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Why We Need Certain Consumer Drone Regulations
stowie writes: In the last week, state and federal firefighters have fought more than 270 wildfires in California. Here's the problem: firefighters are seeing more unauthorized consumer drones flying over active wildfires. Maybe the drone owners don't know or maybe they don't care, but temporary flight restrictions are placed over wildfire areas due to the aircraft used to help contain the fires. The aircraft used to knock down flames and survey burn areas have to cease operations when there is a drone in the air.
Let them clear the airspace.
a) down the drone
b) arrest and jail the operator
drones dropping shit or crashing into people/things/cars/buildings/etc
the list is pretty long /obvious
I'm not afraid of a giant forest fire, but I'm terrified of drones.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Regulation bad! The market will solve any problems that may come up. All that the injured party has to do is identify the drone pilot!
The title of the linked story is, "Here’s a Perfect Example of Why We Need More Consumer Drone Regulation". It sounds like the existing regulation covers this just fine. Just nobody knows how to enforce it yet.
Why do we need new laws for stuff the existing ones cover?
My odd little brain has been thinking what if there's a drone that attacks you terminator style? How would the find who the drone owner is?
We've seen software bots go out and get illegal stuff, what if we have a hardware bot doing the same? Hmm, the tool to make a harmful autonomous bot are out there; regulation won't help much at this stage.
The aircraft used to knock down flames and survey burn areas have to cease operations when there is a drone in the air.
OK, so we should be using firefighting drones, right?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Do they cease operations for bird and large insects?
Solution is simple - make drones more bird-like (weight, hardness, shape) - to ensure minimal damage to the airplane, but also allowing an airplane to plow through drones like it does through a flock of small birds.
> The aircraft used to knock down flames and survey burn areas have to cease operations when there is a drone in the air.
Or, just shoot the drone down. You probably wouldn't even need firearms -- maybe some kind of EMP pulse and let the drone fall into the fire. Or a non-lethal shotgun round designed to take out propellers. (Say, a big tangle if nylon fishing line.)
The thing is, as a drone pilot, if I see a fire, the last thing I want to do is get in the way of firefighters and/or emergency services. That's inexcusable. But to the extent it doesn't interfere, I'd sure love to get some footage. It might even be useful later. I wonder if there's some kind of compromise. Like, drones can scout out the situation until aircraft are deployed, and then must leave the area or risk destruction and/or heavy fines.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Manned and unmanned aircraft at low altitudes (drone altitude) are flown under VFR (visual flight rules). If the firefighters quit flying because of drones that is bad policy, not bad drones or other civilian aircraft. The government alone is not entitled to situational awareness over wildfires.
That must make their operations damn difficult.
I mean I can only assume that they must also cease operation if there are any large birds in the area (a duck, goose, hawk, eagle, etc would do at least as much
damage to them if hit).
Must make fighting forest fires very difficult..
yikes almighty... good thing there's no animosity on the side of truth & mercy? see no evile is the credo?
It is your responsibility to know the latest TFRs before you fly anything. Using your flying RC toy during an emergency situation (riot, crime in progress, fire, natural disaster, et al.) is illegal.
wait when you say drones you don't mean consumers?!!
That's the problem, there isn't enough laws. Clearly we need more laws. Laws solve every problem. See, if we make every activity illegal, then we can jail whomever we want, whenever we want. Yes, please pass more laws to solve this non-problem.
The article already states that flight restrictions are in effect around a wild fire. So the regulations to prevent this is already in place.
Sounds like an awareness and education issue, the regulations for this example are already appropriate.
BlameBillCosby.com
There already exist regulations to prosecute and restrict flights over fires, RC craft are already covered by the same regulations and penalties that exist.
calling our lunar landing videos a fraud? where do we come up with that stuff? https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=lunar+landing+fraud ... they're not the only ones fussing?
Let's just make it illegal to fly aircraft anywhere close to where I'm flying my drone.... Problem solved. I was here first, YOU fly somewhere else. You are not better than me or in any kind of advanced situation.
I am an "Emergency First Responding Citizen", WHY are you interfering with a FIRST RESPONDER who is monitoring and inventorying the scene of an accident by needing to fly your special big-plane RIGHT where I'm trying to fly my drone?
(See how easy it is, that holier-than-though label of "emergency" applied to some title that isn't official? It's used to trick you into a certain level of empathy towards these special "emergency" people whoever they are and give legitimacy to their operations without having to prove it.)
