is up and running, air travel will forever be the safest option. Hell, even if it weren't up and running, planes have more than enough equipment in them that pilots could safely fly into even the busiest airports without controllers... it would be horribly inefficient because of the clearances they'd have to keep, but it would be possible. Driving is several magnitudes more dangerous than flying, and even trains have a few times as many casualties as flying every year. The aviation safety record is phenomenal and, while the ATC has a huge part in the efficiency of safe air travel, safe air travel would be possible without them.

Plus, driving is far more expensive and time consuming, and we don't have anything close to a train infrastructure that could take over aviation (beside the fact that it's also extremely expensive and time consuming compared to flying).

Re:FAA Shutdown

[RoFLKOPTr]

Also, did you know that the size of the deficit is almost exactly the size of TARP 1 and TARP 2 combined? That was when we bailed out the banks, at 100 cents on the dollar, for bad decisions they made all on their own. We didn't just give them a hand back to solvency, we made sure that they didn't lose a single nickel. They took that money and bought their competition, paid themselves huge bonuses and then turned that money into part of the $65 TRILLION that makes up their assets.

Most of your post makes sense and is probably true, but you've been eating the media's anti-Bush propaganda about TARP. TARP was bail-out loans paid to banks and preferred stock investments purchased from banks and other large institutions to help maintain solvency during a deep recession. Most of that money has been paid back plus interest, and none of it was ever intended to be money that we were just throwing at the banks for free.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[PopeRatzo]

TARP was bail-out loans paid to banks and preferred stock investments purchased from banks and other large institutions to help maintain solvency during a deep recession. Most of that money has been paid back plus interest,

Friend, that's not even close to true.

Do you know what "currency" was used to "pay back" those loans? Toxic assets. Not only were the loans paid back with toxic assets that are worth pennies on the dollar, but they are increasing in value so slowly that if everything goes exactly right and if there is never another banking failure or precipitous downturn in the housing market, the soonest those "loans" will be "paid back" is maybe 2030. We're getting paid back with IOUs handed out by people who cannot be trusted.

It gets worse: The banks are paying back their TARP bailouts with money borrowed from the Treasury at no interest. Worse still, the bailed out banks are being allowed to buy back the best-performing of the "toxic assets" at a deep discount even though it's being carried on the books as "paid back in full". This little wrinkle was something the GOP demanded for passage of the Dodd-Frank financial regulation bill.

Right now, as of July 30, the TARP program is still almost a $0.5 trillion in the red, according to Yves Smith, the excellent blogger from nakedcapitalism.com who has been the most reliable of all commentators on the economic mess. When all is said and done, considering the money lost by selling back decent assets on the cheap, the TARP bailouts will cost us at least $400 billion that will never, ever be repayed.

Now the auto bailouts, on the other hand, were actually paid back with money and stock and somewhere over a million jobs that were kept in the US. The Treasury still hasn't been fully reimbursed, but the repayment is reported to be somewhere between 70 and 80 percent and the auto industry in America has not only retained millions of jobs but they've made a healthy and growing profit the last two quarters.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[PopeRatzo]

I find that it's typically the Liberal union members who wouldn't ever dare touch a tool without being paid to do so (even the guy who runs the fucking elevator refuses to touch the little handle that he has to pull to make the thing go up and down on his break... even though he's sitting right there doing nothing) while the more Conservative individuals who work for open shops tend to have no problem with doing a little work off the clock.

So, you're saying that all union members are liberals which makes them lazy and unreliable mercenaries and all workers at open shops are conservatives, which makes them generous, hard-working souls who will work for free?

You're a clown. Leave me alone, please.

Re:FAA Shutdown

[RoFLKOPTr]

So, you're saying that all union members are liberals which makes them lazy and unreliable mercenaries and all workers at open shops are conservatives, which makes them generous, hard-working souls who will work for free?

I didn't say all union members were liberals and I didn't say all workers at open shops were conservatives. I made an observation that the left-leaning union members tend to be less willing to do work and the right-leaning non-union-members tend to be willing to sacrifice a little for the sake of taking pride in their work. It's strictly observational.

In saying so, I'm absolutely guilty of malicious over-generalization. And so are you.

You're a clown. Leave me alone, please.

This is a discussion forum. I'm simply discussing. Why participate in a discussion forum if you can't handle the fact that somebody will have an opinion that directly contradicts yours? u mad.

Easy solution

[Penguinoflight]

Get Johnny 5 to drive it.

Re:Easy solution

[bejiitas_wrath]

Johnny cab was the funniest part of that movie, if we had real cab drivers like that city life would be quite different...

Re:Easy solution

[antdude]

"No Disassemble!"

Re:Easy solution

[24-bit Voxel]

You're confusing Total Recall with Short Circuit.

Re:Easy solution

[24-bit Voxel]

Er, other way around. Bah...

Drone vs. RC

[Dynedain]

How is it different from an RC plane or helicopter? Those are used all the time for commercial arial photography and videography.

Oh, right, it's News Corp.... so it must be evil.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not really different from an RC plane or helicopter. There's currently no legal way to use any of them for commercial purposes. RC aircraft may be used only for recreational purposes, as spelled out in FAA Advisory Circular 91-57. A UAV for commercial purposes would have to be certified, and the pilot would have to have a commercial certificate and whatever ratings the UAV required.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[JBMcB]

Precisely. Because piloting a small RC aircraft for fun is entirely safe. Piloting one for commercial gain turns them into unstoppable killing machines.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[bky1701]

"Oh, right, it's News Corp.... so it must be evil."

Yeah, I guess all that spying, hacking, manipulation of global politics, extortion, bribery... isn't really a big problem. They're fair and balanced!

Re:Drone vs. RC

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

When it remains a toy, it has certain market size, R&D effort, usage numbers. When it becomes commercial, the market size and the development takes a completely different path. Basic assumption is that as long as they are toys, the numbers and sizes will remain small. If and when toys get out of hand, they come under regulation. When the jet-skis came in first, they were toys and were not regulated. Once they became really big, fast and powerful and started running a few swimmers over, they come under regulation.

Of course, it can't be explained in a 30 second sound bite. Sorry if I have exceeded your attention span.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[Anonymous Coward]

They drove MySpace into the ground?

Re:Drone vs. RC

[corbettw]

Drones can fly significantly higher than RC planes or helicopters, and have a greater likelihood of interfering with air traffic.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[Deadstick]

Basic assumption is that as long as they are toys, the numbers and sizes will remain small...Of course, it can't be explained in a 30 second sound bite. Sorry if I have exceeded your attention span.

Try going 31 seconds and you might find a few toys like this:

http://www.rc-diecast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/lanc.jpg

rj

Re:Drone vs. RC

[icebike]

RC aircraft are also restricted to ceiling height, location of use, and size/weight as I recall. The idea being to keep them small enough not to do much damage when they crash, EVEN if they crash into an airplane.

Commercial use of these things would quickly escalate such that you couldn't pick your nose in public with out 3 news drones recording the fact, and they would start posing a serious threat to safety around news worth events as a couple dozen news organizations rush camer drones to the site, all jockeying for the best camera angle.

