I think what some people don't understand here is how working with the FAA is fundamentally different than the DMV.
The DMV has to keep as many people driving as reasonably possible, since in the US it's practically impossible to live life normally without a car (excepting major cities)
Flying, on the other hand, is viewed as a privilege by the FAA. You do not have a right to fly anything. And the FAA will do everything it can to make sure flying is safe, even if it means barring the majority of the population from ever qualifying to fly.
I don't think they will treat drones any differently.
So to everyone who is shocked at how hard the FAA is being about drones, welcome to flying. This is par for the course for us pilots.
You don't need a license or formal training, but the reason for that is not because there is some right to fly ultralights. It is because the FAA rules specifically give permission to fly ultalights without a license or formal training. See 14 CFR 103.7 [1].
Actually, that's a very good point. There are some important restrictions regarding airspace but there are legal ways to get up in the air by yourself without any training
The willingness to risk your own life in an ultralight is enough to satisfy the FAA that you followed some minimal due diligence; however, you're not risking anything by flying a drone except a few dollars.
It's ridiculous to compare this to cars. The size category is .5 to 55 pounds. A 55 pound car is called a 'toy' and given to five year olds. You should have just as much right to fly a tiny drone as you have to fly a kite.
If it is ridiculous to compare drones to cars, it is also ridiculous to compare drones to kites. All three have different risk profiles. To have something that could weigh the same as a bowling ball fall on you is different than a kite on the end of a string. 55 pounds isn't tiny in this context.
That being said, cars are clearly the most dangerous of the three. But they are what we are most dependent on as well.
If you want to keep people out of the places cars are actually supposed to go, but let them be on sidewalks and such, then it's fine to have some restrictions. And likewise let drones fly under 400 feet.
But you shouldn't be banning people from the roads either, that's been a big problem making cities worse over the last century.
Your assertion that people don't have a right to fly is fundamentally flawed. Whether or not I have a legal right assigned by the government is unrelated to fundamental human rights. Most people would agree the government doesn't have the right to tell people not to do something without a very good reason. And that's where the disagreement is. No one is saying the FAA doesn't have the legal authority to tell people what to do, the complaint is they don't have a good reason for the rules they're trying to implement.
Definitely lax in some ways, but medically it's incredible what they will latch on to and disqualify people for
Things are getting better though, they're getting less rules-minded and more safety-minded. But the proposals around drones don't seem out of the ordinary for FAA regulations to me
Some of their regs are pretty antiquated. They can disqualify people for using prescribed ADD meds for example with would actually make one a better pilot.
But the bar for a PPL was surprisingly low to me in many ways and the sport pilot license is shocking.
ADD meds can also be abused to keep one awake past the point where it is safe to fly though. They were used for this purpose long before they were discovered to help with ADD, which was in turn long before "Adult ADD" was considered a valid diagnosis.
I really regret not getting the sport license before my grampa couldn't pass his medical anymore.
Would have loved if he could have kept his plane so I could take him up once in a while.
Am curious how this would have worked -- sport pilots are restricted to flying Light Sport Aircraft, which seem to be very uncommon. Was your grandpa's plane one?
> The Department of Motor Vehicles was created in 1915 with the enactment of Senator E.S. Birdsall's "Vehicle Act of 1915." Vehicle registrations that year had climbed to 191,000.
Standard remote identification UAS would be required to broadcast identification and
location information directly from the unmanned aircraft and simultaneously transmit
that same information to a Remote ID USS through an internet connection. Limited
remote identification UAS would be required to transmit information through the
internet only, with no broadcast requirements; however, the unmanned aircraft would
be designed to operate no more than 400 feet from the control station.
This requires all drones to be internet connected. That's a crazy requirement, and a crazy extra risk.
No it doesn’t. “Standard remote identification” drones would be required to have a base station that’s capable of connecting to the internet, but the drone could still operate where there’s no service:
> If the internet is available at takeoff, the UAS would have to do the following from takeoff to landing: (1) connect to the internet and transmit the required remote identification message elements through that internet connection to a Remote ID USS; and (2) broadcast the message elements directly from the unmanned aircraft.
> If the internet is unavailable at takeoff, or if during the flight, the unmanned aircraft can no longer transmit through an internet connection to a Remote ID USS, the UAS would have to broadcast the message elements directly from the unmanned aircraft from takeoff to landing.
However, for “limited remote identification” drones, which lack the hardware to broadcast directly and thus broadcast only via the internet, the base station would be required to have an internet connection [edit: and also be within 400 ft of the drone].
