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FAA Proposes Rules To Limit Commercial Drone Use
An anonymous reader sends this report from the NY Times:
In an attempt to bring order to increasingly chaotic skies, the Federal Aviation Administration on Sunday proposed long-awaited rules on the commercial use of small drones, requiring operators to be certified, fly only during daylight and keep their aircraft in sight. The rules, though less restrictive than the current ones, appear to prohibit for now the kind of drone delivery services being explored by Amazon, Google and other companies, since the operator or assigned observers must be able to see the drone at all times without binoculars. But company officials believe the line-of-sight requirement could be relaxed in the future to accommodate delivery services.
The FAA's current position is that ALL (with very, very few waivered exceptions) commercial use of UAS is not allowed. Their proposed new rules would reduce their restrictions, not add to them. You can't get more restricted than "completely banned." But don't get your hopes up. It will take two or three years before these proposed rules, or some variation on them, actually take effect. In the meantime, thousands of small businesses, farmers, etc., will continue to just operate on the down-low and risk large fines.
Especially ridiculous, of course, is that people flying the exact same machines, in exactly the same place, at exactly the same time, with all of the exact same safety precautions and practices, but who are doing it for recreational purposes, will not be beholden to the same rules. Flying after the sun goes down? Just fine if you're an enthusiast. Making exactly the same flight, but getting $50 to do it? Federal fine!
Another capricious, irrational regulatory stance on the part of the executive branch. The new rules, if and when they ever stick, despite congress requiring them, by law, to have it done by September (it will never happen), will have zero impact on a reckless amateur noob or someone malicious. This is just a fee grab looking to feed the FAA with $150 every 24 months from some guy who does roofing and wants to inspect gutters without putting up a dangerous ladder. Right now he's not allowed. Someday he will be able to, if he pays more money to do so. But his neighbor can do it for fun with no legal risks. Absurd.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Ahh, ScentCone posted the answer. Prior to these laws, all commercial drone use was prohibited. Wow... how silly...
"keep their aircraft in sight"
So they're basically negating the one major aspect of a drone, the ability to fly significant areas autonomously by tethering it to someone on the ground. Sounds like bureaucratic red tape to me, if you can't kill a thing make it useless to do it by wrapping it in so many "common sense" measures as to make it useless. I can understand some things, requiring insurance, constant tracking, keeping records, but maintaning line of sight either shows a complete lack of understanding of what a drone is or a blatant attempt to kill a (possibly) nascent industry.
FAA Proposes Rules To Limit Commercial Drone Use
I've always thought commercials drone on and on. Glad to see the FCC is doing something about this.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Prior to these laws, all commercial drone use was prohibited.
And still will be for at least a couple of years while this regulatory wagon rolls slowly down the road. Meanwhile, developed countries around the world are getting their shit together, and seeing immediate economic benefits from work in this area.
Right now, if you want to do sUAS aerial work for pay, you have to do an incredibly onerous federal dance in filing for a 333 exception, and have to have at least a Private Pilot's License. That's right, you're flying a tiny little DJI quadcopter with GoPro on it 8 or 10 meters off the ground to inspect some roofing shingles, and you need to have spent $10,000+ and hundreds of hours (including stick time in rented, fixed-wing, actual real-live airplanes flying in controlled air space!), pass physicals and a DHS background checks But if you're doing exactly the same thing for fun, none of that is necessary and you can fly right now. The guy running the roofing business, though? He'll have to wait a couple of years or become a pilot and an expert on navigating section 333's paperwork mill (and spend thousands, and still wait months for the FAA waiver allowing him to use his DJI Phantom). Thanks, Obama administration.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
There's a world of difference between "I can see what you're doing" versus "I can see something that can see what you're doing."
It doesn't matter. That's not what the rule is about. The Line-Of-Site rule is meant to make up for the fact that there is no pilot onboard the aircraft, and thus no way (if you're beyond line of site) to do the duty of seeing and avoiding other air traffic. If your UAS is a couple of kilometers away, invisible beyond something like a big tree line, you've got no idea how to quickly maneuver it if it's entering the path of, say, something like an air ambulance that's descending through 500' to land at an accident site. That's exactly the sort of scenario they're worried about: somebody like a journalist trying to get overhead shots of something like an accident scene, and sending his flying camera robot half a mile away BLOS to the location - and in comes a properly piloted traffic, S&R, or police helicopter. Or two. The journalist might be able to hear them, but if he can't even see, unaided, his own machine in the air, that's a serious hazard. Hence, LOS operations.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
...be paid to landowners for easements? We've already been sold down the river when it comes to commercial aircraft and radio waves that pass over our property. Personally, I think the line should be drawn here. You want to fly a drone a few feet over my house, you pay.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Can you promise the drone, out of your site, will not run into another aircraft, person or building?
For experimental situations over known terrain maybe autonomous drones will work fine. For commercial operations in situations where other aircraft may be operating (IE EMS helicopters, AG aircraft, other drones, etc), the drone needs to operate under the same rules as the manned aircraft they are in the vicinity of. Manned aircraft have to see and avoid other aircraft. It doesn't always work, but certainly with two pilots looking gives a fighting chance of one pilot noticing. Today pilots have a hard time seeing birds, and putting drones in their way will cause more accidents.
Please consider aircraft of all sizes and types. Sure a 5lb drone may not hurt a 747, but a 5lb drone will probably go through the windshield of a small twin engine aircraft. If the drone were to be ingested by a turbine engine, it is likely to cause damage to the engine (and destroy the drone), but who gets the bill. If I were running an airline, I would certainly want the $millions to repair that turbine reimbursed.
So I'm a little foggy, here. Are you saying that the roofing guy who wants to send a 4-pound quad with a GoPro a couple dozen feet in the air to inspect some gutters and shingles before he risks his neck climbing a 30 foot ladder ... should have a PPL? But that a recreational RC operator who wants to participate in weekend races involving 200mph turbine-powered machines weighing over 100 pounds is fine, because that's much safer? Just trying to understand the rationale here.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I envisage a helicopter load of UAV operators in "line of sight".
For the helicopter providers, it is a great opportunity.
For the LOS UAV operators, it is a wonderful range extension.
For the rest of us, underneath, maybe not so great.
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Most people are not nearly as paranoid as they should be.