These regs were in place BEFORE 9/11 and I can't imagine them getting any looser.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[neonv]

RC planes and helicoptors have pilots. Pilots can do intelligent things at such as avoid obstacles, not fly to low, and stay away from other aircraft.

Drones have no pilot, and often suffer from doing incredibly stupid things, such as running into things, flying too low, and coming close to other aircraft. The FAA keeps them away from manned aircraft and populated areas because they often do these things. For example, there was an instance where the military lost control of a drone near Washington DC and it started flying towards the White House. Incredibly stupid thing to do. It had to be shot down. If UAV's were in populated areas regularly, there would regularly be instances of them crashing into, houses, people, and businesses. They just aren't reliable enough yet to fly in populated areas, or around other aircraft.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[icebike]

Drones can fly significantly higher than RC planes or helicopters, and have a greater likelihood of interfering with air traffic.

Drones ARE RC planes.
Don't confuse military drones with those used by newscorp. They used the md4-1000.
http://www.microdrones.com/produkt-md4-1000-industrie-en.php

climb rate 7,5m/s *
cruising speed 15.0m/s *
Peak thrust 118N
empty weight 2650g
recommended payload 800g
maximum payload 1200g
maximum take-off weight 5550g
portability arms foldable
dimensions 1030 mm from rotor shaft to rotor shaft
flight time up to 70 minutes (dep. on load/wind/battery) *
battery 22.2V, 6S2P 12.2Ah or 6S3P 18.3Ah LiPo

Re:Drone vs. RC

[plover]

No, piloting one for commercial purposes means a whole new set of rules. What hours are you permitted to fly them? What kind of lights do they need? Who radios the tower? What radio spectrum is reserved for their safe control? Who regulates collisions in that band? Are NOTAMs required when they're operating in an area? What are the altitude limits? How many can you operate in an area? How many can one operator own? How many can one operator control? Are they allowed to be autonomous? What kind of safety equipment is required?

Hobbyists can get away without many of those answers because their enjoyment is "interruptible" without loss, and they're operated in spaces that are open to avoid loss or damage to their expensive craft, and to avoid endangering others. A commercial news operator would need to be where the newsworthy events are, and at the time they are occurring, which is generally crowded populated areas. A drone buzzing 10 feet over traffic on the I-5 is likely to cause several accidents just by its presence. A drone flying three feet from a Senator might be carrying a weapon (or with a sharpened prop might BE the weapon.)

Opening them up to commercial use would quickly lead to a host of problems. And once you've allowed them, it's very hard to prohibit them again.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[Deadstick]

RC aircraft are also restricted to ceiling height, location of use, and size/weight

http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/reviews/868/Mac-Hodges-B-29.jpg

Re:Drone vs. RC

[dougmc]

RC aircraft are also restricted to ceiling height, location of use, and size/weight as I recall.

You recall incorrectly.

FAA Advisory Circular 91-57 gives some suggestions, but they are only suggestions. The AMA has restrictions on weight and locations of use, but it's restrictions only apply to it's members.

There are no restrictions on altitude -- glider pilots regularly go up to thousands of feet. (You might run into some problems with the FAA if you went over 18,000 feet or so -- but that's way, way beyond the norm.) but As for location of use, there may be some laws and locations here and there (for example, FAA no-fly zones generally apply to model airplanes too), but in general there aren't any restrictions there either.

There is talk of the FAA giving regulations (rather than advisories) ... but it hasn't happened yet.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[dbc]

From RTFA, it is hard to tell if News Corp was using a remote controlled vehicle or an Autonomous Arial Vehicle (UAV). The regulations regarding UAV's are *extremely* tight right now. People doing UAV robotics research outside of enclosed spaces are under some very restrictive regulations. Remotely Piloted Vehicles (RPV), not so much.

If I was a robotics researcher that had to travel half way across the country to the Nevada desert to do my research, and found out that News Corp had deployed UAV paparazzi, I'd be annoyed.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[BitZtream]

How is it different from an RC plane or helicopter? Those are used all the time for commercial arial photography and videography.

Using an RC plane or helicopter for commercial purposes requires a license to do so, its in a subsection for experimental aircraft in the FARs (Federal Aviation Regulations).

If you're not doing it commercially, its not illegal to do in certain areas. Pretty much anywhere thats populated is not one of those areas unless you get a waiver, which is what flying clubs do, with the assistance of the AMA who provides the club insurance, and thus has it in their best interest to make sure the club follows the rules. Its an actual functional self policing system.

Any serious RC pilot is an AMA member. Its cheap ($60 bucks this year for an individual, a little more for an entire family) and comes with a couple million in insurance for when you put your tricked out heli through some beamers front windshield ... which I've done. You won't find too many RC pilots that will even talk to you about RC without an AMA membership as its one of the few organizations that fight for RC pilots (Think of them as the EFF for RC pilots, though they are a for-profit organization).

With that said, the AMA will help you get waivers, and they'll help you get the permits to do commercial work, but that requires a massive amount of FAA ass kissing cause frankly, its far too easy to do bad things or hurt someone fucking around with an RC aircraft, for instance:

My all electric seaplane weighs about 1.5 pounds, and will do roughly 70mph before it becomes dangerous for the aircraft. That'll take your head off if it hits you at full speed, and if the motor is throttled back, you won't even hear it happen, which is generally how it sounds when its out of control on its way towards the ground.

My Raptor 50 heli, which has a camera attachment of my own making weighs about 7 pounds when fully loaded, will do somewhere between 45-60mph, haven't clocked it to be sure. It doesn't even have to hit you to kill you, I've seen a rotor strike the ground, break off and hospitalize a guy standing 10 feet away. Fortunatly the blade 'flew' into him like a wing in stable flight rather than end on like a knife. The bruise left behind stretched from his crotch to his nipples. Internal bruising of organs, but nothing permanent. He got lucky. Those blade tips when the rotor is at speed like its supposed to be (1800-2100 RPMs depending on your setup), the blade tips are moving at well over 300mph. When they break off, you don't want to be close by.

The real killer is the bird I'll never finish.

Its a turbine powered F-16. Will weigh about 29 pounds dry with no extra equipment when completed, between 33-35 will fully equipped and fueled. While I don't know how fast it will go once completed, others flying the same bird have broken 170 and there are some unofficial speeds of over 200mph reported. I'll never finish this aircraft because the turbine is about 3 times the price of everything else combined, and to be honest, my vision isn't good enough to see this plane at the distances you have to deal with when the aircraft is doing 150+ miles an hour, and well, why the hell build it if you're not going to fly it like its meant! This aircraft requires a special AMA waiver to be legal, which I probably couldn't qualify for due to the vision problems either.

The point to that however is that 29 pounds at 150-200 mph is enough energy to total a small house, and as such, it gets treated specially.

If you want to fly a little airplane away from people, its legal.

Flying that same aircraft in a populated area, or an area without a waiver is illegal.

Flying commercially is possible with a waiver, which is rather difficult to get especially if you're trying to do some shit thats not kosher. Its almost as difficult as getting a pilots license for commercial flight (which isn't really hard, but does take time and money and requires certification). Its almost easier and cheaper to just fly a small plane to do this as a non-government entity.

