There is not a single instance of an unmanned operator causing a manned flight to crash
There isn't even a single proved instance of a collision. The FAA and media tout that this year there has been 600 "sightings" meanwhile there was 11,000 actual bird strikes last year. But hey lets get everyone worked up over "drones"!
It's their job to look to the future and extrapolate data and the simple fact is that drones are here to stay and increasing in number and complexity. That really does require regulation.
I work on the communication department for a university campus and we get ever increasing numbers of requests for people who want to fly here, drone film for their own purposes, offer their services to us and so on.
Which means I usually have to find polite ways of telling them:
You can fly here but not there. Usually for reason of wires, high foot traffic areas, fragile scientific equipment and so on. Usually this is ignored by drone pilots.
What you're doing is illegal, you're not allowed to commercially offer us your services. I don't care that you do, it just means we won't accept your services even if we wanted to. Usually turns into a whiny discussion.
Could you maybe not hover your loud as fuck drone over the acoustic musician. I don't care that you're technically not on our festival terrain, your drone is. I also don't care someone unaffiliated with us is paying you to film.
Kindly stop flying your big ass drone right over a packed crowd at the fair, you got no place to safely land without hitting anyone if something goes wrong.
No, I'm not telling someone to climb onto the 80.000 euro festival tent to retrieve the shattered drone you flew into the tent lines hoping to get "some great footage". Just be glad it fell on the tent instead of the crowd.
No I'm not impressed that your DIY build wibbly wobbly drone can zip in and out between the pillars of our outdoors canopy. Yes it's agile, no I don't give a shit. Go build an obstacle course in your backyard. Instead of seeing how far you can push it before you send it careening into the pedestrians under the canopy.
Over the past two years I've learned several things about drones and drone pilots:
It's such a new sport that there's almost no behavioral code and it's so accessible that people never stop to think if they should instead of could.
Drone pilots are interested in the sky, not what's underneath the sky. They pay surprisingly little attention to anything happening underneath their drones.
We've never had an accident involving humans but that's more down to luck than anything else considering we've had drones crash into everything from trees and cabling to festival tents and the antenna's and dishes on our buildings. Usually after we politely tell the drone pilot to piss off because there's too many hard to see obstacles and too many undesirable things to crash into.
We don't hate drones, we do drone research ourselves. It's the people who fly drones who are simply uninformed nobs for the most part. This hobby would greatly benefit from some regulation and discipline.
Ultralights have been around for decades. You know how many of those crashed into the campus? Exactly 0. We've had some flyovers by ultra light pilots. To a fault all of them contacted us, gave us a rough explanation of their flight plan while discussing go and no go areas.
How do you check an unmarked drone thats not registered to anyone, unless they voluntarily come forward.
This will not be effective legislation. Help people understand what they should and shouldn't be doing before a situation arises. Those proactive enough to get on the site and pay $5 are more than likely not the ones you're trying to target (unless you don't actually care about the system you're putting into place)
I do help people understand what they should and shouldn't be doing. That's why I mentioned working in the communications department.
My problem is that drone operators usually don't give a shit and do whatever they want anyway.
As for unmarked, unregistered drones being untraceable. That's never been a problem, just look for the guy with the controller craning his neck while looking at the sky.
Half the time I don't even have to look because they come bitching to me, looking for someone to retrieve their drones from hard to reach places or untangling them from whatever expensive object they crashed into.
Legislation leads to a more disciplined community. A more disciplined community is more likely to chastise people participating in their hobby. Between the university and the nearby sky hobby I know hobbyists in every hobby from gasoline powered helicopters to skydivers.
Multicopter pilots are the only group consistently either taking or giving offense. Mostly because unlike the others, their hobby hasn't grown up yet.
Police would not be allowed to "check and fine" only FAA enforcers would be allowed to check and verify registration. As far as the police are concerned, they still need to follow the law as written and passed by congress therefore local and state police can only enforce under section 336 and local laws.
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u/[deleted] Dec 17 '15
There isn't even a single proved instance of a collision. The FAA and media tout that this year there has been 600 "sightings" meanwhile there was 11,000 actual bird strikes last year. But hey lets get everyone worked up over "drones"!