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Drone-Based Businesses: Growing In Canada, Grounded In the US
An anonymous reader writes: As small drones become affordable, and as clever people come up with ideas on how to use them, we've been hearing about more and more plans for drone-based business. In the U.S., the Federal Aviation Administration was quick to shut down such ideas in order to give themselves time to regulate the nascent industry. Not so, in Canada. Thanks to a simple permit system, anyone wanting to use a drone for commercial purposes can do so in Canada by simply applying and waiting a few weeks. Around 1,500 of these permits have been granted already, and Canada's private drone industry is flourishing as a result. Drones have been used for agriculture analysis, TV production, real estate photography, law enforcement, and many other tasks.
Are they going to use the drones to keep people from the states from border crossing illegally to Canada where the jobs are?
Where will the Canadians go when we have taken up the service jobs that no one else wants? To the North Pole to fill in for Elf shit work?
Will it be underpaid people from the states assembling these drones? Drones assembling drones? I could drone on and on.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
but there are enough flaws in the human condition that we pretty much need some rules to protect us from each other.
This may be one of those times.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
If businesses and individuals can have drones, then the terrorists have already won. Sadly, the terrorists won right after 9/11 when the Federal government ballooned into a never before seen size, with the passage of the unPATRIOTic Act. Any time the government gets more power, the people lose.
I hope you guys are enjoying the government you've elected. It doesn't matter if you voted for Bush, Gore, Kerry, Obama, McCain or Romney, the result would all be the same. We kept hearing over and over again "Things like this won't happen when Obama is president!". But guess what? They do happen, and they're happening more often.
That's the end of my libertarian rant. Now start with your straw man attacks.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Sending crack to the mayor/taking pics of the mayor smoking crack, just got a little easier.
Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
As a researcher in the U.S. at a public university who's developing the use of UAS as an aerial remote sensing platform, having the FAA dragging its feet on coming up with a sensible solution is fueling a growing disservice to our nation's students. It's been recommended that we don't involve students or conduct any testing with our *government funded* grants in the U.S. (so we're doing it outside the country) that employ such technology for fear of being classed a commercial use and risking the hassle of dealing with the regulatory fall-out of attracting FAA attention. And that's even with us performing best-practices that any commercial pilot would be conducting (logs, flight plans, equipment checklists, etc.). Red-tape is killing any edge we might have had in developing and employing this tech. If the government isn't careful we're going to need another trade agreement and subsidies to be competitive by the time the regulations fall in place.
With many multiples of 1.6 km between logging camps and sugar shacks, there won't even be 1 victim for 1000 drone crashes. Not so in the U.S.
The government can earn money from regulation fees, someone can use regulation to stifle competition . . . so regulation is also about profit . . . for somebody.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Finnish Traffic security official Trafi announced today about new regulations of operating rc-helicopters (multicopters, and such). According to new regulations rc-pilot must keep his copter always within 500 meters range, and below 150 m of altitude. Also flying within highly populated areas is prohibited, with few exceptions. No word on penalty's for breaking the rules yet.
if the consumers of america want their goods delivered within an hour by drone... that's what it will be
Speaking to Oklahoma City University faculty and students, the justice said Thursday that technology has allowed devices to "listen to your conversations from miles away and through your walls." She added: "We are in that brave new world, and we are capable of being in that Orwellian world, too."
The President Obama appointee also discussed the lack of privacy standards concerning drones.
"There are drones flying over the air randomly that are recording everything that’s happening on what we consider our private property. That type of technology has to stimulate us to think about what is it that we cherish in privacy and how far we want to protect it and from whom. Because people think that it should be protected just against government intrusion, but I don’t like the fact that someone I don’t knowcan pick up, if they’re a private citizen, one of these drones and fly it over my property."
http://arstechnica.com/tech-po...
Basically every idiot in this country would now, gleefully, throw away his rights and sell his immortal soul for the (false) promises of "safety" and "security".
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
Screwdrivers can be used for many constructive commercial purposes. They can also be used to break into a house. Do you ban the sale and use of screwdrivers out of fear of house break-ins? Ideally the answer should be based on the net difference in productivity gains from constructive uses minus losses from break-ins. Unfortunately that's not what I'm seeing. Drones are being banned out of paranoia with no consideration for the positive ways they can contribute to the economy and our lives.
