Slashdot Mirror
How You Too Can Be Shut Down By the Feds For Flying Drones
An anonymous reader writes "University of Nebraska-Lincoln professor Matt Waite waived a government cease and desist letter recently received for his experiments using 3-pound, $500 drones for news reporting (specifically, for a story about drought in Nebraska). He gave journalism organizations the lowdown on what they can expect from the government on this front going forward and said he's posting his experience in trying to get certified by the FAA on GitHub so they can follow along."
No, that's not what news organizations can expect. That's what people trying to report on actual events can expect.
The government selectively enforces rules like this. It has been for some time now. We have to keep you away from the raw and unadorned truth... it's dangerous to democracy you know. You will receive an edited and redacted version suitable for consumption within 3-5 business days. Thank you for your cooperation, Citizen.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
No, the FAA is being very deliberate about shutting down everyone who is deliberately breaking the law by commercially flying uavs. They should prosecute instead sending a C&D
I didn't RTFA, but the price sure makes me believe these were RC model planes and not actually drones. Or is anything that's remote controlled a drone now? Do RC cars count? If I use a wireless keyboard & mouse, my computer should. My television certainly should qualify, it does nothing but drone when it's on.
At what point is a hobby shop R/C Airplane or Helicopter a drone? I used to enjoy flying R/C planes as a teen. I mean they were the "trainers". I never had the space to dedicate a workshop towards building the larger model planes until recently. And delicate (and easily breakable) R/C planes and young kids probably wouldn't matter much.
I now wonder if by the time kids get old enough to know better if I'll be able to get back into the hobby due to every R/C plane being classified as a drone...
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
s/waived/waved/ – it makes a difference.
Drones have an ability to make truth more evident. Not only people but governments do not like it when truth is available. Any effort to make good use of drones will be met with huge resistance. For example we are willing to spend billions of dollars on a border control as long as it does not work. Imagine what a fleet of drones could do to halt illegal immigration. Now tell me just how likely it is that drones will be heavily used to patrol our borders. I have seen this same phenomena in police work where a couple of cops came up with a great way to curtail drunk driving. Two cops simply waited outside popular bars and stopped drivers who pulled out of the parking lot late at night. Almost 100% of the stops resulted in a valid drunk driving arrest. The city quickly halted the practice. The problem was that the town bordered another town and when word got out people simply drove a few hundred yards to get drunk in the next town's bars. In other words the real working policy of the city was to make a show of stopping drunk driving while making sure that they really did not stop drunk driving.
Drones work too well. By using drones we can expose situations and that endangers all kinds of social institutions. With a good swarm of drones on patrol we could really knock out almost all home burglaries at night. But how many companies and jobs depend on a busy criminal justice system? Society really is that perverted.
It's illegal to fly an RC model for any kind of pay.
As long as you are doing it for fun (and follow AMA safety rules), RC camera work is legal.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Nothing stops these UAVs from flying in the same airspace as planes carrying people - all it takes is a little software malfunction. They are small and hard to see, aren't in radio contact with air traffic controllers, and don't show up on radar. There's a reason the government is concerned about them, and I suspect it's not about supressing truth.
RC Plane: no camera and needs to be in direct line of sight of the operator.
Drone: real time camera and can be operated out of line of sight of the operator.
See the difference?
Which one, Zeus? G-Zeus? Anubis? Yahweh? Thor? Brahma? Quetzalcoatl? Ba`al adh-Dhubab? Vishnu? Me?
My bet is on myself.
Modern electric RC trainers like a slow stick are almost unbreakable. If your kids are old enough to shoot a 22 rifle they are old enough to fly RC. I'd say age about 8 to get started, depending on the kid. The slow stick is also surprisingly aerobatic.
If they're still at the BB gun stage you could try them with a 3 channel indoor slow flyer. Those are dirt cheap. $50 bucks complete.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You can have a real time camera, as long as you operate it in line of sight.
You can't operate it for profit. e.g. Aerial photography of real estate.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Is this the same place that was in an uproar about licensing drones all over the US? There are people who seem to think that anyone should be able to use drones except the government. Interesting dichotomy there.
I see it as a drone once it has autonomous functionality. Simple FPV (first person view) doesn't qualify in my book
Is a Predator a drone? It is continually piloted from the ground.
FAA regs specifically mention AMA rules. So yes, they are included in FAA regs.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
You know, even by Slashdot standards this summary is remarkably incoherent. And that's ignoring the waived/waved confusion.
"he's posting his experience in trying to get certified by the FAA on GitHub so they can follow along."
