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FAA Predicts 7 Million Drones By 2020 (timeslive.co.za)
An anonymous reader writes: The FAA is predicting that the number of drones in the U.S. will increase to 7 million by 2020, though they're still prohibited within 15 miles of Washington D.C. Earlier this month a drone even performed the first FAA-sanctioned drone delivery to an urban area, carrying food, water and a first-aid kit in a box attached to a rope, while a team led by a 15-year-old pilot won the $250,000 first-place prize in the first World Drone Prix in Dubai. The FAA logged 538 drone incidents in the U.S. over the last six months, according to a new report released Friday, including hundreds of incidents in which drones approached airports. But while one incident involved a drone within 20 feet of a plane, "the majority of the incidents are minor," reports The Verge, "with pilots or bystanders reporting drones that are flying in restricted airspace without necessarily endangering anyone."
Every drone pilet needs to supply his or her own air for their air space, so that America's sky doesn't become congertsed. Mexico will pay for it, and if Mexico don't pay for it, El Salvador should fit the bile.
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Their kind hates technology.
7 million drones, the gov't is missing out on a bit of revenue from drone licenses.
One of the things that's on my bucket list is to install an AI (when they become sufficiently advanced, maybe a few more years) into a drone and release it and see what it does. I think much could be learned about the nature of intelligence and possibly even human nature.
Reminder drones don't have pilots
You are lonely if you can't connect your mind to the other drones. All hail the borg queen!
" The FAA logged 538 drone incidents in the U.S. over the last six months, according to a new report released Friday, "
And not ONE has been verified, no radar signature or images in controlled airspace, not ONE! Typical FUD.
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based upon nothing more than /. posts.
http://ultratechlife.com/tech/...
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I'm thinking it won't belong before the kids are taking down commercial drones with open-source kits running on $11 embedded boards in $40 drones. The kids will be betting who can take down the highest value target with the lowest cost. All filmed on go-pros and uploaded to youtube, of course.
*Grabs popcorn*
pervs spying on scantily clad neighbors or girls at beaches and waterparks, and illegal surveillance by cops and 'investigators'
1,000 legitimate uses of dam inspections, forest surveys, etc.
it wont be 77M but 77B of the damn things and the worst of it is, they're going to be self-aware. Here comes "Skynet"
Captcha: Congest
a. considering the report from the FAA's consultants: SO....has anyone verified that a million+ drones were sold last year? I doubt it.
b. considering the 2 largest manufacturers of drones don't report their sales nor profits? How many DID they sell? When they are cutting profit margins by cutting the retail 50% (saying to keep market share, though I think it's more of clearing inventory surplus)--we did not sell 1 million drones last year.
c. considering everything from a paper airplane to a DoD predator is a drone... A drone in today's *public speak* is not a toy, and not a military aircraft....
d. considering most sales are now outside the US, beyond the FAA jurisdiction... and only a 350k registered.
Inflated w/an agenda me thinks. Much like NASA, DoD, NIH, or any other department of govt's urgency for more funding.
Sports drones fly within inches of each other and if they hit? No big deal, its just a drone. It's small, low mass, no big issue, no loss of life. The fact you can't do that with civilian flights shows how much safer drones are.
The problem is the manned aircraft, Cesna and others flying low in drone airspace. The drone is just a toy with low mass, the manned aircraft is the thing that needs to be banned. No drone pilot would panic if they saw another drone near them. It's not a big deal. The problem is the manned aircraft, they're far bigger, far more mass, and with a pilot.
Jet's fly at 38000 feet, way above drones, and airport exclusion zones prevent drones and jet collisions (not that a drone presents much of a collision threat, its more fragile than a bird). So Jets are fine.
Enough, I've seen one 'near miss' where a helicopter pilot was flying over a beach and saw a drone like 30 feet away and called it a near miss! The most dangerous thing in the sky was the helicopter flying over the beach. If the drone had falled it's small, low mass compared to him, he's the big problem.