I highly doubt News Corp got a waiver, otherwise this wouldn't even be a story.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[dougmc]

Drones have no pilot, and often suffer from doing incredibly stupid things, such as running into things, flying too low, and coming close to other aircraft.

Your point is a good one, but drones may or may not have a pilot. Predator drones for example do have a pilot -- he's just hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Ultimately, the only practical distinction between drones and R/C planes is that R/C planes are flown by pilots who always have line of sight to the plane itself (and when they lose this, the planes typically crash.) Drones often do not. And yes, people do put FPV (first person view) gear onto R/C planes and fly them like drones -- which basically turns them into drones.

The FAA is expected to clarify the distinctions between the two further soon. The R/C community is hoping that they don't get caught up in any regulations the FAA puts down, but we'll see how it goes.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[plover]

Be nice. Rupert Murdoch has a kind heart. I heard he was listening to some of the tribute messages that the fans were leaving Amy Winehouse on her voice mail after she passed, and apparently he was moved to tears.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[BitZtream]

That aircraft requires a special waiver to be legally flown anywhere in the US. Both the pilot and the aircraft have to be certified. It is not allowed to be flown anywhere near a populated area without special exception waivers for things like air shows at airports too close to a city.

'Giant Scale' aircraft have a different set of rules specifically because of things like size and energy they contain in flight. They require all sorts of special features of the radio (which aren't really all that non-standard anymore, all my radios have the features even though I have no flyable aircraft that large) to ensure that if something goes wrong the aircraft becomes the least dangerous flying object it can be.

Its not a toy, its an experimental aircraft, and is regulated as such.

Its easier to fly an ultralight class aircraft carrying yourself than it is to fly that aircraft, and could actually be cheaper. I've got a a turbine powered F-16 that'll be a little larger than that when completed that will cost upwards of 7k USD (The turbine itself costs roughly 5k and will probably be the reason it never gets finished) to finish it and fit it out properly. You can buy a used ultralight for 6500, if you're crazy enough to do so.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[BitZtream]

The only difference between the two would be the radio, my radio will function perfectly for a good couple of miles if you have line of sight to the object (i.e. its in the air and not obstructed by the ground curvature or trees/buildings). At 10k, pretty much the only way you're going to go from the ground to 10k feet is with an EFI that can deal with the barometric pressure change. Thats the only reason you're not going to fly an RC sport aircraft as high as a drone, and only because the drone was designed to deal with 10k+ feet altitude changes.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[Dahamma]

I'll see your WWII bomber and raise you a turbine-powered gunship...

Mi-24 Hind

Re:Drone vs. RC

[ColdWetDog]

Its almost easier and cheaper to just fly a small plane to do this as a non-government entity.

And this is the most coherent statement so far. Looking at the video in TFA (would that be TFV?) you could do a better job chartering a small high wing plane and using a half decent camera. While cool (I want one), the video quality is pretty shaky, it doesn't go very high and it's not all that interesting as a news story.

I guess the big deal for the journalists is that you can keep one in a box in your trunk, pop it up when you see something reportable and there you are. Not that it's all that hard to charter a small plane ...

Re:Drone vs. RC

[perpenso]

How is it different from an RC plane or helicopter?

IIRC the difference between regulated activity and unregulated activity is sometimes a matter of altitude. And of course what's on the ground underneath it all (dense population), and what is nearby (airport), can also cause regulations to come into play. A declared emergency zone (local police and fire) can also cause an otherwise unregulated environment to become regulated, even at extremely low altitudes.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[iamhassi]

I hope someone rates you up. This is not a "drone". The 49 foot, 2,250 lbs Predator is a drone. This is a 5 lbs, 3 foot wide R/C quad-rotor toy helicopter with a video camera attached.

This isn't even newsworthy, in fact I think this article is a lie. The title is "FAA Looks Into News Corp’s Daily Drone, Raising Questions About Who Gets To Fly Drones in The U.S.", but there is no mention of the FAA proactively going after News Corp, in fact the only mention of the FAA doing anything is an email after the reporter asked if they heard of this "drone": “We are examining The Daily’s use of a small unmanned aircraft to see if it was in accordance with FAA policies.” and the Daily didn't even reply to emails.

Sounds like the FAA weren't all that concerned until this reporter started sending out emails asking questions.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[iamhassi]

The only difference between the two would be the radio, my radio will function perfectly for a good couple of miles if you have line of sight to the object (i.e. its in the air and not obstructed by the ground curvature or trees/buildings). At 10k, pretty much the only way you're going to go from the ground to 10k feet is with an EFI that can deal with the barometric pressure change. Thats the only reason you're not going to fly an RC sport aircraft as high as a drone, and only because the drone was designed to deal with 10k+ feet altitude changes.

this "drone" has a operating altitude of up to 1000m and a flight radius up to 1000m on RC, far less than a mile.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[ScrewMaster]

How is it different from an RC plane or helicopter? Those are used all the time for commercial arial photography and videography.

Oh, right, it's News Corp.... so it must be evil.

Yes. Precisely. Now you're getting it. Fact is, Newscorp poses a much greater threat to the general public than any number of camera drones.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[ScrewMaster]

Autonomous Arial Vehicle (UAV)

I think you meant Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[jd2112]

Precisely. Because piloting a small RC aircraft for fun is entirely safe. Piloting one for commercial gain turns them into unstoppable killing machines.

Next on FOX; "When Drones Attack"

Re:Drone vs. RC

[andydread]

RC aircraft are also restricted to ceiling height, location of use, and size/weight

http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/reviews/868/Mac-Hodges-B-29.jpg

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2363332&cid=36980352

Re:Drone vs. RC

[dbc]

Good point. I'm having a bug-prone day today. It's a good day to avoid 'git commit'.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[morethanapapercert]

As far as I know, the vast majority of R/C aircraft are small machines, usually light enough to pick up in one hand (albeit awkwardly in some cases.) I've seen a few very large scale R/C (a 1:16 scale Lanc with working bomb bay doors and servo driven turrets is cool) but they are decidedly in the minority since they are expensive to build, almost always home-built by someone who loves the hobby and the aircraft and so is very very careful with it when it's flown.

R/C flying is almost always done in open fields where the hobbyist can keep a line of sight on the craft in flight, mainly because that is the only way you can see what the plane is actually doing. The radios are also not really trustworthy beyond line of sight either. It's my opinion that any R/C hobbyist who was in a disaster zone would have much more important things to worry about that getting his or her bird up in the air to take a look around. Even if one was lunatic enough to operate in an air space where SAR choppers are going to be working, his field of view would make him very aware of any potential collision and if even that fails, his little toy is light enough to be swatted out of the air by the rotor wash long before it becomes a threat. Almost any ROV/RPV/UAV however, is designed from the get-go to be operated out of the operators line of sight, guided mainly by the cameras view as displayed on the monitor at the operators station. Much harder to anticipate air to air collisions that way.

