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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: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @11:20PM (1 child)
Is like every other regulation that the legislators want that the people don't want. The people will bombard the government against the regulation. The feds will back off for now. Later on they will slowly inch those regulations back in. They may later propose a less severe one and back off due to backlash. Propose it again. The people get exhausted and eventually stop keeping track of it. Then the legislation eventually passes. Then they propose a worse version and the same thing happens again until, eventually, you have what the government (not the people) originally wanted (and worse).
It's similar to all the mergers and acquisitions. Five corporations want to merge. There is a public backlash. The government denies them. Then later they try three. Backlash. They deny. Then they try 3 again. It goes through. Then three more. Backlash. Denied. Three again. People forget. It goes through. Pretty soon you end up with an oligarchy. Now thanks to a lack of free market capitalism (patents) insulin prices have tripled in the last ten years and EpiPens have also gone up in price (though it's about time the FDA is allowing third parties to create corona virus tests after the U.S. fell way behind the rest of the world in this regard and the federal government couldn't come up with a reasonable defense to defend its decisions against the huge public and media backlash).
Same thing with removing net neutrality after multiple broadband/cable providers merged.
Same thing with extending copy protection terms to 100+ years.
Same thing with broadcast monopolies that the FCC imposes (with the fake tragedy of the commons excuse though I would say the FCC may be getting somewhat better at allocating broadcast bandwidth).
Same thing with USPS mailbox delivery monopolies (in other countries where such monopolies were removed the doomsday scenarios that all the mailbox monopoly proponents heralded never happened).
In every step of the way the public gets screwed. It happens slowly but surely. These zombie laws keep coming back until they eventually get passed and the public gets screwed. Once the laws are passed it's hard to undo them (100+ year copy protection laws) because big corporate interests insure they stay put.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday March 02 2020, @11:25PM
err ... I meant ensure *