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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.
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.'"
> 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.
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..
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.
And demonstrate actual harm has occurred. I think that's the problem here. Just because you have a predictable and broken response to the flying of drones doesn't mean harm occurred. I imagine some enterprising black hats could clear select hillsides of human habitation by conveniently lofting long endurance drones at inopportune moments to stall fire fighting.
wait when you say drones you don't mean consumers?!!
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
Exactly. TFSubject makes it sound as if this is a problem that needs additional regulations to fix. But TFSummary admits that regulations already exist.
But maybe those regulations are worded to specifically refer to occupied aircraft. In which case, yeah, those regulations need updating.
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."
Remove all metal and flammable batteries from the drones.
Make them out of meat and bone.
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.)
Demonstrable harm is implied.
But not demonstrated.
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.
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 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)"
I'm not afraid of a giant forest fire, but I'm terrified of drones.
If you're the pilot of a firefighting aircraft, you understand and mitigate the risks of flying over fires, and through experience those risks and means of mitigation have become reasonably well known. You are not "afraid", you are appropriately cautious.
Drones, on the other hand, are not a well defined risk and can show up in front of you without any notice. Yes, if it means you might crash into an active fire area*, you are scared of drones.
* said areas are typically mountainous and have few readily available landing areas. "Controlled descent into terrain" is the best way to describe the result.
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."
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...).
Demonstrable harm is implied. For instance, if I'm at a company picnic and a drone hits me in the head, it won't be much of a problem demonstrating harm to a court.
Ok. What kind of regulations would prevent this? And what regulation will prevent a ball hitting me in the head or any other object a person can use?
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.
Wait...are you saying that if a drone hits you in the head there is no demonstrable harm?
Has to happen first.
It means 'evident" or "able to be proved".
Yes.
Be that as t may, you didn't clarify the second half of your post. It doesn't make sense to me. Could you please clarify?
When an authority has a predictable, but dangerous response to otherwise harmless behavior, that can be exploited For example, the militarization of the US's police has resulted in the ploy of "swatting" where law enforcement and emergency service response to a phone call can create a very dangerous situation. Similarly, you can now interfere with air based fire fighting merely by lofting a drone at an inopportune moment.
Of course, the crash is never a good thing, and then there's all that fire they came there to put out in the first place...
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.
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.
It's been self regulating until recently. RC pilots generally belong to the AMA and the rules for the AMA include putting your name and address inside your aircraft.
Theoretically the AMA also provides insurance for the pilots, but I don't think anyone has ever been able to collect on that in 50 years.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
This is not a technology problem.
The sale of RC aircraft may need to further regulation. So far it's been mostly a self regulated process through the AMA helping RC pilots follow safety procedures and comply with FAA rules. But most hobby shops will sell you anything you want without checking for an AMA card, but some of them do at least mention it to those new to RC.
A callsign, license and test, like done in HAM radio, seems like the obvious solution to me. Hobbyists need to understand the rules and be liable when they break them.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Who got injured and when? What were they flying at the time?
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
Sure, they should just roll the dice with people's lives and millions of dollars of government-owned equipment. Allies being close to enemies doesn't "stop" an airstrike, it doesn't make the bombs refuse to fall - just bomb away!
Moron.
This growing movement might have something to do with the various "drone" operator's behavior. Just maybe... The adage about a bad apple spoiling the whole bunch applies here. "Drones" already conveys a scary message to some folks. This site is a good example of people who were outraged about various potential problems when drones starting hitting the media more often. This is just a suggestion, so take it for what you will, but I think it would be better to try to change the common vernacular to 'RC aircraft' or something similar. There are a lot of stupid people on both sides of the debate and clarification may help negate some of the preconceived negativity due to the name.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
I don't register my bike which is a better anolgy unless that is one hell of a huge drone
The solution to all drone related problems . . .
https://xkcd.com/1523/
'nuff said.