Kinda like using the word paraphernalia when it's mine but calling it "tools" when the government has the exact same item. Invokes a special response.... Learn to detect this kind of writing people....
We need "rules" because a huge fraction of our population are clinical knuckleheads and somehow don't automatically know better than to harass women, buzz sporting events, disturb fire fighters, interfere with airports, etc. with their store-bought drones. One thing has become very obvious as these now daily incidents have appeared; the vast majority of these idiots are using DJI Phantoms. People with the wit and motivation to build their own drones are usually not the culprits of this silly shit.
But yeah, the knuckleheads are on the loose now with their blister pack drones and Feinstein is on the case, so if you have any interest in UAVs you should probably fuck off now; by the time these statists are done you'll need 50 acres of private land and a license to fly one; it will be criminal everywhere else.
Walk your doggie and ride your bicycle. Everything else is a crime.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
But me, me and me!
I want the freedom to use MY drone, whenever I want! Me, me, me! The evil government is stripping me from all my rights and freedoms! Me, me, me! I let no government sponsored fireman tell me I can't use MY drone that I paid for with MY money!
I already pay HIS salary with MY money, so he should shut up! Me, me, me!
What makes anyone think that one solitary person is going to obey drone regulations?
You can buy a cheap drone for $200, and a really good one for $1000.
People who seriously contemplate passing rules that will regulate drones are living in some sort of off beat virtual reality. What's next, laser pointers?
Gimme a break.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
The guy wasn't doing anything wrong. If a damn airplane or helicopter is afraid to run into a drone, that's their own fault. The libs always want to regulate everything to death. The firefighters should just let it be...if he was buzzing around their heads or some shit then that would be understandably interfering. But he was not. This idea that we need to destroy innovation... it's unamerican. The video he shot was very cool...and could have been educational to some. I just think some people are afraid of the future.
You think flying an object into a plane's engine, potentially causing it to crash and causing massive damage to the ground, extending the length of the fire, and the death of everyone on board, to be "american", "very cool", "educational", and "innovative"?
I think it's stupid. Helicopters already give you a view of the fire from above, if that's really what you want, but the pilots there know what flight regulations are - not to mention have some actual training. On top of that, your right to fly a recreational vehicle is trumped by the right of the firefighters to save lives or limit damage, flying one yourself and interfering with their job in just plain inconsiderate - which I suppose might be "very cool" and "innovative" to you...
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
On the front page, 09 mentions of Microsoft and 11 mentions of Windows ..
If they have to stop flying if a tiny drone is in the area, do they also stop flying if there are birds in the area? some birds are bigger and heavier than some of the drones.
And making something that's already illegal (violating TFRs) illegal in more ways (violating TFRs WITH A DRONE) isn't likely to help much.
There is always a perfectly reasonable sounding justification people can dream up to justify a ban on just about anything.
Example: Cars kill tens of thousands a year. Car deaths are bad so ban Cars. While being completely one-sided at least this example provides an objective cost in lives lost due to vehicles.
The only thing worse than one-sided arguments is parading specific cases as "perfect examples" to justify a course of action regardless of relationship those cases have to larger reality... and of course all the while not considering the *cost* of action.
Every time there is an incident people are quick to "learn lessons" from individual incidents and push for legislation while interests of all are likely to be much better served if lawmakers made decisions based on rational objective criteria rather than legislation being the only answer to all knee jerk reactions to individual incidents.
Drones are politically easy to ban because they represent a niche hobby and many more people are afraid or annoyed of them. The people who have the most to lose have little voice and everyone else is indifferent.
Smoking causes far more fires and far more deaths than any possible swarm of consumer drones but outlawing smoking isn't going to happen because too many want to smoke.
This is crazy. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i... (OK, its fake... but won't be long until one gets sucked into an engine.)
Just kill the drone, done. When the drone owner complains, fine them $10,000s for the air space violation and interrupting with the fighting of the fire and endangering the fire fighters.
There's something to be said about introducing new regulations because people are ignoring the existing regulations. Like making weapons illegal because people use them for murder.
When a wildfire gets going the birds generally abandon the area. Also, they're better at see-and-avoid than drones.
Also, firefighting airplanes that are dumping retardant on the fire are going low and slow and it wouldn't take much of a hit to put them too low.
The worst part is the drones can actually make the life of firefighters easier by providing them with a better situational awareness... but no, let's keep doing it as was done since the 16th century, because hey, we're afraid to change.
It doesn't take much to get the goody-two-shoes calling for more regulation.
