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.

Comments

Not a rule

[RogueWarrior65]

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.

Re:Not a rule

[slimjim8094]

FAA has no authority below the mandated altitudes for air travel.

Wrong. FAA's authority applies to any flying vehicle in the airspace of this country. Don't believe me? Here's the quote from the law that established the FAA:

The Administrator is authorized and directed to develop plans for and formulate policy with respect to the use of the navigable airspace; and assign by rule, regulation, or order the use of the navigable airspace under such terms, conditions, and limitations as he may deem necessary in order to insure the safety of aircraft and the efficient utilization of such airspace. He may modify or revoke such assignment when required in the public interest.

Property owners have air rights above their property up to the FAA's mandated altitudes or as locally mandated by code.

Nope. Another common misconception, but "he United States Government has exclusive sovereignty of airspace of the United States." (source).

Consider reading the Wikipedia page for some interpretation. Basically the idea is that you have airspace rights to the extent that you can use the space to have useful stuff on it (i.e., you can't build a 600 foot pole just to keep planes away, it has to be for some useful purpose). It's not at all clear that using drones grants you these rights, since they're definitely more aircraft than building.

So, the FAA should kindly go fuck itself. It does not tell us what we can do in the immediate vicinity around our homes or property.

If I want to hire a drone to do a fly through of my home, or my realtor offers to do it themselves, I will do it and the feds can shove their rules as far up their ass as they please.

Nobody's talking about flying a drone inside your house, they're talking about flying one over your house. You know, airspace. As far as thumbing your nose at the FAA - go nuts, but be prepared to win in court, suffer the consequences, or start a (successful) revolution. You could say the same thing about any other law or regulation - it's basically a question if whether you accept the rule of law or not.

Just so we're all clear on the sequence of events: the law creates the FAA and says "you regulate our airspace". The FAA, in the course of performing its legal mandate, creates a number of regulations (such as how pilots and aircraft are certified, standards for airports and navigation, etc) through a process called "rulemaking". They also issue more specific interpretations of the rules they've already enacted. (None of this is unusual; all federal agencies work the same way.) One such opinion decides that drones are basically model aircraft and that's OK so long as they follow the rules - one of which is no commercial use. The court decided that an opinion wasn't good enough here, so the FAA is going through the rulemaking process like they're supposed to. The end result will not be "yeah do whatever the hell you want", it'll probably be "be a hobbyist model aircraft (and comply with the rules, including noncommercial use) or get certified like an aircraft/pilot".

The FAA needs to follow the law.

[Anonymous Coward]

In the FAA Modernization And Reform Act of 2012 congress required the following:

SEC. 332.
(a)(4) REPORT TO CONGRESS .—Not later than 1 year after the
date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall submit to Con-
gress a copy of the plan required under paragraph (1). ...
(b) RULEMAKING .—Not later than 18 months after the date on
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.

that's not the FAA's job

[silfen]

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.

Re:Not a rule - Not just the FAA

[TheGavster]

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.