Drone Search and Rescue Operation Wins Fight Against FAA

An anonymous reader writes: Back in February, officials at the Federal Aviation Administration told a Texas search-and-rescue team they couldn't use drones help locate missing persons. The team, which is called EquuSearch, challenged the FAA in court. On Friday, the court ruled (PDF) in favor of EquuSearch, saying the FAA's directive was "not a formal cease-and-desist letter representing the agency's final conclusion." EquuSearch intends to resume using the drones immediately. This puts the FAA in the position of having to either initiate formal proceedings against EquuSearch, which is clearly operating to the benefit of society (as opposed to purely commercial drone use), or to revisit and finalize its rules for small aircraft entirely. The latter would be a lengthy process because "Congress has delegated rule making powers to its agencies, but the Administrative Procedures Act requires the agencies to provide a public notice and comment period first."

Comments

comments are now underway on just this issue

[Todd Palin]

You can visit the FAA comment site to comment on proposed rule changes that address this issue. The comment period ends on July 25. The proposed rules will cripple drone use by civilians and also cripple most RC aircraft operations in the USA. The proposal is simply draconian. Check it out:
http://www.regulations.gov/#!d...

Re:comments are now underway on just this issue

[ShanghaiBill]

It would also be a big help to send a copy of your comments to your congressional representative. This is especially true if your representative serves on the Aviation Committee that oversees the FAA. These are the members:

Republicans
Frank A. LoBiondo, New Jersey, Chairman
Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin
Howard Coble, North Carolina
John J. Duncan, Jr., Tennessee
Sam Graves, Missouri
Blake Farenthold, Texas
Larry Bucshon, Indiana
Patrick Meehan, Pennsylvania
Richard L. Hanna, New York
Daniel Webster, Florida
Jeff Denham, California
Reid J. Ribble, Wisconsin
Thomas Massie, Kentucky
Steve Daines, Montana
Roger Williams, Texas
Mark Meadows, North Carolina
Rodney Davis, Illinois, Vice Chair
Bill Shuster, Pennsylvania, (ex officio)

Democrats
Rick Larsen, Washington, Ranking Member
Peter A. DeFazio, Oregon
Eddie Bernice Johnson, Texas
Michael E. Capuano, Massachusetts
Daniel Lipinski, Illinois
Steve Cohen, Tennessee
André Carson, Indiana
Richard M. Nolan, Minnesota
Dina Titus, Nevada
Sean Patrick Maloney, New York
Cheri Bustos, Illinois
Corrine Brown, Florida
Elizabeth H. Esty, Connecticut
Nick J. Rahall, II, West Virginia, (ex officio)

It will be much easier to stop these regulations, than it will be to repeal them later. The skies should belong to the people, not the government. The time to act is now.

Re: comments are now underway on just this issue

[ImaLamer]

"The skies should belong to the people, not the government. "

You mean the government for and by the people? The ones we elected to make up that list? Your exercise of writing those letters shows regulations should be at the behest of the people and this isn't us vs them.

So please drop this "people or government" dichotomy. This sets us all back. It's ignorance, it goes against your point and tells people the government isn't ours to control. It's how we get regulations we don't like. Instead keep the first half of your sentiment and we can have both, regulations by and for the protection of people.

bonus points if you do your research and use gramm

[raymorris]

I've gotten involved in a couple of rounds of agency rule-making before and it taught me a few things. I learned that this is where the skills learned writing papers in school can really be useful. The folks at the FAA think they know something about this topic, so they tend to discount comments that sound like the person is spouting off emotionally without having any real knowledge of the subject matter. On the other hand, they don't know everything that everyone is doing in the field, so they'd like to hear comments from people doing different things. For example, my local university has a drone research center and the FAA doesn't know what all the research center is doing, so they can appreciate comments about using drones in a research and educational setting.

IF you really care about this topic, it may be worth putting some time into writing your comments well, or supporting an organization who will, such as the model aircraft association.