I read that part the same way; for standard remote ID drones, transmission over internet to a USS should be made if possible, but as long as the drone can continue an ADS-B like (but specifically NOT ADS-B) transmission it remains compliant. That's the big question here I think, because there are a lot of places you can fly that don't have internet connectivity, such as rural farms where drones are currently very useful.
Yes, it does. It requires that the drone be internet connected or, with almost exactly the same risk/hassle profile, that the base station within 400ft of the drone be internet connected. That's a crazy requirement, and a crazy extra risk.
There has to be a base station somewhere, unless the drone is fully autonomous and not even indirectly controlled by anyone, which appears to be in violation of other regulations anyway. If the drone is capable of broadcasting directly (“standard remote identification”), then that base station doesn’t have to be within 400ft; it must have the capability to connect to the internet, but the drone can operate even if it’s out of service.
That could add some cost. However, AFAIK (not an expert), the most popular drones are already designed to be connected to a phone – either directly (for short-range amateur models) or with a controller that you attach your phone to. Those devices could presumably use the phone‘s internet connection, so there would be no added cost, although I guess the phone would go from optional to mandatory(?).
I don’t know what you mean by “risk”. Risk of the base station being hacked over the internet? It’s a possibility, but it doesn’t seem like the end of the world, especially since the base station would only need to make outbound connections to specific servers.
The internet connection is only required if the drone is incapable of broadcasting its own local ID signal. This will not be a problem for the kinds of drones that have practical uses in remote areas.
Also, as with many other drone regulations, this does not apply to lightweight units.
From a quick skim of the unpublished document it seems like a compliant transmitter could be built from hobbyist parts for under $100 and weighing a few ounces. Commercial options should have no trouble beating both of those numbers.
It seems like those with drones at the absolute bottom end of the "registration required" range could be limited by this but as long as your drone could handle having a basic flip phone attached to it you shouldn't have trouble with this.
You're raising valid points generally but read 89.110 for Standard Remote Identification. If internet is not available the drone must broadcast the information elements directly. This does preclude 'limited remote identification' UAS from operating without any local internet and of course no remote identification UASes will be stuck in the FAA sandboxes.
Definitely some rough edges in this that will hopefully get eviscerated in public comments.
When I fly, the "base station" is the controller in my hands. It has no greater or lesser ability to be internet connected than the bird itself. No phone is involved in the operation of any of my machines.
Block quote for mobile users. Please use block quotes (>) for quotes, rather than indenting which causes horizonal scrolling on mobile
> Standard remote identification UAS would be required to broadcast identification and location information directly from the unmanned aircraft and simultaneously transmit that same information to a Remote ID USS through an internet connection. Limited remote identification UAS would be required to transmit information through the internet only, with no broadcast requirements; however, the unmanned aircraft would be designed to operate no more than 400 feet from the control station.
Angle brackets don't actually create block quotes here, but if you just put one in front of the long wrapping text people will get the idea. The indent formatting works best for code, as it doesn't wrap and preserves newlines, but on mobile it will cause scrollbars within the comment for the same reason, making it very hard to read. It feels weird to use a single angle bracket for it all because we're conditioned by mail clients to do one per line, but that just doesn't work well here.
Alternatively, italicizing quoted text with asterisks around the block usually works, since the core of what you usually want is just to visually distinguish something you are repeating for context and your own comments on it.
> Alternatively, italicizing quoted text with asterisks around the block usually works, since the core of what you usually want is just to visually distinguish something you are repeating for context and your own comments on it.
Yep, I've found that combining the two works well. Start with an angle bracket, then use the asterisks to italicize and it's readable on mobile/PC and it's clear that you're quoting someone and it's clear what the quoted content is.
Even so, it’s silly that people have to invent their own formatting to represent blockquotes when HTML has an element already built into it specifically for that purpose.
Heh, I've seen enough people do this that I assumed the angle bracket actually did something, formatting wise. Now my original post sounds a bit silly. It's very effective. :)
" Start with an angle bracket, then use the asterisks to italicize and it's readable on mobile/PC and it's clear that you're quoting someone and it's clear what the quoted content is. "
"" Start with an angle bracket, then use the asterisks to italicize and it's readable on mobile/PC and it's clear that you're quoting someone and it's clear what the quoted content is. ""
----- BEGIN QUOTATION: macintux -----
----- BEGIN QUOTATION: yellowapple -----
How about this?
