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The FAA Gave the First Ever Go-Ahead For a Drone To Fly at an Airport (recode.net)
It's not legal to fly your drone anywhere near an airport -- at least not without a special waiver from the Federal Aviation Administration. From a report: For the first time under the FAA's commercial drone rules, the agency granted permission to operate a drone at an airport. Seven flights were conducted by Berkeley, Calif.-based 3D Robotics on Jan. 10 at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, the busiest airport in the world. Restrictions on flying drones near airports have to do with safety. Not only can drones collide with planes, but seeing one can also distract a pilot. The 3D Robotics drone was given permission to collect data on two four-story parking structures at the airport that a construction firm was hired to demolish.
Steve Bannon is a lunatic. Recent troubling developments prompt me to revisit a subject I've discussed in the past: Steve Bannon and his plan to promote a politics of defeat and demoralization, of pessimism and selfishness. Although what I'm about to say may create some discomfort for many semi-intelligible parvenus and crime-stained blusterers, the fact remains that there has been little scientific or scholarly analysis of his illaudable ethics. This is a glaring omission in strategic discourse, one that can be rectified only by examining how Bannon's subordinates argue that the purpose of education is to induce correct opinion rather than to search for wisdom and liberate the mind. These are the same foolhardy daft-types who promote Bannon's sappy substitute for morality, which defines as materialistic any attempt to rub Bannon's nose in his own hypocrisy. This is no coincidence; he has been telling everyone that cell-phone towers are in fact covert mind-control devices that use scalar waves to beam images into people's brains while they sleep. I would like to remind Bannon that false words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.
There is still hope for our society, real hopeâ"not the false sense of hope that comes from the mouths of bestial, small-minded scofflaws but the hope that makes you eager to discuss the advantages of two-parent families, the essential role of individual and family responsibility, the need for uniform standards of civil behavior, and the primacy of the work ethic. We find among narrow and uneducated minds the belief that Bannon's coterie consists entirely of lovable, cuddly people who would never dream of causing the destruction of human ambition and joy. This belief is due to a basic confusion that can be cleared up simply by stating that there are lots of weepy, wimpy flower children out there who are always whining that I'm being too harsh in my criticisms of Bannon. I wish such people would wake up and realize that Bannon contends that the average working-class person can't see through his chicanery. This is hardly the case. Rather, there is growing evidence that says, to the contrary, that many years ago I reported that the biggest threat to our society was the number of inarticulate slicksters whom Bannon had convinced to degrade, divide, and destroy our nation. I wish that I could say to you that the situation has improved. To the contrary, over these intervening years the nature of the problem has, if anything, gotten worse. In particular, honor means nothing to Bannon. Principles mean nothing to Bannon. All he cares about is how best to deliver an additional blow to dignity and self-worth.
Bannon's obloquies share a number of characteristics. They empty garbage pails full of the vilest slanders and defamations on the clean garments of honorable people. They replace intellectual discourse with programs designed to instill sectarian and ideological doctrines. And they sidetrack us so we can't put truth to power. Put together, these characteristics imply that the legality of Bannon's quisquilious ebullitions seems dubious. Alas, I am not aware of any lawsuit that has challenged them so all we can say for now is that mass anxiety is the equivalent of steroids for Bannon. If we feel helpless, Bannon is energized and ramps up his efforts to step on other people's toes. He cares for us in the same way that fleas care about dogs. It's also true that Bannon's shady business deals are designed to enrich Bannon while throwing away our freedom, our honor, and our future, but that'll have to be a subject for another letter.
Stick your nose into anything Bannon has written recently, and you'll get a good whiff of uncompromising anti-intellectualism. When I hear him say that anyone who dares to prevent the production of a new crop of sick twits can expect to suffer hair loss and tooth decay as a result, I have to wonder about him. Is he thoroughly unenlightened? Is he simply being insensitive? Or is he merely embracing a delusion in which he mus
Daddy. Daddy cool.
The subheading in the linked article ("It's the first waiver granted for flight in Class B airspace since the FAA came up with commercial drone rules.") makes sense, but the summary, title, and article are a bit wonky.
It's been perfectly legal for a certified commercial Remote Pilot to fly at an airport since Part 103 went into effect, but only in Class G airspace. Small airports with Class E Surface or Class D airspace would require a waiver, and waivers have been had for those for a while now. Larger airports with Class C airspace took longer before the FAA began processing (and approving) waivers, but there had not been any waivers of Class B airspace. This is the first.
Of course, you can only get a waiver under Part 103, so if you're a hobby pilot, the five-mile rule is in effect. For Part 103 Remote Pilots, on the other hand, it's all about airspace. (Most of the FAA Knowledge Exam is airspace and weather.)
For every new regulation, two must be eliminated. I propose we extend this same philosophy to laws as well.
We fly them at Wings Over Houston at Ellington every year. Camera platforms, racing quads, etc, as part of the pre-show.
I was looking at /.'s frontpage to see if there was an article on the Berkeley riots over Milo Yiannopoulos' visit which ended with anti-Trump protestors beating his supporters and destroying a Starbucks, but apparently it's nowhere to be found.
If you follow that simpleminded idea to it's logical conclusion, you end up with only one regulation.
I propose it be "do what Anonymous Coward says".
I fly my drone at airports all the time.
This is literally insane, the FTA just did hacking tests on commercial drones (it's in a mil gov newsletter) and successfully hacked all of them.
Not safe.
Not wise.
In sane.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
[...] but seeing one can also distract a pilot
So can iPads apparently...
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
I can sure understand that sentiment.
At least when Congress makes laws, they are doing their job, under their Constitutional authority. Most of the hundreds of thousands of pages of law in the Code of Federal Regulations are unconstitutional - elected Congress reps, who are accountable to the voters entry few years, are supposed to be making law, not unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats.
We have ten times as much regulation today as we did fifty years ago or so. *Some* regulations need to be written by the executive agencies, but many we could well do without and many more are, put simply, laws - and therefore should be passed by Congress after appropriate debate and amendment.
How is a drone more distracting to pilots than any other small aircraft, helicopter or ultralight???
Here's an article from last year that talks about drones at an airport.
http://www.syracuse.com/news/i...
it seems to be easier. Here is a video Drone Flies into World's Largest Plane Antonov 225 Mriya https://youtu.be/A1ZMzsou-eQ?t...
Radio control hobbyists have been having rc flying events at local airports for decades. There are videos all over youtube. This is BS.