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FAA Bans Delivering Packages With Drones
An anonymous reader sends this report from Ars Technica:
The Federal Aviation Administration has said that online shopping powerhouse Amazon may not employ drones to deliver packages, at least not anytime soon. The revelation was buried in an FAA document (PDF) unveiled Monday seeking public comment on its policy on drones, or what the agency calls "model aircraft." The FAA has maintained since at least 2007 that the commercial operation of drones is illegal. ... In Monday's announcement, published in the Federal Register, the FAA named Amazon's December proposal as an example of what is barred under regulations that allow the use of drones for hobby and recreational purposes. The agency did not mention Amazon Prime Air by name, but it didn't have to. Under a graphic that says what is barred, the FAA mentioned the "Delivering of packages to people for a fee." A footnote added, "If an individual offers free shipping in association with a purchase or other offer, FAA would construe the shipping to be in furtherance of a business purpose, and thus, the operation would not fall within the statutory requirement of recreation or hobby purpose."
Back to the catapult idea.
Drones are for delivering missiles.
Suborbital [spaceflight] is the special olympics of spaceflight. - Rei
Considering the poor safety history drones have had so far and the point that this is the FAA's job, I am not sure I would call it overreach at this stage.
You'd have to argue that since corporations are people too, the corporation can make deliveries as a hobby. Somehow, I don't think that will fly.
Considering these are basically miniature electric helicopters, I'm not sure a crash is really that big a deal;
Well, the only part of that which seems reassuring to me is miniature, and that claim doesn't hold up. A drone which can carry (for example) more than about a can of soda is large enough to cause serious injury if it falls out of the sky and lands on you, or its software gets confused and it engages in controlled flight into your face. And then there's the fire risk if something bad should happen to a battery; sure, you could use LifePo or another safer-chemistry battery, but that doesn't rule out fires. If the drone should come down and set something inconvenient alight, assigning blame will be the least consideration.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This has been debated before but here's the recap.
An administrative judge ruled in 2013 that the FAA does not have the authority (in other words it has not been given this authority by Congress) to regulate model aircraft including balsa-wood planes, paper-airplanes, radio-controlled (r/c) planes, helicopters, quadcopters, hexacopters, etc. This is established fact. The FAA elected NOT to appeal this.
The FAA has attempted to levy _one_ fine against someone flying a 'drone' (see above for disambiguation with quadcopters, hexacopters, etc. and realize it's the same thing) and THAT was the time the administrative law judge shot them down and hard.
The FAA can write whatever they like in the Federal Register.
Step 1: Get Congress to give them the authority. Until then the FAA lacks jurisdiction*.
Step 2: Get Congress to fund enforcement actions under this authority. Until then the FAA won't [be allowed to] enforce anything.
Step 3: Profit.
Ehud
commercial helicopter pilot
Tucson AZ US
* A previous poster said that "if you can put a piece of paper between it and the ground the FAA has jurisdiction." This is not true. The FAA's jurisdiction comes not from simplistic experiments with tree bark pulp and thin slots, but from the Code of Federal Regulations. It's all in there. Too boring to quote tho.
Just a couple of months ago, in March, a Federal National Transportation Safety Board Administrative Judge ruled that the FAA does not have legal authority to regulate small low-altitude commercial drones.
FAA seems to be trying to act like Obama, going ahead with policy it already knows to be illegal.