Likely his problem was that the FAA doesn't use Github for certification. They have their own computers and application forms and stuff.
Three Squirrels
Regulating the parts of the airspace routinely used in interstate commerce is the job of the Federal government.
I don't know what the actual "airspace" that the feds claim jurisdiction over, but common sense would say it's anything at or within the safety margin of the lowest altitude a commercial aircraft flying from one state to another or flying in or out of the United States would routinely use over that spot, or the lowest altitude a military or other federal-government-owned aircraft would routinely use over that spot. In most areas the "FAA floor" should be a few thousand feet at the lowest (I suspect it's much lower, but I digress). For areas within a few hundred feet of runways, helipads, etc. this may be all the way to the ground (sorry kiddies, no radio-controlled toy airplanes for you without FCC approval).
However, FAA regulations should be safety-oriented, not use-oriented.
States should and do have the right to impose safety regulations below that height.
Now, when it comes to radio transmissions, the FCC gets involved. They can and for all I know do impose rules that would prevent a ground-based kiddie-toy remote-control aircraft transmitter from interfering with other, higher-priority, licensed radio users including radios used by commercial aircraft.
For aircraft which emit pollutants into the atmosphere, the feds also have the right to impose pollution controls.
One other thing that can come under regulation is the actual purpose of the drone's use and the harm to society by allowing the drone to fly at all. I'm thinking noise pollution from low-flying drones and invasion-of-privacy issues from drones with cameras aimed at your backyard swimming pool or aimed at your windows. Most of this should come under state regulation, but things like flying near one state's border and photographing inside someone's window who lives across the border would reasonably come under Congress's purview, as would photographing into the backyard of a home located on a military base even if the drone were flying over private property with that landowner's consent.
Now, would I favor my state banning camera-less or camera-turned-off drones flying over private property with the owner's consent, or flying so high and so quiet that they are not a nuisance but not so high that they interfere with interstate commerce? No, but I would expect my state to ensure the safety of such craft. Would I favor my state banning photography from a drone if the subjects of the photograph and/or their owners consented, and the photography wasn't creating a nuisance, safety, or other issue for anyone else? No.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Mount a gun on your drone and the NRA will step in and make it legal...
It's illegal to fly an RC model for any kind of pay.
That's what *I* thought, too. So why don't we take a page direct from the politicians: I fly for myself and take pics, and then give them to you because you ask. (Presumably I'd need to give them to all comers, but then again not Every Single Person I meet is my friend. So I don't see that saying "No" is that bad. A judge may disagree.)
You, then, contribute to my fund (charitable, PAC, LLC, something) that I just happen to control. No no -- it's not MY money at all, it's the funds' money; I just happen to be the one in control of it. Or my friend is, whatever.
Now, could the feds come in and take control and arrest me before, during, or after the fact? Yep, because the men with guns always win, especially if they have enough bullets.
By the way, I think that's great: "I use it to troll 'real world' groups... Completely legal as I'm doing it for fun." But mightn't fun have consequences? Just because you're having fun doesn't mean everyone else is. Aren't you responsible if you hurt someone else? And if there's not some kind of ID (owner sticker, serial number, etc) on it, how are they to know who owns it? Do you walk up and say "Sorry about that" and claim ownership and responsibility? Or do you just write it off as perhaps a bad battery and disappear?
Fun is by yourself or with friends, and perhaps with a few strangers accidentally nearby. Fun does not consist of ONLY strangers. Then again I'm an old fogie, so get off my lawn. And by the way: I'm practicing.
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
Without seeing the letter, and knowing more about the context... this article amounts to nothing but flamebait. It's entirely possible that Professor Waite, being quite inexperienced, has violated one or more of the existing regulations and has mistaken that for 'repression'. Digging around the relevant websites fails to discover any evidence that's he actually done any work or research on said regulations, only that he's an advocate for their use in journalism.
Perhaps it's not a weapon in the deadly sense
Not deadly? Tell that to this guy. http://nypost.com/2013/09/05/man-decapitated-by-remote-controlled-toy-helicopter/
He is full of it. First off FAA grants 'Authority' to R/C UAS via voluntary suggestions, not regulations. (AC 91-57)
You are correct AMA has ZERO legal standing or authority. They are at best an insurance company.
The only thing that is now being questioned is whether or not the FAA followed proper administrative procedures when it designated commercial (paid) hobby flight as not covered by AC 91-57. The problem is the can of worms it opens, regardless of the ruling. Someone selling a hobby R/C airplane is engaged is business, are they not? Will the FAA go after all of them? Even though they only sell to non-commercial hobbyists? Not likely.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.