----- END QUOTATION: yellowapple -----
That doesn't solve the problem of quoting multiple levels of the thread.
----- END QUOTATION: macintux -----
Hold my beer :)
----- BEGIN QUOTATION: macintux -----
>> This is a time-honored way of identifying a grandparent comment.
----- END QUOTATION: macintux -----
Indeed it is, at least in email and Markdown. However, email quotations also usually include the "On $timestamp macintux wrote:" blurb in front to designate who wrote the quotation.
lol, so do mine. I wouldn't suggest this as an actual quoting method, needless to say. More of a thought experiment around what elements we'd need in a well-designed quoting method.
From what I understood skimming the full PDF linked by another comment, it's the base station which is required to be Internet connected, not the drone. Still a crazy requirement, but less crazy.
The extra crazy part is that the safest places to fly a drone tend to be places where there is no internet service. I live on the edge of a metro area and I drive 20m into the middle of nowhere, up an unmarked dirt trail to launch and fly around looking at the pretty scenery. By going that far out, I know for sure there are no other people, certainly no aircraft under 500 ft and no chance I'm going to injure, bother or even be seen by anybody.
I go there because it's so safe and stress-free. If I were to even hear a vehicle or aircraft in the distance, I'd land immediately (though that's never happened). Where I fly, not only is there no internet service, there's no cellular voice service.
So the FAA has basically assured that I have little incentive to follow their rules. I don't want to start flying within cellular data service range because people, property and aircraft tend to be in those places.
That is the opposite of my understanding based on two parts. As part of the protocol the UAS needs to be able to transmit:
> An indication of the emergency status of the UAS, which could include lost-link or downed aircraft.
I suppose this could possibly be done from the base station as well but manufacturers are going to have to get this certified for operation and I bet this will be sticking point.
The other one is this one:
> UAS would be required to broadcast identification and location information directly from the unmanned aircraft and simultaneously transmit that same information to a Remote ID USS through an internet connection.
While I suppose it could be read that the "directly from unmanned aircraft" might not apply to the internet connection portion I'm willing to bet that is the intent.
p.111 of the regulations gives an example specifically of a UAS that uses the internet connection of a paired smartphone:
> Charlie’s UAS is designed to pair with his smartphone to transmit the remote identification message elements through an internet connection to a USS. Because Charlie’s UAS cannot broadcast [i.e. radio] remote identification message elements, it does not function unless his smartphone is connected to the internet and transmitting through that internet connection to Bravo USS.
That doesn't seem remotely practical. Even the tiniest hobby drones can easily and safely get 150ft away along the ground and are allowed to go up to 400ft.
Have you tried connecting to a phone's hotspot or bluetooth line of sight from 50ft away? 75ft? That's like half a second of flight time for drone then it's supposed to just "stop operating". Sounds incredibly dangerous and ineffective to me.
If its from the base station that would probably make more sense but that would require replacing controllers which are the most costly portion of amateur setups (besides FPV setups).
The proposed document contains answers to most of your questions. I'd recommend using search to jump around to the areas you seem interested in.
> For both standard and limited remote identification UAS, at this time the FAA has not proposed any requirements regarding how the UAS connects to the internet to transmit the message elements or whether that transmission is from the control station or the unmanned aircraft. The FAA understands, however, that there are concerns about the impact that connecting to the internet directly from the unmanned aircraft (as opposed to the control station) could have on networks that use radio frequency spectrum, including interference, network stability, or other
effects.
If you want to fly 400 ft away, it doesn't seem too onerous to require a communication setup that's capable of staying in contact with your drone.
Yikes. Was kinda hoping to see it just be an NFC sticker you have to slap on your drone after registration, but this reads like they want an active radio and per-flight generated IDs, the devices need internet connections and all kinds of business that precludes entire categories of lightweight UASes. This is definitely going to be stifling to the market if it's enforced in the slightest.
It also rules out using ADS-B on drone aircraft entirely, which is a bit perplexing.
Did you hear that they are having privacy concerns for the 24 bit ICAO aircraft address which is broadcast by ADS-B transponders now?? There are a bunch of companies petitioning for a temporary anonymous private address process that only the FAA would be able to track.
Why did they bother to invent a publicly broadcast address if it wasn't intended to be used that way!?
ADS-B has always had an "anonymous" option for aircraft using the UAT uplink, as long as they're squawking 1200/VFR. (Similarly, there's long been a way to request that specific aircraft are hidden from the FAA's public radar feeds.)