The Observer claims and pictures a Parrot A.R. as the model the Daily is using, but Forbes describes The Daily as using the microdrone md4-1000. (and submitted an inquiry to the FAA regarding it.) The Parrot A.R. Drone website actually bills it's product as "The Flying Video Game" which strongly implies that the operator will be looking down at the screen and not up to see where the craft actually is in relation to other objects in the air. Thankfully, the Parrot A.R. is a comparatively tiny thing, so it to would be swatted out of the sky by rotor wash and according to the Parrot site, it only has a 12 minute battery life in which to present any threat. Nonetheless, I don't think any SAR pilot would appreciate having this thing cluttering up his airspace when he's trying to work. The microdrone md4-1000 on the other hand, is a more sizable proposition, so it might be able to handle a bit of rotor wash, at least long enough for a boom or tail rotor strike anyway. It is also a lot more plausible as a platform for a network news broadcast worthy camera system then the Parrot A.R. is. It can stooge around for over an hour and carry over 2.5 lbs (1200 grams technically) of camera equipment or possibly extra batteries to extend the range. Honestly? concern for air space safety over disaster or crime scenes will probably be the reason these things get regulated, but my real concern is privacy. I have no doubt the paparazzi will jump on these things in a hot second, but as celebrities, the targets will be well able to take steps to protect their privacy when they wish. The only time I am ever going to get on the news though is if I am in a natural disaster or crime/accident scene. If I am busy trying to save my family and home from a flood, the last thing I want is some news agency putting my distress on the nightly news for the whole world to see. Unfortunately, I don't have much of a leg to stand on since a flood is a legitimate news item and as one of those affected by it, I am a legitimate subject for photography or video imaging. (I just believe that any ethical news agency will have a reporter who will make eye contact and and at least say "Sir, do you mind if we put you and your family on camera?" something that can't be done with a drone)

Re:Drone vs. RC

[brusk]

Autonomous Arial Vehicle (UAV).

Psssht. It's just a knockoff of the UHV (Autonomous Helvetica Vehicle).

Re:Drone vs. RC

[Anonymous Coward]

"Oh, right, it's News Corp.... so it must be evil."

Yeah, I guess all that spying, hacking, manipulation of global politics, extortion, bribery... isn't really a big problem. They're fair and balanced!

Yes, but apart from the spying, hacking, manipulation of global politics, extortion, and bribery, what has News Corp done to us?

Re:Drone vs. RC

[Anonymous Coward]

Theoretically makes them easier to shoot/take down. Could be fun to try. I mean its illegal in most places to trash a nosey photography but trashing someones drone is probably just a fine or something if they can figure out who did it. I mean look at the challenge here. Hobbyist development of predator drones designed to take out nosey drones. Could be fun. I mean a shotgun would be fun too but it's generally not manners in an urban area.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[sjames]

Let's face it, their track record demonstrates a willingness to hurt innocent people to get their story. So yeah, it's News Corp so it must be at least suspected of evil.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[Alistair Hutton]

They shut it down because no one wanted to advertise in it any more not because of the misconduct.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[JBMcB]

> Basic assumption is that as long as they are toys, the numbers and sizes will remain small.

Seriously? You're saying that commercial use will outpace recreational use? Think of who is going to be using these things. A couple of news organizations per town, maybe?

Did you read the article at all? The "drone" the daily is using isn't that much larger than a large toy plane, and that's just because it's hauling an SLR. I've seen standard toy planes fitted with remote cameras as well - a large RC craft isn't absolutely required.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[AB3A]

JBMcB, an RC aircraft is intended to stay below 300 AGL and remain within sight of the operator. A commercial UAV can go much further and can represent a hazard to aviation.

The problem is an issue of HOW pilots avoid each other. A drone can not see and avoid other aircraft. A manned helicopter or airplane CAN. If you have two aircraft at the same altitude and opposite direction (something that can happen in Class G airspace), you have just a few seconds from a flyspeck in the windshield to imminent collision.

A UAV is fundamentally different. If it is not coordinated with Flight Service Stations and air traffic control, and it is flown at altitudes exceeding 300 AGL, then the risks to other aircraft are significant. The big sky theory works most of the time. However, in a disaster zone, should anything go wrong, you won't get much help on site for quite a while.

I have hit seagulls while flying my airplane. It's a scary thing. Anything bigger than that is not something you'd ever want to see.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[AB3A]

Technically, dougmc, you're correct. HOWEVER, if you get in to trouble of any kind, and the FAA comes after you, that Advisory Circular is going to stand out like a sore thumb in court. It is generally considered to be good practice. Deviating from it requires a VERY compelling reason.

Pilots, whether licensed or not, are expected not to behave in a careless or reckless manner. Deviating from an AC without very good cause will almost always be considered as such.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[drinkypoo]

When they are autonomous they can be a drone, otherwise not. There was a scale predator for a while for about a grand that had GPS and could fly waypoints. It might have cost two grand so outfitted.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[GameboyRMH]

I wonder if there are any EDFs big enough to replace your jumbo-turbine...it wouldn't be as "real" but it would be cheaper and more convenient.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[GameboyRMH]

You think too small and assume barriers of cost and practicality, common mistakes when estimating what regulation is necessary. I could see advertising agencies flying swarms of these to track people. See what stores you go to and what you do in your free time to target products at you. Maybe put embarrassing pics of you up and then make you pay to take them down, like the mug shot racket. Just the other day I saw an RC plane body that was spat out by a 3D printer and assembled in 10 minutes. These things will be cheap enough to be almost disposable quite soon.

If these things are allowed I'd expect commercial use to meet hobby use within a year (it's a small hobby), and who the hell knows how big it would get from there.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[GameboyRMH]

I'll grant you the Microdrone quadcopter is not much bigger than a toy, but that is a serious piece of kit priced well out of the reach of most hobbyists.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[GameboyRMH]

You dropping a simple lightweight net (something like a piece of mosquito net) over another UAV would be enough to take it down, I figure a body wing/quadcopter hybrid would be able to carry a few of those...

Re:Drone vs. RC

[GameboyRMH]

The only real reason why you normally don't see R/C aircraft up there is that people typically don't like losing expensive toys and that you can't see them from the ground. But if you have a system with an on-board camera giving a live video feed to the operator, visual contact becomes less of an issue for the R/C operator. In other words, they'd be more free to fly their aircraft to its actual limit.

True, there's a video on Youtube of a custom EZ-star with onboard video soaring something like 20,000ft over a Brazilian city. It was quite illegal, ground operators were watching for nearby aircraft with binoculars.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[GameboyRMH]

The model they're flying is remotely operated.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[dougmc]

> that Advisory Circular is going to stand out like a sore thumb in court. It is generally considered to be good practice.

Considered good practice by who? Not R/C pilots. *Nobody* limits themselves to 400 feet AGL unless 1) they're close to an airport (that's actually in the AMA regulations) or 2) they just don't feel like flying higher. Glider pilots especially will exceed 400 feet on every single flight if they can, and even a good winch launch will get you up to 500 feet or so.

As for the rest of the suggestions, they're generally followed, though noise considerations are much less important with gliders and electric planes (electric planes weren't common in 1981 -- but they are now.)

