Discussion for article #223295
Drones are fucking cool! HoweverâŚthe privacy issues surrounding their use are real, and we should all be concerned. But as far as cool gadgets go, drones kick assâI eventually want one personally for wildlife observation and path finding in wilderness areas. However, being clobbered by an errant beer delivery drone would be a real concern should drone use become as ubiquitous as cellular phones have become.
I must say I have a similar reaction. Reading and earlier assigning and editing this piece, perhaps my biggest take away was: these things are awesome. I really want one. Iâm not even sure I have as good a reason to want or use one as you donât. But theyâre just awesome. The ability to know where they are, self stabilize, take video, etc. Its just crack for the tech geek part of me. And yet, wow, itâs hard to imagine when just very knuckle head can have one of these flying around, especially in densely settled areas. I canât even imagine have people able to use these things in a super high density area like Manhattan.
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The AMA has been providing safety guidelines for many, many years along with insurance protecting hobbiest who are operating within the safety guidelines. A nod to them would be have been nice in the article - they have been doing a lot to advocate for safety and reasonable regulations.
Iâm a photographer who happens to own an 8-rotor copter, and I kind of feel like the media hype around privacy is a tad overstated. There are plenty of avenues for violating privacy - UAVs are just the newest tech. Banning drones because of privacy concerns would be like a ban on zoom lenses. Yes, the tech can be used for illegal purposes. No, that doesnât mean the tech is evil.
With regards to safety, I think the biggest issue is that the FAA is dragging their heels. In the absence of sensible regulation itâs turned into a free-for-all. Will the air eventually be congested with tons of UAVs? Yes, but thatâs still far enough away that we have plenty of time to work out avoidance systems. In the mean time there are legitimate business models that are being squashed in the US (and driving business overseas).
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I work in wind energy which has a lot of issues which relate to FAA jurisdiction. Iâm also a pilot . My company is developing technology which requires the FAA to change their rules. IMO, they have been appropriate deliberate and cautiousâŚothers would say slow⌠in their approach.
Iâm glad this piece emphasizes how hard the FAAâs task is. Right now, planes are really carefully regulated, pilots are really carefully regulated and flight operations are really carefully regulated. Drone use will have the same triumvirate of consideration. Weâll see if there will be the same level of regulation.
The answer is probably not, because itâs just way easier to operate a drone then an airplane. Therein lies the problem. For example, pilots need to pass a medical examine to show that they are fit enough to fly. Makes perfect sense. You donât want a pilot having a heart attack, risking his life, his passengers lives and people on the ground. But should you need to pass a medical examine to fly a drone? Sounds stupid, but what if someone monitoring a drone has a heart attack? The drone could run out of batteries and crash and kill someone, if the drone-pilot never brings it down. What if there is no pilot, just a fleet of drones controlled by a computer? This is pretty obviously the most efficient way to address repetitive industrial tasks like large scale agricultural monitoring. What are the reliability requirements for the computer operator?
Itâs guaranteed that at some point, people are going to die from the use of drones (talking civilian here) from accidents. The scale of of predicted drone use makes this inevitable. The FAAâs task is to minimize the number of deaths.
Not easy
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My husband used to have RC vehicles - little jeep type things, and little aircraft. They really are cool, no denying! We attached cameras to both at times, just for the hell of it. It was a fun way to observe the dogs playing without having a Hawthorne effect going on.
Like anything else, itâs that they can be used for nefarious purposes. Or, used without understanding or responsibility, can just be dangerous.
For commercial flights, how about a universally accessible flight-plan log-in site that compares all scheduled flights and notifies âpilotsâ when thereâs a collision potential in their flight plan, and then pilots can change flight plans a few minutes⌠program them all to fly between 800-1500 ft altitude, then set a âhobbyâ height limit of under 6-700 ft with range limitations.
This would avoid a lot of those near misses simply with planning. Violators would get their wings clipped.
âŚjust food for thought.
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imagine a music concert with a batch of geeky techs in attendance, each of the armed with a nanoquad and an IpodâŚ
Here on the Mexican border I expect I canât take out the trash w/o appearing on some screen somewhere. Drive from Tucson to the mission at Tubac and do the tourist thing for a few hours and then driving home, without ever leaving the United States you will pass through a border patrol/ICE checkpoint. They seem to know who you are before you get there. Drones I assume snap an image of your license plate and they run the numbers and know exactly who you are. The NSA tracks us. I wonder whoâs America they defend.
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Perhaps there is a reason to have a gun. If something like that flew low over my land on a remote island I would note feel guilty about using the old shotgun. It is an invasion of my property and privacy.
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That raises an interesting question. How do (or will) the trespass laws apply to drones?
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Technology moves forward. Thereâs no if, just when. I suspect the realistic regulation will involve adding consumer drone ingestion testing to commercial jet engine development in the same way they test chickens.
The privacy issues? Weâre really kind of screwed I think.
What really interested me most in this story is the sense and avoid issue. At the end of the day, thatâs the key and it totally revolutionizes the whole approach to airtraffic control. Note that the break off point theyâre looking at is 55 pds. At the end of the day you just canât have a jetliner hitting a hundred pound object at a combined speed of 2 or 3 or 400 miles an hour. That wonât end well.
âunmanned, camera-equippedâ is curiously oxymoronic, the âmanâ may not be on board but typically there are live eyes on the near horizon(s) when there a camera-equipped caveat.
As long as devices can detect each othersâ presence, It may be easier for those pilots to communicate in real time than each vehicle to have intrinsic avoidance mechanisms. but the thought of clouds of auto-zone drones all flying like a flock of starlings together, twisting in the wind seems somehow unlikely.
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Good point. I was thinking of much smaller equipment than 55 pounds. Only government entities are likely to be buying that kind of gear. And theyâll behave well Iâm sure 
Three words: break-away rotor blades. I can see the potential for liability, especially after that R/C helicopter enthusiast took off the top of his skull last yearâŚemergency air-bags? Makes me wonder what safety features or liability coverage will ultimately be required of drone operators.
I can just see the sign out front:
No smoking, vaping or droning beyond this point
On behalf of myself and all like-minded Prime members, I hereby request that Talking Points Memo acquire a suitably nifty Unmanned Flying Object and make it available for general investigation.
This should satisfy accounting. Youâre welcome.
An organization that Iâm particularly fond of has the motto âSafety Thirdâ and even they felt the need to put rules in placeâŚ