Slashdot Mirror
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
I am usually a pretty big skeptic when it comes to regulation but I gotta agree with you here.
This seems like a federal agency operating well withing the boundaries of what it was established to do. I also think we do need some management of [commercial] drones, do to the sheer numbers and the fact that most operators are flying over other peoples properties, where crashes could cause damage or injury.
People doing purely as a hobby problem I would be more skeptical of the need to regulate them. There numbers are few enough and lets be honest most of the air craft they would be operating will remain small and light; we can probably expect incidents form their use to be infrequent enough and small enough in severity to sort out in our local small claims courts at least until that proves not to be the case.
The real-estate folks though are using the drones commercial and if we let every real-estate agent, grounds keep, delivery boy, paper boy, etc; fly a drone with no management whatsoever that is hell of lot of drones in air! Some of those crafts might start getting bigger and heavier pretty quickly as well.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Nope. It's a completely appropriate action according to the FAA's mandate and charter. It's their exact *job*.
Maybe. But then perhaps its time for Congress to rewrite the mandate and take the commercial/hobby distinction out.
Leave them with the safety and certification roles. But the operation of drones needs to be consistent across all uses. Something isn't more or less safe if money changes hands. We (the USA) are going to be left behind as other jurisdictions allow commercial drone use, subject to rules compliance. Commercial use brings money into the industry, which pays for R&D and the refinement of safety rules. US manufacturers don't have the ability to participate in this, leaving the business to foreign concerns. That is definitely NOT the FAA's charter.
Have gnu, will travel.
In the FAA Modernization And Reform Act of 2012 congress required the following:
SEC. 332. .—Not later than 1 year after the ... .—Not later than 18 months after the date on
(a)(4) REPORT TO CONGRESS
date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall submit to Con-
gress a copy of the plan required under paragraph (1).
(b) RULEMAKING
which the plan required under subsection (a)(1) is submitted to Con-
gress under subsection (a)(4), the Secretary shall publish in the Fed-
eral Register—
(1) a final rule on small unmanned aircraft systems that
will allow for civil operation of such systems in the national
airspace system, to the extent the systems do not meet the re-
quirements for expedited operational authorization under sec-
tion 333 of this Act;
This law was passed on 1 Feb 2012. I don't know the exact date that the FAA made their report to congress, but even assuming that they waited till the last possible day, that would mean their final rule on small unmanned aircraft is due on 1 Aug 2014. Banning commercial use of small unnmanned aircraft is not "allowing for civil operation of such systems", so the FAA either is or soon will be operating in direct contradiction to the law passed by congress.
Worse, the rules and guidelines that they have created didn't follow the required process for creating new regulations, in particular they were effected without any public comment period, something a judge already slapped them down for. Come 1 Aug the FAA can claim small commercial drone use is illegal all they want, but the courts aren't going to back them up.
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.
Commercial exceptions are well-established in U.S. law.
But this isn't a case of a commercial exception. Commercial aircraft operators are subject to far more stringent regulations than private/recreational*. And that's fine, particularly for passenger carriers. For the public on the ground, I want the regulations to treat commercial and private safety equally. I'm not going to be happier if some billionaire drops his personal 737 on my house than if it was Southwest Airlines. On the other hand, once a drone operator 'goes comercial', I would expect them to carry liability insurance and have deep pockets to protect. As a result, I'd be more comfortable with a business operated drone than a hobby flyer over my house.
This is just like Uber and Lyft vs New York City. The entrenched cab interests have one way of doing things and they are using their regulatory agency to block new technology. The same appears to be happening for flight serice companies. Piloted aircraft for hire are having the FAA protect their turf.
*The general aviation manufacturing business almost went under in this country until legislation was passed to limit their liability. That runs counter to the idea that there is an atmosphere of business exception in this country.
Have gnu, will travel.
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".