I don't know how it plays out in (civil) court if something does go bad, but of course that's incredibly rare. I'd say that the common R/C practice is to fly as high as you want as long as you can still see your plane. (For example, at 2600 feet, a 2m glider is a speck that you can just barely tell what direction it's pointed in.) The people suing might pull up this advisory circular, and the defendant would pull up the AMA guidelines and say that 1) it was based on the circular and yet 2) that restriction is not there. How it turns out in court, I don't know.

In general, when R/C pilots do something really stupid, it's the local police that come down on them, not the FAA. Perhaps the FAA piles on them more later, but I don't know that the FAA can really do that much to somebody who doesn't have (or need) a pilot's license. If a criminal law is violated, it's likely the local law enforcement that takes care of it (but the FAA might get involved if a full scale plane or airport is involved.) If it's a civil issue, I'm not sure that the FAA or local police would have anything to do with it.

If an R/C pilot has a pilot's license too, perhaps he needs to be more careful of this advisory ...

Re:Drone vs. RC

[makomk]

Yeah, and they're planning to basically relaunch it under a new name once all the fuss has died down in a few months - except more profitably because it'll share staff with the existing Sun daily.

Re:Drone vs. RC

[omnichad]

Begun, the drone war has

scary

[__aazsst3756]

As a private pilot, drones scare the #$%@ out of me. Planes are hard enough to see at over 200mph closing speed.

Re:scary

[Anonymous Coward]

As a private pilot, drones scare the #$%@ out of me. Planes are hard enough to see at over 200mph closing speed.

It was worse in Iraq. More than one A-10 flying ground attack missions struck loitering drones. Thankfully the Warthog is a lot tougher than a drone. I'd hate to think of a 737 engine swallowing a small commercial drone and shelling a turbine. Very scary.

Re:scary

[mcrbids]

The only problem with drones is knowing that they're there. They're inevitable, and why I watch the rollout of ADS-B with interest.

That's why I ALWAYS am on approach control in Echo airspace and up. Here in North Cali, Beale AFB has "temporary" flight restrictions going at least half the time for UAVs in the area, and the only real restriction is that you have to have a VFR flight following or be under IFR.

Having learned on the "steam guage panel" and now flying with a Garmin 496, I can declare with confidence that GPS technologies combined with good visual display and information technologies make a night vs day difference in flying!

I suspect that drones will simply be required to be ADS-B compliant, and that pretty much everybody will have the receivers installed on their aircraft.

Re:scary

[Wrath0fb0b]

As a private pilot, drones scare the #$%@ out of me. Planes are hard enough to see at over 200mph closing speed.

And as a hobbyist RC/drone guy, private pilots that think they have the rights to the sky just because they got there first annoy the *** out of me. I place them in credibility right next to those guys at the turn of the century that tried to ban cars from the road because they spooked the horses.

Drones and planes can coexist under some reasonable rules. I stay under 500' and way away from airports and their approaches. I'd even throw and ADS-B on my drone if the hardware was made light enough. Most of the nasty anti-cooperation foot-stomping isn't come from hobbyists, its coming from pilots with a serious entitlement complex and a childish attitude about making small concessions to those that want to share the air.

Re:scary

[__aazsst3756]

I'm not worried about RC's below 500', in fact would not mind playing with some with my daughter. If struck an R/C would not likely do enough damage to bring me down.

I'm worried about the inevitable larger drones flying around with GA aircraft that could cause serious damage from a mid air collision.

Most of us just fly for fun under visual flight rules, and it is incredible how fast a tiny dot turns into a huge plane in your face.

Re:scary

[Fastolfe]

Drones and planes can coexist under some reasonable rules.

So this I'm fine with and I agree.

private pilots that think they have the rights to the sky just because they got there first annoy the *** out of me.

But this I'm not. The difference between a hobbyist RC/drone guy and an actual pilot is that if a collision occurs, the hobbyist will lose their RC plane while the pilot and his or her passengers (family?) will die. IMO, pilots are quite justified in being frightened of drones/RC planes appearing anywhere other than where they are expected (e.g. parks, below 500'). If we want drones or autonomous aircraft sharing "real" airspace, we need lots more rules/regulations/enforcement, and I think it's reasonable for the bulk of that burden to be on the hobbyist, sorry. But like you say, new technologies like ADS-B might be the bulk of that.

Re:scary

[Alioth]

I am *both* an RC pilot (helicopters and fixed wing) and a full scale pilot (glider, single and multiengine plus instrument rating), so for me it's not a "them and us" (like it appears to be for you), because I'm counted in "us" for both sides.

I *have* been buzzed in a full scale by RC aircraft, which was extremely dangerous (it wasn't someone I knew, it was out over the boonies in Texas halfway between Victoria and Houston). For good reasons, you don't go flying either drones or RC aircraft near full scale (we were at 1500 feet, far higher than RC aircraft ever should go, and a largeish yellow RC aircraft passed between our two aircraft - we were in a formation of 2 aircraft). For VFR, see-and-avoid is extremely important, it's extremely difficult to see-and-avoid an RC plane which is perhaps 1/8th the size of something small like a C150. The RC pilot couldn't have possibly had a reasonable idea where exactly his aircraft was relative to ours due to the aircraft being at a minimum 1500 feet away from him (and in controlled airspace). Had we collided, the RC pilot would have been without a few hundred bucks. At best, the repairs would cost me several thousand (or even the loss of the entire airframe if the damage were bad enough) or at worst I could have ended up dead. The stakes are much higher if you're in a full scale aircraft so it's only right that full scale wants anything unmanned to have adequate systems to prevent collisions!

Private pilots don't have an entitlement complex - it's that if the air has a lot of drones in it the stakes are pretty damned high - a collision can easily kill you. For the drone owner the stakes are very very low. They lose a bit of hardware, big deal. Therefore do you think it's surprising that full scale pilots don't like it? Especially when to accomodate the drone pilots, full scale pilots will have to fit their aircraft with extremely expensive hardware, probably costing a lot more than the entire cost of your drone. Anything that goes into a full scale aircraft has to be certified and have a paper trail a mile long, and therefore tends to be extremely expensive. Full scale pilots therefore feel that to pursue your hobby, you are imposing some serious costs onto them.

Generally with my full scale hat on I have no problems with RC, generally RC is pretty self-limiting, you can't fly too far away without the aircraft becoming a dot you can't really control, and an RC pilot watching their model can do an adequate job of see and avoid (and collisions between RC and full scale are rare enough that I've only ever heard of one). However, this isn't the case with FPV and drones where the aircraft can easily be beyond visual range of the owner.

