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FAA Pressures Coldwell, Other Realtors To Stop Using Drone Footage
mpicpp (3454017) writes For months, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been investigating realtors who use drones to film their properties. Now, Forbes has learned that the FAA's investigations have succeeded in intimidating NRT —the nation's largest residential real estate brokerage company — into advising their members to not only cease flying drones as part of their work, but to also cease using drone footage. This is a troubling development in an ongoing saga over the FAA's rules which punish the safe commercial use of drones. Currently, the FAA does not prohibit the use of drones for a hobby — flying over your home and taking pictures of it for fun is allowed, but because real estate drones take pictures for a commercial purpose, the FAA prohibits their use.
The FAA hasn't issued any "rule" only a policy guideline which is unenforceable. Most people don't know that and the FAA is counting on intimidation to do their dirty work for them.
From the post:
"This is a troubling development in an ongoing saga over the FAA's rules which punish the safe commercial use of drones."
Nope. It's a completely appropriate action according to the FAA's mandate and charter. It's their exact *job*.
Whether it's an appropriate restriction is to be debated.
Tom Geller
Just tell them you are an illegal migrant operating the drone. Those people are allowed to break any laws and be upheld as the greatest citizens of the country. Its just you middle class, tax paying, law abiding citizens that the administration has contempt for.
Hell, if you are illegal you don't even need ID to get past the TSA to board commercial flights anymore. story. So the FAA doesn't apply its laws to illegals, just people who haven't broken the law.
This administration has. So has the last one. That's where this one learned they could get away with it.
The FAA was created to regulate passenger and air traffic, not to assert arbitrary authority over any airspace above our heads.
And even with the massive mission creep, airplanes need to stay 1000ft above any buildings on private settled land. What you do below that on your land is your own business, and it should stay your own business.
That means that if you want to shoot down low-flying Amazon delivery drones, you should be able to do that. Likewise, if you want to fly your own drone to take pictures of your own property, you should be able to do that too as long as you stay below 1000ft.
And make no mistake, FAA's attempts to assert authority have nothing to do with safety. The motivating factor here is power and money. Ultimately, the FAA wants to assert rights over the non-aviation airspace over your property, something they never had any say about in the past. And the people benefiting from it won't be you, it will be a few wealthy corporations that will be flying low-flying drones through your backyard whether you want to or not.
The problem with the approach the FAA has been taking on this issue is that the deciding factor is whether money changes hands. If an activity is safe for a hobbyist to perform, why is it suddenly dangerous and in need of regulation when a professional does it? If anything, commercially operated remote controlled planes/helicopters would be safer in a given situation, as the parent company is going to have real liability insurance, and the insurer is going to have all sorts of maintenance and training requirements.
"Because Science" is one step from "Because old book". Try "Because of my experiment testing my falsifiable assertion".
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