In this case, the "not much" is absolutely zero. There hasn't been a single reported incident of a UAV/UAS (it's not a "drone" if someone's flying it, stupid) doing anything to endanger anyone.
Why don't you go cocoon yourself and your kids in bubblewrap and leave the calls for more regulation alone.
Best regards to Captain Dunsel.
M
I'm gonna make a guess at the current regulation's reason: it has nothing to do about firefighting, and more to do about smoke being detrimental to proper engine function and airplane control. A similar temporary regulation was put in place over Europe during a volcanic eruption in Island (if my memory serves me well).
The drone was standing off from a house fire.
Max height appeared to be a bit above the trees.
Likely not violating the 400 foot rule.
Not sure if he had the ability for visual control at all times or not.
He seemed unable to resist the urge to get closer after they got most of the fire out.
So they told him to move back the best way they could.
The drone got hosed.
No harm done either way.
Not much different than a croud of spectators on the ground.
I've seen crazy drone operations, but this does not seem to be much of a problem.
Perhaps it is a distraction for the fire fighters?
Aside from that, what exactly is the safety concern?
For either the NAS or folks on the ground.
Perhaps he was not flying at an AMA flying field and so over people not part of the flight.
That might be the problem here.
The FAA Mimimum Safe Altitude is 1000' so we limit consumer drones to 500'. This solves 90% of the problems. We prohibit use of any drones within 3 miles of controlled airspace at airports.
At wildfires simplly allow police and firefighters involved aircraft operations only, to use highpower frequency jammers when the aircraft are within 3 miles of their position. Then you require any drones that lose control signals to automatically land safely.
If their drone was over the fire and they lose it then that is the operators fault.
When the air operations are complete the jammer is turned off and the drone operator can recover their drone by simply taking off.
Have federal penalties that would apply for the improper use of these jammers at any non-aircraft involved operations.
"GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
Then don't fly manned choppers, fly fire-extinguishing drones.
For the sake of it, if you can fly a Predator on the other side of the earth to send HellFire missile to kill people, how hard can it be to have a few remote operated drone to put fire out ?
Oh, wait, it already exist... http://www.kaman.com/aerospace...
But I guess people prefer to have their taxes go to war machine to kill other people of a different culture, rather than real public safety machines which would make a change...
does not seem like a good solution to the problem.
Then don't fly manned choppers, fly fire-extinguishing drones.
How much fire retardant does a drone carry?
Now how much fire retardant can a helicopter carry?
"Set a man a fire, he'll be warm for the rest of the night. Set a man afire, he'll be warm for the rest of his life."
You do realize that drones can be used to start forest fires in remote places?
LIke WWII incendiary balloons, only with video.
Japan, Al Q, they've all suggested or used flying incendiaries.
Careful with that axe, california.
Glycerine, KMnO4, hypergolic payload, Li batteries. Scary. Why can't we all just get along?
No, seriously?
MIT did studies on this. The chances of a drone colliding with a passenger aircraft are so small, that you have much bigger things to worry about... like boeing firmware bugs for example.
There isn't much technical limits to remotely fly a C-130. But to answer your question, some existing drones have a 3T payload (see http://www.kaman.com/aerospace...).
You're an idiot, and people like you cause shit like this http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ac3_1435080329
Shit like this is all to real
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ac3_1435080329
I've been an amateur radio operator since 1990. To get a license to operate, I had to pass a test. I also fly RC airplanes. I did a lot of reading, basics of flight, and had a person at an RC club "teach" me to fly, how to operate it properly and safely. These people buying these quadcopters, usually have NO IDEA what they are doing. Simply take it out of the box, charge the battery, turn it on and PRESTO! I'm a pilot! BUZZZZZZZZZZZ it doesn't work that way Einstein. These clowns have no idea that most consumer grade quadcopters can seriously injure or KILL YOU. Those blade are like a saw blade! They don't know the first thing about the difference in controlling one flying away from you, versus towards you, have no idea what wind speed can do to an airfoil, crosswind adjustments that need to be made to keep your bird trim, flying in a headwind versus a tail wind, not to mention where to and not to fly! Perhaps an "amateur quad RC" license might be needed. These idiots are going to spoil the RC hobby, because they don't have brain one when it comes to operating these potentially dangerous RC flying quadcopters.
Yeah it's like this. Until physics prevents a flying drone that fails or is interfered with from following Newton's Laws, drones are too dangerous to be flying over populated areas.