Drones in particular I think by regulation will need some kind of safety systems to prevent them from wandering where they shouldn't be. It's all very well having ADS-B, but systems fail, and drones need adequate failsafes to prevent them entering airspace where they shouldn't be, and it should be put in the regulations that the drones have this kind of thing. Failsafes like monitoring the ADS-B out and shutting down the engine as soon as a problem is detected. RAIM equipped GPS, etc. Unlike RC they don't really have the "self limiting" feature of needing to be seen adequately enough to be able to control the aircraft, they can easily operate at beyond visual range of the owner or any spotter he may have. Being in the RC world I do know that quite a few RC pilots don't have exactly the approach to safety that full scale pilots have, after all their butt isn't in the plane. (Personally all my models have a failsafe, and I test the failsafe. The last thing I want is my 12 cell T-Rex 600 flying off into the distance and colliding with something, there is a *lot* of energy in those rotor blades and they can do a great deal of damage. People have been killed by similar sized RC helicopters).

If you want to operate in the same airspace as full scale, you'll need to follow the same regulations as full scale, that means you ne

Re:scary

[Anonymous Coward]

...and so far, none are DO-178b certified

Re:scary

[Bios_Hakr]

RC glider guider here. Most of my flights are between 500' and 1500'; some higher.

I've heard about the FAA/AMA agreement on the 500' limit, but it is *never* enforced. Even at AMA sanctioned events, it's common to see glider LMR contests with every entrant pushing 2000'.

Re:scary

[Alioth]

I'm not too worried about gliders, the majority of them are light and don't have a large dense metallic lump (a nitro or gasser engine) in them (at most, most of the RC motorgliders I've seen have a small brushless motor), and are unlikely to fatally damage a light plane.

The FAA has done nothing.

[matthewlw]

If you read the story they simply responded and said they would investigate the use of drones based upon what was basically a complaint about the situation. This could have just as easily been their brush off move, making this at this stage, a non story. The company that sells the relevant Microdrone markets it as for use by real estate and many other purposes which I am sure is the case. The drone in question was: http://www.microdrones.com/produkt-md4-1000-behoerden-en.php

Re:The FAA has done nothing.

[plover]

And Microdrones is safely in Deutschland, far away from the rules of the FAA. They can market them for whatever purposes are allowable in Germany. So I can only assume commercial use by real estate agents is legal there.

Re:The FAA has done nothing.

[matthewlw]

A very good point. I don't really feel as though the FAA would know or care in 99% of situations where people would operate such equipment in any case. No more than as many have said operating an RC plane. I would readily use one in daily operations. Let us hope the stink of a Newscorp type exposure leads to needless regulation. FAA drone regulation belong with larger drone aircraft which they will hopefully balance out with a weight regulation or some other common definition.

Terrible summary

[Wyatt Earp]

The "News Corp iPad newspaper" is The Daily - http://www.thedaily.com/

Re:Terrible summary

[newcastlejon]

Terrible, but not unexpected; N.I. are the bad guy of the moment. The sad part is that it will only be for the moment.

Re:Terrible summary

[Wyatt Earp]

They are jackasses, but the summary could have at least used the title of the magazine rather than "News Corp iPad Newspaper", when further down in the bit taken from the Forbes blog named the Daily, but didn't have a URL to it.

That said, the Daily is pretty good, not much News Corp bias in it, a far-left coworker who hates everything Fox News/NI turned me onto the Daily after trying it out when it launched in March.

Re:Terrible summary

[hedwards]

They did, but the mention was near the end of the summary which probably wasn't the wisest choice of placement.

Re:Drone

[Sulphur]

So, if you put a dwarf inside the drone and let him hold the remote control and fly the thing, it'd be ok?

That's Johnny Quest you insensitive clod.

FAA: You're Not Allowed to Have Fun At Work!

[billstewart]

So there's essentially no technical difference between the RC planes/copters you're allowed to fly for fun and the ones you're not allowed to fly for money (except that businesses are more likely to pay for bigger drones than hobbyists.)

But what if you're having fun playing with model airplanes at work? Sure, most people don't get paid to play with toys, but they also say that about jobs in the computer game industry....

And what if your job is developing RC drone aircraft? Do you have to get them certified before you can fly them, and can you get them certified without flying them first?

Somebody else's post suggests that the difference between hobbyist and commercial use is that there are presumably very few hobbyists and lots of commercial users, so the commercial ones need licensing. I'd suggest that that's backwards - there are lots of hobbyists using RC planes they bought at the toy store, and fewer businesses using them commercially (though the businesses may put in more flight hours.)

And if the FAA is saying that News Corp can't use drone aircraft to perv on vacationing celebrities at the beach, but everybody else can, that seems to have serious First Amendment issues.

Re:FAA: You're Not Allowed to Have Fun At Work!

[GameboyRMH]

Large hobbiyst RC craft are already heavily regulated.

And you know what, I have no problem allowing commercial UAVs to be flown indoors on private property. There, now UAV developers don't have to go through all that paperwork, they can just build their own gymnasium.

Somebody else's post suggests that the difference between hobbyist and commercial use is that there are presumably very few hobbyists and lots of commercial users, so the commercial ones need licensing. I'd suggest that that's backwards - there are lots of hobbyists using RC planes they bought at the toy store, and fewer businesses using them commercially (though the businesses may put in more flight hours.)

How long until commercial use becomes far higher than hobby use?

The difference with commercial UAVs is how they're used. Hobbyist aircraft are usually flown in an open field for fun. Commercial UAVs would be used like unmanned, stealthy news choppers, zipping around over cities, near public events, following police chases, over celebrity weddings, etc.

Re:Agreed

[plover]

and adamandeve.com sells buttplugs...what's your point?

He sells "bedazzled butt plugs".

Re:And it hasn't been shot down?

[BitZtream]

Sorry you got modded down, this is pretty fucking funny.

Re:Agreed

[BitZtream]

Dear slashdot,

Where the fuck is the 'report blatant spammer' button so we can weed out accounts like this douche ourselves without having to mod them down on every story they post too?

How?

[waddgodd]

I'd like to know how the FAA is investigating this, they've been closed down the last month because their funding bill's become a political football and they ran out of budget the first week in July

Re:And it hasn't been shot down?

[ScrewMaster]

Sorry you got modded down, this is pretty fucking funny.

Yeah. Well, at least we know that residents of Mississippi and Alabama read Slashdot.

Re:Agreed

[ScrewMaster]

Dear slashdot,

Where the fuck is the 'report blatant spammer' button so we can weed out accounts like this douche ourselves without having to mod them down on every story they post too?

For all we know, he's paying Slashdot for some extra ad space.

The press can not ignore laws and regulations

[perpenso]

So there's essentially no technical difference between the RC planes/copters you're allowed to fly for fun and the ones you're not allowed to fly for money

Just as there is no difference between the plane you are allowed to fly for fun with a private pilot's license and the plane you are allowed to fly for money with a commercial pilot's license. It may be the exact same plane. Seriously, its all about money changing hands. Say you are a private pilot. A buddy asks for a favor, fly him from point A to point B. No problem with a private pilots license. It he offers money, then its no go until you get a commercial license.

And if the FAA is saying that News Corp can't use drone aircraft to perv on vacationing celebrities at the beach, but everybody else can, that seems to have serious First Amendment issues.

The first amendment allows the press to print anything they want. It does not give the press immunity from laws and regulations in their search for information to print. If the news van is speeding it gets pulled over, if the driver does not have a license he is not allowed to continue driving. Now extend this concept to aviation.