Aircraft using the 1090ES uplink can't take advantage of the privacy mode, because it's based on top of Mode S, which is an older protocol and never had privacy built in - it didn't need it before because Mode S just didn't include position data. (We'll ignore Mode S multilateration, which is a recent development.)
The private ICAO addresses are a hack to provide similar functionality as UAT.
> Why did they bother to invent a publicly broadcast address if it wasn't intended to be used that way!?
Because those addresses were invented for Mode S, which didn't broadcast position. It was part of the secondary radar (transponder) system, and needed to be paired with primary radar to get something useful.
This will be easily defeatable with a crowd-sourced database.
It is not even close to easy to be able to change an ADS-B out ICAO address in avionics right now, so periodically changing these addresses won't happen in production.
When will people realize that security by obscurity doesn't work?
ADS-B, while good, isn’t perfect. It’s refresh rate goes down the more aircraft there are in an area to avoid signal conflict, it’s one way broadcast so there isn’t a way to request a different view of data, and it’s more like an untrusted client (self reporting) with no civilian ability to support cryptographic identity (no way to prove the signal is real, authentic, or correct).
Remote ID probably doesn’t solve all of these issues, but it may try to solve some around identification. I’m not familiar enough with the specification yet or how it’ll be implemented.
> it’s one way broadcast so there isn’t a way to request a different view of data
I think what you mean is there isn't a way for _you_ to request data.
I'm sure you are operating a SDR on 1090 MHz as an ADS-B receiver, but that is only half the equation. Aircraft transponders also listen on 1030 MHz for interrogations and will respond appropriately. Secondary surveillance radar does exactly this in the United States around towered airports.
ADS-B is just a dumbed down version of the Identify Friend or Foe system deployed by the military.
> I work on Uber Elevate, which has been an industry partner for testing Remote ID
Fantastic! If you'd like to grab coffee and learn more about how this stuff works (and how it should work in the future), my email is in my profile.
With ADS-B the broadcast packet contains whatever it contains (a consumer cannot request different “endpoints”). By different view I was thinking of how an internet based solution could have endpoints with many options and pull too instead of only push.
My dad was a licensed pilot (IFR with several other certifications, but small plane). My understanding of how the FAA handles regulations is that they tend to be onerous. I skimmed the doc, but going by that understanding, I'm not at all surprised that they'd propose a regulation that would effectively eliminate entire products because they'd be impossible to build in a compliant manner.
The law of unintended consequences lands pretty hard on government regulations -- mini-motorcycles come to mind; they don't fall into a category that can be made legal to use anywhere other than private property. And while there are certainly many products where "that's just fine", when things fall into that category, it makes it impossible/extremely expensive to get any form of insurance which could also be required in order to operate the thing in the first place[0].
If what you've written is true, without caveats, it'll be stifling to the market if it is has any chance of being enforced at all. A good chunk of the drone market is hobbyist and a lot of hobbyists have more hobbies than they have time. Unless they also have a regulatory compliance hobby to go along with it, a lot of them are likely to just give up on the whole thing.
Of course, this benefits makers of higher-priced drones meant for commercial markets. Some of the inexpensive drones are capable enough for professionals (or can be modded to be made capable enough) -- that's eating into sales of the $1000 -- probably far better -- drones. I'm not saying DJI or some of the larger drone makers are trying to game the system to eliminate smaller competitors, but it wouldn't really surprise me. The things they're expecting drone manufacturers to implement would require lower-priced drones to raise their prices to offset the cost. The more expensive drones might be able to cheapen-up elsewhere to offset, or they'll similarly pass that on to the consumer since bumping the price of a $1000 drone to $1050 would barely be noticed vs. a $150 drone costing $200 after being made compliant[1].
[0] Minibikes are a bad example, but the idea is that people will be less willing to buy/use a product (that requires skill to operate safely) if they cannot insure against a lawsuit when it hurts someone/causes some other form of harm that a lawyer can profitably latch onto.
[1] Hypothetical prices, obviously -- I don't understand everything that will be required nor who would be required to comply. I.e. If you can't sell non-compliant models, it'll bump up the price. If you can, it'll bump up the cost of ownership for those who aren't interested in explaining themselves to a judge/officer.
> I skimmed the doc, but going by that understanding, I'm not at all surprised that they'd propose a regulation that would effectively eliminate entire products because they'd be impossible to build in a compliant manner.
Well, given that we continue to have fire control flights grounded because of idiots flying drones, the FAA is going to keep ratcheting up the regulations until that stops.
