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New FAA drone rule is a giant middle finger to aviation hobbyists:
More than 34,000 people have deluged the Federal Aviation Administration with comments over a proposed regulation that would require almost every drone in the sky to broadcast its location over the Internet at all times. The comments are overwhelmingly negative, with thousands of hobbyists warning that the rules would impose huge new costs on those who simply wanted to continue flying model airplanes, home-built drones, or other personally owned devices.
"These regulations could kill a hobby I love," wrote Virginian Irby Allen Jr. in a comment last week. "RC aviation has brought my family together and if these regulations are enacted we will no longer be able to fly nor be able to afford the hobby."
The new regulations probably wouldn't kill the hobby of flying radio-controlled airplanes outright, but it could do a lot of damage. Owners of existing drones and model airplanes would face new restrictions on when and where they could be used. The regulations could effectively destroy the market for kit aircraft and custom-designed drones by shifting large financial and paperwork burdens on the shoulders of consumers.
"I think it's going to be harmful to the community and harmful to the growth of the UAS industry," said Greg Reverdiau, co-founder of the Pilot Institute, in a Friday phone interview. He wrote a point-by-point critique of the FAA proposal that has circulated widely among aviation hobbyists.
The new rules are largely designed to address safety and security concerns raised by law enforcement agencies. They worry that drones flying too close to an airport could disrupt operations or even cause a crash. They also worry about terrorists using drones to deliver payloads to heavily populated areas.
To address these concerns, the new FAA rule would require all new drones weighing more than 0.55 pounds to connect over the Internet to one of several location-tracking databases (still to be developed by private vendors) and provide real-time updates on their location. That would enable the FAA or law enforcement agencies to see, at a glance, which registered drones are in any particular area.
But critics say the rules impose massive costs on thousands of law-abiding Americans who have been quietly flying model airplanes, quad-copters, and other small unmanned aircraft for years—and in many cases decades.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Bot on Monday March 02 2020, @05:59PM (16 children)
I guess the drones which aren't broadcasting their position will be subject to scrutiny. That the scrutiny is able to stop a rogue drone from carrying out its mission is questionable.
Even more questionable would be the use of a drone for islamic estremism, which follows a tradition of self immolation (seen as a good thing, and improperly called martyrdom, when it's the dual opposite of it). But not all terrorists are islamists (only most of them, https://storymaps.esri.com/stories/terrorist-attacks/). [esri.com]
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 02 2020, @06:09PM (10 children)
Remember the Patriot missile deployments in Israel? Shooting a drone out of the sky is small-time, can probably be done with ordinance that turns to powder (and thus can be "safely" fired over civilian crowds...)
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @06:14PM (5 children)
Ordinance is a law—mere words on paper. It's pretty hard to take down drones with words alone, even though the FAA appears to be making a real attempt to do so. The use of ordnance, on the other hand, will be much more effective.
(Score: 2) by broggyr on Monday March 02 2020, @06:42PM (2 children)
I learned something today.
Taking things out of context since 1972.
(Score: 2) by fadrian on Monday March 02 2020, @07:24PM
I learned something today.
Damn, the internet is broken.
That is all.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 02 2020, @09:06PM
Me too.
Accidents happen.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @08:07PM
Clearly you have not faced a barrage of paperwork.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 02 2020, @09:04PM
Thanks for the correction, though in the scenario described, sufficiently packed and fired at high velocity, the ordinance and the paper it is written on should be sufficient to take down your average DJI phantom...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @06:29PM (1 child)
So if an unauthorized drone is flying near an airport in Oklahoma City, it's going to get shot down by a missile?
You might see that in DC which is a no drone zone. Anywhere else... meh.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 02 2020, @09:09PM
I think you'd see permanent anti-drone batteries in DC - even today if you know where to look. What I see more likely are mobile deployments (like the Patriots) that show up at events like the SuperBowl, Trump golf trips, etc.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday March 03 2020, @07:51AM (1 child)
The problem comes when the enemy has money, because anti X weapon tech tends to be quite pricier than X.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 03 2020, @11:02AM
There was a series of articles about this back in the 1960s regarding the nuclear missile arms race.
With mass production of very capable quad-copter tech only costing a hundred dollars or so per vehicle (think: Ali-Express, not HobbyKing), and swarm software already developed and demonstrated at the Beijing Olympics, you know there are anti-drone installations not only developed but also deployed at selected points of paranoia.
Luckily, almost anything you do to a quadcopter will put it out of commission, particularly if it involves string.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Monday March 02 2020, @07:15PM (3 children)
Then your would-be terrorist will use one that does broadcast its position.
The only functional value of this law is in totalitarian universal monitoring.
The FAA being rolled into the whole "The only legitimate role government services have is national security" ideology is fucking awful. The original purpose was to help planes not crash into eachother and navigate. And now it's apparently supposed to be tracking things "to stop the terrorists".
Paranoia sucks.
(Score: 3, Touché) by PartTimeZombie on Monday March 02 2020, @07:50PM
I suppose it is the price you pay for constantly being at war.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday March 02 2020, @08:17PM (1 child)
In fairness, population densities continue to increase, the number of people operating vehicles in the airspace continues to increase, and thus the liklihood of collision continues to increase - they should be doing _something_ about it. In maritime navigation, there are now required commercial and voluntary recreational global tracking systems - and if I'm going to be navigating a small slow moving sailboat in the commercial shipping channel that winds along the river, I'm going to invest the ~$1000 required to make my vessel appear on the tracking systems so the commercial wheelhouses have a better chance to know where I am and where I'm going - just a matter of my and my family's life safety in an environment where most things are moving less than 10 mph, but have virtually zero stopping power...
The proposed hobby craft tracking rules are, indeed, over the top, but it's not surprising that they overreach when expanding their powers. Hopefully they can get some sense knocked into their heads about the negative impacts on U.S. technical skills development and how that is, ultimately, a bigger threat to national security than worrying about an esoteric delivery method for lightweight nasty payloads when anyone serious about drone attacks can borrow a Cessna, fit some remote control autopilot gear in it, and deliver ~1000lbs of nasty on target to anywhere within a few hundred miles, probably before the air force can scramble response fighters for 90%+ of the population.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 10 2020, @07:11AM
It's either a misdemeanor or felony to fire one off inside city limits without a permit.
Same applies to drones, registered or unregistered. Good old fashioned policework should be able to find a drone owner pretty fast nowadays, and the few that 'get away' will no doubt show up again and get caught when they are sloppy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @08:00PM
I don't buy the extra scrutiny thing, if that would actually help then that would imply that there is no problem policing the airport situation. After all in that case ANY drone is illegal. The only use care here is enforcing no-fly zones for innocent trespass, you are giving enforcement the information they need to do their job. The terrorist thing is just an appeal to fear to get people to accept it.