Amazon Proposes Dedicated Airspace For Drones

An anonymous reader writes: Amazon has published two new position papers which lay out its vision for future drone regulation. Under Amazon's plan, altitudes under 200ft would be reserved for basic hobbyist drones and those used for things like videography and inspection. Altitudes between 200ft and 400ft would be designated for "well-equipped vehicles" capable of operating autonomously out of line of sight. They would need sophisticated GPS tracking, a stable data uplink, communications capabilities with other drones, and sensors to avoid collisions. This, of course, is where Amazon would want to operate its drone delivery fleet. From 400ft to 500ft would be a no-fly zone buffer between the drone airspace and integrated airspace. Amazon's plan also makes room for "predefined low-risk areas," where hobbyists and other low-tech drones can fly higher than the 200ft ceiling. "Additionally, it is Amazon's view that air traffic management operations should follow a 'managed by exception' approach. This means operators are always aware of what the fleet is doing, yet they only intervene in significant off-nominal cases."

Comments

Amazon doesn't understand helicopters

[FlyHelicopters]

That all sounds great, except that helicopter often operate at less than 500 feet above the ground.

What happens when EMS is flying at 300ft and crashes into their delivery drone?

What about law enforcement? Powerline and pipeline patrol? Aerial photography?

All of these things can and do happen at less than 500ft above the ground.

In the North East, they even harvest Christmas Trees off the side of the mountain using helicopters, and that is well under 500ft.

Re:Amazon doesn't understand helicopters

[KGIII]

I define drone as an autonomous craft with subsets of partial and total autonomy. I define the rest as remote control aircraft with subsets of hobbyist's and professional and that is defined by use. I define model rockets as, simply, model rockets but I expect there to be guided and unguided in the future if not already being done. There may be additional subsets or clarification needed for legal definitions. One important thing to keep in mind is that recreational devices always get a back seat to business or common use priorities. Airspace, above a certain height, is communal property and recreational use is going to have a lower use priority than any other use. It will end up being regulated with severe penalties for violations.

Before someone chimes in with stupidity like, "They can't stop us!" The reality is that no, they can not. Just like they can not stop someone from murdering someone or from buying, selling, and doing drugs. That does not mean that they can not or should not prohibit such activities and penalize those who violate the regulations. I am perfectly free to build a nuclear device in my garage, I am not at liberty to do so. If someone wishes to presume that regulation is useless (as some can be) then, again, I point out that there are already prohibited activities that are trivial to violate if you want but that such regulation has never been intended to stop the activities but to punish the people who do those sorts of things. Laws against murder are not designed to stop murderers. They are designed to clearly show the morals that society expects to be upheld and provide punishment for those that violate those guidelines.

Next item on tonight's news...

[x0ra]

Government bashes free speech, and then some private agent comes with the wonderful idea of "free speech zone".

I hate what the US have become, it is such that everything is considered "potentially dangerous", and thus need to be banned and/or operate in "controlled" area. Drones accident will happen, just the same way car accident happens, planes accident happens, or even accidental discharge happen (gun are as much subject to mechanical failure as anything else).

Another Corporate rape of the commons

[FrankSchwab]

This is another in a long line of corporate taking.

They want to take a huge swath of public space (the space between 200 and 400 feet across the ENTIRE UNITED STATES) for free, for their benefit and the benefit of the rich who can afford to pay for this-hour delivery, and deliver nothing back to the vast majority of the population.

screw'em

Re:15-25

[thegarbz]

About your 20-30 feet, how do you expect an aircraft to actually stay within those 10 feet?

At those heights, ultrasonic with baro and gps for comparison. I expect aircraft to stay within those 10 feet because they already do quite reliably. We're not talking about some multi-tonne flying semi-trailer here. Small aircraft have less momentum and faster response times and are quite good at compensating for a wide variety of conditions compared to larger ones.