Re:I wonder about FAA rules on my hobby "drones" .

[ScrewMaster]

Now I've got to worry about some suit banging on my door?

Not if the drone gets him first.

Re:I wonder about FAA rules on my hobby "drones" .

[andydread]

Are you doing it for commercial purposes? Did you RTFA? There are regulations against commercial drones.

It's not a toy

[fructose]

As a drone pilot, I feel the scare factor of drones are way over rated. Yes, there are issues, but nothing that can't be handled with the proper procedures. People don't bat an eye at flying in clouds with other planes, but put a plane without a person on it in the sky and all of a sudden we have a flight risk. But scary is what sells on the news (and in APOA).

This little thing is the same thing as a hobby RC plane. I doubt any pilot out there is seriously concerned about RC planes, and this fits in that scale. The problem is this is used for commercial purposes, so it falls under different rules. News Corp fell into the trap that may other commercial entities fall into. They think it's just a big toy, so as long as they follow the RC planes rules, they are fine. The FAA treats commercial flying differently from noncommercial flying, and the hobbyist who suggested this idea to management probably didn't know that. This isn't a precedent, its just par for the course right now.

The FAA is very interested in including drones in their big plan to restructure their systems, and I think in the near future we may see things like this happening legally. But for now, The Daily's is probably going to be grounded.

Re:It's not a toy

[Fastolfe]

I'm not seriously concerned about RC planes, but only because they stick to parks and you don't see them above 500' (you won't see me below 500' unless it's near an airport). Commercial RC planes are probably not going to be doing orbits around a public park at 500', so by their very nature their behavior is going to differ from what's been demonstrated to be fairly safe.

The reason flying through clouds is a non-issue is because (a) there exists equipment to make that safe; (b) ATC is there to ensure safety if the equipment is insufficient (either on my aircraft, or because an unequipped or malfunctioning aircraft is getting close to me and my correctly functioning equipment can't see them); and (c) there's a trained pilot behind the stick to deal with the unexpected. Show me an "RC plane" that can safely integrate with the other air traffic (e.g. ADS-B), coordinate with (follow instructions by) ATC, and fail safely in the event of an equipment problem, and I'll have no qualms about sharing airspace with it. We're not there yet. (But, I agree that that's the direction we're headed.)

Re:It's not a toy

[Alioth]

When people are flying in the clouds they:

- have an instrument rating, which means they have been tested on their knowledge of "the system" with a practical, a written and an oral test.
- are talking to air traffic control
- are following certain navigational procedures (altitudes to fly)
- it's their butt on the line so they are careful to do it well because generally they want to still be alive at the end of the flight.

RC and drones on the other hand are flown by people who don't know the rules of the air. For RC it's not a problem generally (I fly both RC and full scale), because with RC the modeller is within visual range and can hear and see other approaching aircraft. Having to be able to see the model limits the area that an RC aircraft will cover. My T-Rex 600 helicopter, for example, is rarely more than 150 feet away from me so that I can see it properly.

Drones however are a different kettle of fish. They are often under automatic control rather than the control of a person, they can't see and avoid, and they may be out of visual range of the owner. Drones need adequate failsafes, so that they don't stray where they shouldn't go. They also need a method of "see and avoid", and certainly in the case of a drone of significant size (big enough to cause a full scale aircraft to crash if there were a collision) really ought to be piloted by someone who is provably qualified to do so, and really ought to be subject to the same regulations as light aircraft in terms of reliability of systems, inspections, maintenance etc.

Lesson learned!

[Barkenna]

Anonymity says: You -don't- get a gold star! *rimshot*

Re:I wonder about FAA rules on my hobby "drones" .

[Wrath0fb0b]

Are you doing it for commercial purposes? Did you RTFA? There are regulations against commercial drones.

I did. The reference to the suit knocking on my door was that he might not have the same idea I had about my hobby or might, in general, start making my life a PITA.

Re:Cock

[ArhcAngel]

DAMN! I was RIGHT!

Incredibly stupid things??

[pipelayerification]

Kind of like the real pilots who fall asleep and fly hundreds of miles past their destination or who forget to turn off their radios while they discuss things that shouldn't be broadcast to the world.

Not following the news much. I live in a basement.

[oldmac31310]

Disaster zones over North Dakota and Alabama? What disasters have there been there? If these are the only locations they admit to spying on what have they been doing elsewhere? NY, LA, DC etc. where the meat of their obscene and unforgivable scandal mongering is hatched?

See below

[DesScorp]

See the FAA ATC below that says, yes, they are getting paid.

As for this part:

"the Republican senators who ran out of town on vacation rather than fund the agency"

Strange that this is what's drawing your ire when the Senate... which as been controlled by Democrats since 2007... hasn't submitted a budget in 2 years.

Re:See below

[Anonymous Coward]

Strange that this is what's drawing your ire when the Senate... which as been controlled by Democrats since 2007... hasn't submitted a budget in 2 years.

The House hasn't submitted one either.
The budget has been submitted by The President every year since 1921 (Read: Budget and Accounting Act of 1921)

As for the Senate- it is NOT under Democrat control. Yes, the Democrats have a simple majority, but no party has control of either house unless they have at least a 2/3's majority.

I suggest you spend less time watching Fox, CNN, or MSNBC and more time studying a high school Government text book.

Re:See below

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

but no party has control of either house unless they have at least a 2/3's majority.
Bzzt! Wrong. Perhaps you should take your own advice, and spend more time studying a high school Government text book. See the filibuster rule that exists in the US Senate requires 60 votes to over turn a filibuster and 60/100 != 2/3. Likewise there are no filibuster rules in the US House of Representatives, therefore the Committee on Rules provides the guidance on how bills will come to the floor, and that merely requires a simple majority. HTH.

Re:See below

[Mercano]

Strange that this is what's drawing your ire when the Senate... which as been controlled by Democrats since 2007... hasn't submitted a budget in 2 years.

The Senate can't submit a budget. All appropriation bills must originate in the House. Senators can advise House leaders what would and wouldn't make it's way through the Senate, but in the end, it's the House's job to get the budget ball rolling.

Re:See below

[geekoid]

Please make some sort of effort to understand the government, and the roles of the different branches before speaking on the subject.

The term drone isn't even right

[Chibi Merrow]

Hell, we don't even call them 'drones' in the aviation industry. 'Drones' are targets for military tests. The current term in favor is 'UAS', or 'Unmanned Aircraft System', but there was some talk of switching to 'Remote Piloted Vehicle' or 'Remote Piloted System' or some such...

Anyway, this doesn't really meet the standard for what the FAA is usually concerned about vis a vis UASes. It's an RC helicopter.

Then again, the RQ-11 is even smaller and it's considered a 'UAS', technically... But I don't think anyone's really concerned about little things like that.

It's Not A Drone

[scdeimos]

Sure, it has the word "drone" in its name, but a Parrot AR.Drone is not a drone. The "Daily Drone" is a Parrot AR.Drone, a remote-controlled quadricopter that has no drone capability. It has to be flown by a real person from an iThingy.