We've even got the default state wrong. Absent a clear Constitutional rationale for banning drones, they are (or at least should be) legal to use and operate. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
(Disclaimer: A friend needed overhead pictures of his rural commercial property at higher-than Google Maps resolution, and asked me to take the pictures. We had to rent a helicopter at $750/hr. Due to the cost, we had to rush and the pictures though usable weren't as ideal as we'd have liked. For the approx $1200 we paid, we could've bought our own drone and tried this as many times as we liked until the pictures were perfect. So the beneficial uses of drones are pretty damn obvious to me.)
Shouldn't we take into account that the average American is dumber and more evil than the average Canadian? An average American with a drone and no regulation is a disaster waiting to happen.
For the record our commercial drones are subject to same limitations as RC planes so they have a low ceiling height and can't operate anywhere near planes taking off and landing, so as long as the drone operators and manufacturers respect these regulations it will not affect current air traffic.
It's going to be just like CB radio back in the day. The government said you had to get a license. The CB radio became enormously popular and, of course, nobody bothered to get a license. The FCC tried to fight back, but were completely ignored by the public, who just wanted to talk to their "good buddies".
Finally, the FCC had manufacturers print up a "license" and include it with the equipment.
It's almost the same with HAM radio. You are supposed to get a "license" but in reality you can buy whatever equipment you want, do whatever you want, and the government will never bother you because there are bigger fish to fry.
I hope the FAA never okays drones in civilian airspace.
Good, brings more business to the Canadian economy if you stay out of it.
Good let us reap the profits of your fearful ignorance
1,500?
With current estimates of 40K+ drones flying around in the hobbyist space, and likely another 10K in the NA market only, 1500 approved users sounds like peanuts... and from a business aspect, I'm sure the profit margins are about breaking even, cause aerial drone post-production and media delivery costs are likely killing any profits. As for Ag and law enforcement--they it's a race to the bottom when it comes to service costs (the ROI is lower than the TCO).
I like the promotion of drones into commercial applications--hands down, drones have a place and possible good uses and huge upside for applications, but this article smells of overarching hype.
by your logic, there are no drunk drivers. It's a victimless crime, right?
The US is just a wee bit different. When a wonderful new technology becomes available we immediately call moral wizards with pointy hats designed to keep witches from sitting on their heads. Their job is to get new technologies made illegal or somehow prevent them within the US. That gives every nation on Earth a chance to make money except the US. In the US we like to sit around and whine that we are falling behind. Stem cells were like that. genetic therapy and crop creation are like that as well. Once the rest of the world gets all the potential profits locked away then and only then can the US to allow the same thing that all other nations have already gotten up and running. It is rather like we did with computers. We can market computers but design and building were pretty much taken by foreign companies. You see we dare not do anything here in America. That is because we are superior.
The U.S. has become so enamored with "security". What else can explain the government's opposition to a new technology that could enable citizens to watch their own surroundings and offer a few new economic and research opportunities? Afterall, the internet is so severely regulated by the government too. Security is all that matters.
Controlled airspace != civilian airspace.
to prevent drones from seeing anything. If those drones are equipped with infra-red cameras it'll be time to bring out the liquid nitrogen fog machines and tinfoil lining for the netting.
Drones are pretty commonly used. My friend who does aerial photography tells me that drones are pretty much taking over real estate. Drones are used for investigating animal rights claims, are commonly used in agriculture, are being researched by Amazon as a near-future way to deliver packages...I just don't see drones as something being grounded by over-regulation.
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Its not just drones. Even though many Canadians feel that their Federal Government is dysfunctional in many areas, they believe that its still more functional than the US Federal Government, which they suspect is much more dysfunctional. The Canadian House of Commons is a bear pit, but its not intractable, unlike the US Congress or Senate (in Canada political parties fight, but its not as hard core as the Schism between US Republicans and Democrats). No flying a drone within 5km of an airport, no flying above 500m, no flying at night (one hour after sunset, to one hour before sunrise).
"For the record our commercial drones are subject to same limitations as RC planes so they have a low ceiling height and can't operate anywhere near planes taking off and landing,"
Exactly, which is what is hampering their being used in business applications. Hence the push to remove those restrictions from drone aircraft*. Which i am against.
* -- how they'll differentiate "drone" from "RC craft" is beyond me... weight? Range?
...it's just flourishing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As soon as Amazon, Google and other *big businesses* have their drone business models ready, politicians left and right will be boug* err, lobyied and commercial drones will happen.