So, either people can start getting on board with some tracking and actually provide some useful feedback and advice, or the FAA is eventually just going to ban all drones and make it a major felony to possess one.
The internet connection doesn't have to be on the UAS itself, it can be through a paired smartphone or something. Also if the UAS has a radio then it only needs to connect to the internet once at the beginning of the flight.
There are concerns about overwhelming the ADS-B spectrum with a bunch of drones. It's not ruled out entirely--there are exceptions--but they want to avoid a whole bunch of drones using it, yes.
All the outrage on here seems shortsighted, while the FAA and you are recognizing the long game.
There's no putting the genie back in the bottle, so any proposal needs to scale across the widest range of UAS, while coping with potentially exponential vehicle count growth, while avoiding adverse impacts to any legacy systems (existing ATC instruments or RF networks).
That's no trivial circle to square.
By offloading performance demands onto clearing houses, they gain scalability. By avoiding existing devices, they avoid negatively impacting legacy traffic.
I'd imagine existing flight instruments wouldn't be too happy if I 100x'd the amount of data they're receiving (assuming the spectrum would even support it).
So yes, additional requirements, but that's how you get to a world where there are safely 1000s of drones in any given airspace.
Seems weird to require both an internet connection and radio broadcasting from the UAV in operation, but that seems to be what the rule states. Why not either-or?
Internet connection would allow some automation to educate users of no-fly zones. For example send notification emails afterwards.
Local broadcast might make it easier to identify drones which are behaving badly. For example if you have many drones operating in area, maybe you could catch the ID of specific drone using directional antenna.
There's finite available RF bandwidth, specifically in long-life things like air systems where you can't just add additional bands decades down the road.
Ergo, trying to keep the most numerous systems (smaller UAVs) from needing to actively broadcast seems like a good idea.
Remember that one of the reasons cell phones were originally prohibited from planes was due to signal propagation (back when they used higher power to broadcast).
Frequency isn't infinite, and a 250' tall transmitter covers a very different amount of area than one at ground level.
There is a lot of content in here that seem like its intentionally created for getting money out of people and the government.
* Drones will require an internet connection (might be able to get away with a connection via a cell phone or something, but that'll likely prove unreliable)
* Additional radio hardware will be required in some cases as well
* The FCC will subcontract out to a specific company receiving all of the drone reports
* No discussion of protocol, so will largely be designed and specified by the internet contractor... Which history has proven will be a heavy protocol... So larger CPU requirements to comply...
I'm curious about how dramatically this will affect the price of drones. I did a skim-read of the PDF but couldn't find specifics about what size of craft/properties of the craft this would apply to.
Would it apply to the little hand-held $14 thing that was used for exactly one hour on Christmas before it was destroyed?
Even outside of the "disposable/toy" market -- Amazon has a number of $100-$200 drones that are quite capable, with video/GPS and a lot of the features that would have been found only on $1000 drones a couple of years ago. Adding regulation[0] greatly affects hobbiest builders. I'm going to avoid tinkering around with things that could result in me having to explain myself to a judge. And it affects the target market for these $100/$200 drones. Do I want to go through the trouble of ensuring I'm not violating a hundred-page rule just "for my own entertainment"?
I'm not saying the regulation isn't needed. Frankly, I haven't spent time understanding the problem well enough to make that determination. I'm just wondering how well this balances preventing a drone-related catastrophe against the harm it will cause to the overall sector.
[0] Especially if it's the sort that are required to be complied with in order to be offered for sale
The Mavic Mini that was released last month is a fully-capable drone. It is one gram less than the 250g classification requiring registration. I assume that will be the limit here as well
There are no size restrictions, the only exception is hobby built ones but this also proposes those can only fly in certain designated places.
limited exceptions, which include certain amateur-built UAS and UAS manufactured prior to the
compliance date, operators flying UAS without remote identification capabilities would be
permitted to fly only at certain specific geographic areas established under this rule specifically
to accommodate them.
Honestly, that covers my entire use case, today. I purchased a drone last year with the desire to toss open-source auto-pilot firmware on it, but I've always operated it within line-of-sight... at least, I've always intended to operate it within line-of-sight[0]. :P
[0] I failed to properly calibrate the drone on its third flight, where it took of at full power, up and to the left. It continued to try to "correct itself", which resulted it in flying in an arc, landing upside down on the roof of a house 5 doors down. It's not fun introducing yourself to the neighbors by asking if you can use the ladder you carried down the block to retrieve the drone that nearly lodged itself in their chimney. Or maybe it is ... in my case, he was a drone hobbyist with similar piloting skills as myself, so he was very understanding and ended up giving me a battery he had that he found out wasn't compatible with his.