Re:It's Not A Drone

[GameboyRMH]

It works similarly to a Parrot AR.Drone but it's a Microdrone MD4-1000, sort of a big professional photography version of the AR.Drone.

I don't know why that newspaper had a pic of an AR.Drone there.

Police use of drones

[Anonymous Coward]

Law enforcement does not have an OK on use of drones. FAA approval is necessary under present policy. See http://www.faa.gov/news/fact_sheets/news_story.cfm?newsId=6287. For example, Houston, Miami, and Arlington are working under FAA supervision of their drone use. Unlike my recreational use of a small drone, their small drones face some heavy restrictions. Operation is limited to daytime, the drone must remain in sight of its pilot, the pilot must hold a commercial license, and a second set of eyes is required to keep an eye on the drone. And their drones have the same ceiling limit of 400 feet as recreational use drones. So no pass for law enforcement spying (yet).

For more info on Arlington's use of drones, see http://www.uasvision.com/2011/07/05/usa-arlington-police-test-small-unmanned-aircraft-for-public-safety-purposes/.

Re:People of Pakistan

[hedwards]

We should send them to Texas, I hear they need rain.

I know

[kubernet3s]

Could this set a precedent for how private businesses can use drones? I know we've all said it, but thank god I am alive to see a news story where that sentence was appropriate commentary

Re:I wonder about FAA rules on my hobby "drones" .

[bugnuts]

Hobby flying falls under specific and fairly nice rules. Don't fly closer to an airport than 5 miles unless it's near a building abduction below the roof. That kind of thing. Hobbyists do consider it dangerous to fly outside of sight. You can expect s visit if you crash it and you were flying it irresponsibly, if they can find you.

However NO COMMERCIAL permits are being granted. Only experimental UAVs and law enforcement uavs can legally get a permit. They have been looking at it for years but are unlikely to grant permits anytime soon. They'll probably claim homeland security or something.

Re:I wonder about FAA rules on my hobby "drones" .

[Alioth]

I'd worry more not about a suit banging on the door, but what happens if it hits a full scale aircraft. What kind of redundancy do you have built in to make sure your failsafe works? How are you avoiding controlled airspace? Is the camera good enough that you can adequately "see and avoid" other air traffic? Flying low alone isn't good enough, there's plenty of low flying light aircraft (for example pipeline patrol, powerline patrol, law enforcement, agricultural operations).

Define "drone"

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be nice if people would stop using the word "drone", because it has at least a dozen different definitions.

Technically speaking, it's only a Drone if it is unmanned AND has the capability to pilot/navigate itself. For example the Predator military drone is usually controlled by a pilot, but it can fly itself if the communications link is severed.

Most hobby/model aircraft groups use the term "drone" in error to also refer to any type of unmanned craft. You will also see it used a lot by people in the military to refer to an unmanned target vehicle.

So on one hand we have restrictions on RC craft of any type, under the FAA. Then there are additional restrictions regarding the use of an auto-pilot system on an unmanned craft- for example in most cases it's considered a Munition and both ownership and export restrictions by the federal government come into play.

From what I can tell, this article is not about an actual drone, it's about a 'standard' remote operated craft. The issue seems to be use of such craft for commercial purposes, not because they are using a specific type of craft.
But "drone" gets a lot more news hits because people have heard the term used in reference to the Military Drones, and when they see the word "Drone" they have visions of a Fully Armed and Operational Battlesta... errrr Drone with the News, Corp logo on the side, silently flying through the skies at night in order to snap lewd pictures of you in your undies.

Wait...

[xclr8r]

So commercial business can be trusted to fly into space/moon/whatever.. but they can't be trusted to fly a remote control drone. Mind boggled. Yes I'm being obtuse and this is not a serious comment but it's the first thing that came to my mind.. now to get some coffee.

Re:Wait...

[morgauxo]

Well, I don't really agree with these rules either. However... as for the comparison.. A spacecraft fired out over the ocean and to a height where it will burn up if it re-enters improperly is probably not as safety critical as a drone which is likely to be flown over top of a heavily populated city. Of course.. I am assuming the drone is much larger and heavier than the little quad-copter shown in the article's picture. Also, although imaging from space is pretty good I don't think satellites are likely to get a good view through your window and into your home yet. Are they? A drone could pretty easily.

Just a little devil's advocate.

Re:Wait...

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Those commercial businesses all have licenses to fly to space/moon/whatever issued by an appropriate regulatory agency. Next question?

Re:And it hasn't been shot down?

[GameboyRMH]

I think this is why hobbyist RC planes are commonly available in a US flag livery, so you can safely fly them over these areas :-P

Re:I wonder about FAA rules on my hobby "drones" .

[GameboyRMH]

It's worth considering that if anything fails on a multi-copter, the first thing it will do is fall out of the sky. This is inherent to the way it's designed. The only possibility he has to worry about is all the motors getting stuck on full power somehow (I've lost a fixed-wing plane this way and a Parrot AR.Drone prototype did exactly this, but got stuck on a ceiling as it was indoors), then it would climb out of control until the batteries die.

better drone rules

[morgauxo]

If we don't like the current laws then lets offer alternatives. How about these for drone rules?

Your drone is your property therefore you can legally fly it wherever you can legally go with certain exceptions...
No drones over roadways. Yah, that one's a real joy killer but imagine driving down the road at highway speeds and somebody's drone fails overhead and goes through your windshield.
No drones over other people's residential property without permission under a certain height. (To prevent looking through people's windows. Sorry Tom)
No drones in the height range that commercial aircraft fly or near an airport. (pretty much a no-brainer to prevent collisions) Perhaps this results in a set ceiling a personal drone can not go over. Or.. if you want to allow for really high drones (like the stratospheric balloons which have become popular) then drones can cross through the forbidden height range so long as they only remain in this range for the time necessary to either rise above it or come back down.
Drones would be allowed in privately owned 'public' places like businesses and campuses (since you can legally walk your body there anyway) however the owner has the right to ban them. Violating an owner's ban would be considered trespassing just like if the owner banned you yourself. However, drones would still be allowed in 'banned' places so long as they remain a certain height over the tallest building (for privacy) as this would be considered public air space and not part of their property.


There, how is that? Obviously this is not the law currently. Don't try to follow it and certainly don't blame me if you get in trouble doing so. It's just my personal opinion of what the law should be.

Re:I wonder about FAA rules on my hobby "drones" .

[GameboyRMH]

It's worth considering that if anything fails on a multi-copter with less than five rotors, the first thing it will do is fall out of the sky.

Just needed to correct myself. Copters with 5+ rotors can stay in the air if an engine fails (hexacopters can even survive 3 engine failures if they fail in the right pattern).

UAVs lighter than 50lb are unregulated

[thisisauniqueid]

UAVs lighter than 50lb are (mostly) unregulated in the US right now.

Re:I wonder about FAA rules on my hobby "drones" .

[ScrewMaster]

Your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter

In the good 'ol days, they just shot revenooers and other government busybodies. Remember what Lazarus Long once said, "Beware strong drink, it can make you shoot at tax collectors ... and miss." Now we can just sling a few drones after them and go back to our booze.