Even "failsafe" parachutes only slow the descent of the 100lb mechanical thing landing on the pedestrian, window, moving car, bridge, darkened road, power line, etc. etc. et fucking cetera.
Maybe the drone owners don't know or maybe they don't care, but temporary flight restrictions are placed over wildfire areas due to the aircraft used to help contain the fires.
STFU YOU STUPID FOOL... Guess what? Ducks and Geese fly in the air over fires too without FAA approval. Large aircraft are designed to take hits from them on the off chance there is a collision.
If a drone hits a plane there will be an investigation. It's parts will be found and most likely traced backed to the operator.
Try and regulate the world to death, I'm sick of all your rules and I don't give a crap any more.
You think flying an object into a plane's engine, potentially causing it to crash and causing massive damage to the ground, extending the length of the fire, and the death of everyone on board, to be "american", "very cool", "educational", and "innovative"?
I think it's stupid. Helicopters already give you a view of the fire from above, if that's really what you want, but the pilots there know what flight regulations are - not to mention have some actual training. On top of that, your right to fly a recreational vehicle is trumped by the right of the firefighters to save lives or limit damage, flying one yourself and interfering with their job in just plain inconsiderate - which I suppose might be "very cool" and "innovative" to you...
I think they should let the fires actually burn along with all of the houses...just like they should let all house built by the ocean or in a flood zone deal with their location to danger.
Nut job environmentalists/government doesn't allow undergrowth to be cleared or fires to burn naturally.
Then there are dushbags like you who are all up in arms about someone flying a drone some huge FAA declared "dangerzone" who's going to kill firefighters and down aircraft.
Go hit some more LSD till you die in your whacked out fantasy world and save from reading your krap.
A passenger aircraft flies much, much higher than drones, only possibly interfering during take-off and landing. They also fly reasonably predictable paths and the airspace around the airports are tightly regulated anyway. A fire-fighting helicopter, on the other hand, flies much lower, and may have to change paths rapidly to account for the situation.
I doubt an MIT study on drones colliding with passenger aircraft would be valid in this case.
"The aircraft used to knock down flames and survey burn areas have to cease operations when there is a drone in the air."
No they don't.
A drone being in the air doesn't cause a plane, helicopter, blimp, dragonfly, or unladen swallow to fall out of the sky.
What? How does this solve the problem? So the unmanned aircraft hits the drone and crashes. I guess nobody in the plane got killed. But we are now down the aircraft that was delivering the retardant. Oh an maybe it took out a few firefighters on the way down.
On top of awareness and education, accountability is part of the issue. Significant fines, or possibly jail time for a 2nd offense, would go a long way to preventing this kind of nonsense. Also, a way to identify drones easily should be mandated if they are causing these kinds of problems. I do like the option for firefighters to shoot em down, and think it should be added on top of everything else.
and if he killed someone? or his drone, not being hardened against smoke and fire, crashed and ignited another fire?
you're an idiot.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
the Kmax is a converted heavy lift manned helicopter.
that's not what he's referring to and you know it.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
Could fire-fighting aircraft be fitted with jammers that would block drone control frequencies? If the firefighters were also using drones, perhaps they could use frequencies reserved for emergency services.
I think drones that lose contact typically return to where they were launched, don't they? That could also let the police arrest the offenders - follow the drone home.
This is now very typical. We already have laws against most undesirable things, but people still demand more laws and law makers still pander to the public by passing new laws.
It's already very illegal to commit murder. A capital offense in many states. Yet, some little girl gets killed by a pedophile and suddenly the "only solution" is Mary's Law, which makes killing females under the age of 10 somehow more illegal than murder.
The same applies here. Temporary flight restrictions make it illegal to fly the drones over the fires. But people still do it. The "only solution" is to pass drone laws making it illegal to fly over wild fires under temporary flight restrictions.
There is also a seemingly growing movement to ban drones for use by the general public. It seems that commercial and law enforcement drone users wish to have a monopoly on drone use. For your safety!
If there is already a law against flying a drone over a wildfire then what in the hell is another law going to do? We need to realize that adding laws does nothing if we don't enforce the existing ones.
As soon as a bird stike happens with one of these drones, ie , one gets sucked into a jet engine of one of the planes that drop water on the fires there will be huge backlash. Comes down to common sense. Us them for voyeurism and stay out of the fires....
Paul E. Bahre
You're an idiot, and people like you cause shit like this http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ac3_1435080329
That's fake you douche nozzle...
The solution to all drone related problems . . .
https://xkcd.com/1523/
'nuff said.