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FAA Drone Rules May Already Be Outlawed By Congress (hackaday.com)
szczys writes: New FAA rules about drone registration and operation are now in effect. So far the talk has centered around registering your aircraft, and about the weight restriction. But all of this may be moot since the US Congress made a law in 2012 prohibiting these types of rules: "The Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration may not promulgate any rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft, or an aircraft being developed as a model aircraft." Even if the rules hold up under this law, it is not all doom and gloom for drones. The FAA rules could have been much more stringent, and in general they do make sense. Brian Benchoff walks through the regulation, comparing the new rules to the FAA's existing pilot rules, and juxtaposing the threat drones make to full-size aircraft in flight with those risks associated with bird strikes.
Waiting for the FAA to ban birds from flying around helos and airplanes...
I can remember when the Feds wanted everyone with a CB radio to have a license, too.
Many of the people against one are also against the other. How is it hypocritical to oppose both registries?
Really? You're going to get in the way of emergency responders, then complain that something is being put in place to dissuade that?
Woah there hold up, *I* never got in the way of any emergency responders. But *I* am now expected to register and pay of fee, so yea I am going to complain. Also the registration process does not collect any serial numbers or any other details so there is still no way to actually tie a drone to a responsible owner. Which means that people who do register are really just being added to another special government list.
As the TFA states this action by the FAA is probably not even legal, like so much of the other stuff this Administration does. So if they in fact breaking the law themselves that is another VERY VALID reason to complain.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
A short while ago a drone backed out a few city blocks in California after touching power lines. Unlike fixed wing remote controlled aircraft, drones can take off anywhere including street corners. This, of course means they can come down nearby
-- Into traffic
-- Powerlines
-- Descend vertically into telephony/power equipment, thus bypassing fences.
No one is saying that these are deliberate but accidents do happen and like your driver's licence helps pay for public education regarding the rules of the road, the potential for error, mistakes and oversight means that there's a public good in ensuring safe navigation of the skies. Someone above said that people could therefore could fake your ID at an accident -- well I think the odds of that happening are small relative to the amount of regular accidents that will happen.
Of course people will stomp and yell about 'muh freedumbs' but these things will eventually -- by accident -- cause traffic accidents by uncontrolled descents and so having the infrastructure ready to ensure that people get a modicum of training is hardly the end of the world.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
Maybe if all of these idiotic drone owners didn't ruin it for everyone, we wouldn't need these at all.
This is it in a nutshell.
Quadcopters are a disruptive technology in the sense that the old paradigm, of expensive, difficult-to-fly, easy-to-destroy RC aircraft has shifted to cheap, somewhat-easy-to-fly "drone" RC aircraft. Additionally, the scale-model-of-real mentality has been replaced with a whatever-works mentality. This shift is helped by the reduction in weight of batteries and the reduction in size of high quality video camera and storage technology.
When one couldn't take high quality video for extended periods of time, when one had a lot of money tied up in an RC aircraft, and when that aircraft was difficult to fly, people who engaged in the hobby generally had a bit of etiquette, even if pragmatically due to flying over someone else's property was a good way to lose the expensive toy. It appears that quadcopter enthusiasts are less inhibited by this.
As to the language of the law as described in the article summary, the word "model" was used. The implication in the past has meant "scale model", ie, a reduced-size version approximating a real machine. Since quadcopters don't have full-scale human-pilotable equivalents, these are not "model aircraft" by the strictest definition of the terminology. They are a new thing, and even if the new laws do not apply to scale-model fixed-wing or scale-model helicopters, the argument can be made they apply perfectly well to quadcopters and other small RC aircraft.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Because, guns only operate on line of sight, but drones can be operated remotely?
Because the danger of drones is a superset of the danger of guns as one could mount a gun on a sufficiently advanced drone?
Because the right to own guns is protected in the Constitution but the right to own (non weaponized) drones isn't?
Drones have cameras, models do not.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
You have the right to bear arms - during an organized revolt, while part of a militia, while fighting against a tyrannical government.
So, you're only allowed to own guns when you're a member of an organized revolt fighting against a tyrannical government. You're literally saying that it's only legal to own a gun during an insurrection. And that makes perfect sense to you? You're honestly sitting here trying to get us to believe that WE'RE the ones incapable of understanding English?
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
It says guns exactly 0 times. What it says is Arms.
Yes, you are correct.
during an organized revolt, while part of a militia, while fighting against a tyrannical government
And then you say all this other stuff that is not in the document at all.
You know what else was under "arms"? Cannons. Lots of shippers owned them, too. Make no mistake, any pro-gun-control interpretation of the 2nd Amendment is, no matter how well-meaning, historical revisionism and rationalization.
"Shall not be infringed" is a big part of no national gun database...
You have the right to bear arms - during an organized revolt, while part of a militia, while fighting against a tyrannical government
It says no such thing. Your reading comprehension and understanding of the constitution is completely childish.
Those are the terms that must be met according to the documents.
No, they're not. The point is that THERE ARE NO TERMS. The government shall not infringe - as in, not place conditions on, not interfere with, not limit - on that basic right. The Second Amendment is saying that despite the inevitable need for a standing military (even at the militia level), the existence of such is not an excuse for the government to prevent individual citizens from keeping and bearing their own arms.
I guess I am the only sane person capable of correctly parsing the english language?
No, you're just making stuff up. You are parsing it exactly 100% backwards.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
You don't understand what the militia was at the time of writing was , do you? Based on that alone, you should re-think your argument.
It doesn't MATTER what a militia was at the time. Because the amendment isn't ABOUT the militia, other than indirectly. What the amendment does is recognize that there's likely always going to BE something like a militia (a standing army of some scale), but that fact doesn't give the government the authority to deny individuals their own keeping and bearing of arms. It's that simple. Essentially, "Just because we'll have an army doesn't mean that the government has a monopoly on the ownership of arms." Period.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.