I'm not feeling this is a particularly constructive discussion anymore. You seem to be picking specific statements to counter, while ignoring the context of the statements and explanations that address your counterargument I've made in a prior comment or within the same comment.

For example, drone payload, where you focus on smaller sizes, and say they can't do much damage, and then either ignore larger size payloads as marketing lies (with no evidence to back it up, or to at least show actual payloads in practice), or that those drones are huge... which would make them easier to track, which was one of my earlier points that makes the system easier to develop. Feasible drones for attacks will likely be larger, and this easier to detect.

Time an again, I've tried to come up with real data or approximate numbers, with all calculations and reasons for such outlined so you or anyone else could question where you thought my assumptions were wrong, but I haven't seen that. Instead, I get blanket rejections without evidence, or even much explanation of reasoning.

I think you're conflating 2 separate people's statements. I've never had any focus on smaller sized payloads.

You could fairly easily find a drone with a 10 lbs payload. 40 pounds though isn't a realistic operational payload for those drones, which is why it says "max payload".

>Feasible drones for attacks will likely be larger, and this easier to detect

That's true, my point is that setting up a nationwide drone licensing and tracking system to track hobby drones isn't necessary when what you're really worried about is protecting high value targets from drones that are approaching the size of small helicopters.

> Instead, I get blanket rejections without evidence, or even much explanation of reasoning.

You haven't provided any evidence either, just a random assumption that such a system will cost $50k-$200k per site.

I clearly explained why that is too low. Increasing the density of radar coverage to handle drones above 400', trained personnel, towers, and drone take down systems are going to cost a lot more than you think. You can believe me or not, but I've provided at least much explanation and evidence as you have.

> I think you're conflating 2 separate people's statements. I've never had any focus on smaller sized payloads.

I know you weren't the prior commentor. This is a long discussion. I expect you're reading the prior comments in the same direct thread. When I've specifically addressed an item, in the thread, or even in the same comment, to have that ignored is... frustrating.

> You could fairly easily find a drone with a 10 lbs payload. 40 pounds though isn't a realistic operational payload for those drones, which is why it says "max payload".

I didn't pull that number out of my ass. It was actually a conservative number, based on what I saw some models as capable of (but could not find good pricing info for). For example, the VulcaUAV Airlist model advertises a payload capacity of 25kg (~55lbs).[1]

> That's true, my point is that setting up a nationwide drone licensing and tracking system to track hobby drones isn't necessary when what you're really worried about is protecting high value targets from drones that are approaching the size of small helicopters.

Not just hobby drones, all drones. I expect there to to be a lot of commercial drone usage in the future. If they are all licensed, then the costs are limited to applying towards the small hobby usage, but overall U.S. drone usage, which I expect to be substantial compared to hobby use.

I've explained this multiple times.

> You haven't provided any evidence either, just a random assumption that such a system will cost $50k-$200k per site.

I've explained what type of hardware I expect the system to require, including multiple cameras per station. I've given a guesstimate as to the number of installations required. I've guessed at a per-station cost, and thus a total system cost.

Your counter of "it's off by a few orders of magnitude" is in my opinion not sufficiently explained by personnel and countermeasures, since a few order of magnitude is at a minimum 100x off (and then if I assume you used a meaning of "few" that includes 2 as the minimum). I do not believe training existing personnel that are already stationed around every location (police!) you would want these and providing additional devices and training constitutes hundreds of billions of dollars.

> I've provided at least much explanation and evidence as you have.

No, you haven't provided any idea of what you think it would actually cost to have personnel on site and have them trained and outfitted. If you had, I might have been able to point out that we already have officials that serve a very similar purpose that could be used, the police, and that I don't think training and outfitting would be nearly as costly. I think $100 billion would be an fairly extreme upper bound of this system, but that's not a few orders of magnitude, it's one, and surmountable over time with a tiered rollout IMO, if it's event that high. For example, the FAA alone out of all the DOT agencies has a $16 billion annual budget.[2] In 2018 the U.S. spent over $90 billion on transportation in the federal budget.[3]

In the end, I doubt we're going to convince each other of anything at this point, and I've lost the desire to continue. We should just agree to disagree. :/

Feel free to address any of the points I've made here though. I'll read the response and consider the points, I just don't think I'll respond.

1: http://vulcanuav.com/aircraft/

2: https://www.transportation.gov/mission/budget/fy-2019-budget...

3: https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/federal_budget_detail_f...

>I didn't pull that number out of my ass. It was actually a conservative number, based on what I saw some models as capable of

I read your earlier source. And I'm telling you that a list of drone maximum payloads pulled from the marketing websites of mostly small businesses isn't representative of the actual normal operating payloads of drones at those price points.

Most drones can technically take off with a much higher weight than is actually practical to fly with.

I'm not saying you can't find a gas powered drone with a 100 pound payload. What I am saying is that these drones aren’t remotely in the same category as consumer drones.

>Not just hobby drones, all drones. I expect there to to be a lot of commercial drone usage in the future. If they are all licensed, then the costs are limited to applying towards the small hobby usage, but overall U.S. drone usage, which I expect to be substantial compared to hobby use.

Then what is the point in regulating tiny drones with little capability to cause damage. Ultralight aircraft aren’t regulated like commercial jets.

>Your counter of "it's off by a few orders of magnitude" is in my opinion not sufficiently explained by personnel and countermeasures, since a few order of magnitude is at a minimum 100x off

This depends on what you’re trying to do. If your goal is just to make sure that commercial drones are licensed, then sure you could build a relatively cheap system. If your goal is just:

Hey we keep seeing an unlicensed drone delivering pizzas. Alert the police to go out with direction finding equipment when they get the time, and see if they can find the operator, so that we can fine him.

Then sure a few billion is doable. Red light cameras don’t deter terrorist from using truck bombs though. If we removed the requirement to have license plates tomorrow, we wouldn’t see a huge upswing in truck bombings. Stealing a license plate isn’t the bottleneck in the terrorists plan.

So if your goal is to meaningfully deter determined attackers, you’ll need a system that’s much more robust. You’ll need enough extra trained personnel to rapidly respond to a relatively large percentage of every unauthorized drone alarm. You’ll need a very dense network of anti drone countermeasures (birds, guns whatever) in order to have a chance of responding in time. You’ll need vastly expanded radar coverage to detect drones flying too high to be detected by camera. And a camera network that is dense enough so that just flying behind building and trees isn’t an easy option. All of this will need to coordinated.

>In 2018 the U.S. spent over $90 billion on transportation in the federal budget.

That's in one year, and the DOT doesn’t operate anything close to the scale of the system we’re talking about.

> You’ll need vastly expanded radar coverage to detect drones flying too high to be detected by camera.

I’d actually argue it’s not possible with current radar tech. The radar signature of most consumer drones is so small that if you had radar tuned to that size, you’d be getting false positives all the time. Even in the bigger drones, there’s still a very small radar signature too. I’ve not tested it, but even my 6’ wide dual octocopter likely wouldn’t even be identified on radar.