Legally, unless you have a waiver, all drones must fly within line of site. K-State Polytechnic applied for and received said waiver for its drone training program.
I wish regulations that used this kind of wording were reserved only for the most necessary/dangerous situations. Did they define what the "geographic areas established under this rule" are, or is that something that the FAA has to publish, later? If it's the latter, it has a good chance of never being defined, or being defined in a manner that effectively makes operating a drone impossible/pointless (see my comments re: mini-motorcycles).
For instance, my family owns a house in a resort community up north. It's a place where you generally park the car and bike/walk everywhere. A lot of people purchase golf carts or similar vehicles to get around, however, the state does not allow these to be used except in "certain specific geographic areas" -- basically, the municipalities have to decide to allow them or not, and where to allow them. Now, it's arguably a good idea to keep a golf cart with no seat belts that does not accelerate very quickly, cannot exceed 25 MPH and has similar braking limitations from being used on major roads, however, nothing about this vehicle makes it any more unsafe to use in a residential neighborhood or within the 25 MPH speed-limited downtown than other vehicles (self-powered or otherwise). They were legalized in their city last year after several years of trying to get through the city board/mayor.
We have no-fly zones and other regulations meant to keep traffic limited to specific needs/aircraft. It would be far better if they (narrowly) defined the areas that drones cannot be used. As a middle-ground, having an additional tier would be nice, i.e. "drone pilots who have completed some form of licensing with basic training" would be allowed to operate them outside of "established geographic areas" but still carry restrictions on where they cannot be used. I'm not a fan of adding a licensing burden, but it's better than a hard restriction with no flexibility.
It wouldn't even be unusual for the FAA to put something together for this -- my dad's pilot license allowed him to operate his specific aircraft in VFR when he first received it. He trained up and received his instrument certification and a few others that allowed him to fly in adverse weather conditions, with an oxygen tank/mask, at the maximum altitude the aircraft he owned was capable of reaching and he did just that at least weekly. Even outside of the FAA -- we have graduated drivers licenses[0]. Heck, at 12, my son was able to get a boating license at school[1].
Depending on what these allowed geographical areas end up being, it could either destroy the hobbyist market or make every hobbyist a violator. And once it's in place, holy crap is it difficult to undo[2]
[0] My son can get his learners permit at age 14 and (I think) 9 months, allowing him to operate a car on public roads as long as I'm in the passenger seat.
[1] Pretty common in Michigan, especially if you live within 10 miles of any of the great lakes. I got mine in 7th grade as part of my science class at a different school/district than he is.
[2] Marijuana laws come to mind -- arguably much safer than other, legal/regulated, vices but yet still illegal (at the federal level) in the US. Or maybe more closely related, a future of completely driverless cars -- assuming the technology matures to the point where the "driver" is really a "passenger", will they eliminate drivers licenses? My bet is no. Even if they work as safely/simply/reliably as a modern elevator.
> Did they define what the "geographic areas established under this rule" are, or is that something that the FAA has to publish, later?
There's a process defined in the regulations for submitting an area for consideration. It's not clear how easily they'll be granted, we'll have to wait and see.
All legislation tends to be reactive rather than proactive. The drone industry, in my opinion, has been rather irresponsible about educating their customers. As a result you have people flying drones in places, at times and altitudes they should not.
A few years ago, where I live, we had a rash of new drone owners doing stupid crap like flying over homes, roads, highways, parks and supermarket parking lots, to name a few. This culminated with the inevitable. Someone got hurt, badly, when a drone fell out of the sky. The drone owner/operator got arrested. They ended-up in jail and lost their home in the lawsuit that followed. Pretty f-ing stupid behavior if you ask me.
As someone who has been designing, building and flying all kinds of remote controlled aircraft for somewhere around 35 years, I have been looking at what the consumer side of the drone industry has been doing with horror. I have crashed so many aircraft and helicopters I can't even list them. I am not talking about cheap toys either. My highest cost crash was $6,000 in one day.
The point is these things are toys made with toy-grade electronics. They are nowhere near reliable enough to dare fly over structures, people or roads unless the pilot is willing to face the consequences of killing one or more people and possibly burning down an entire neighborhood. Having done extensive work in aerospace I know full-well what proper fault-tolerant design looks like --cause I have many fault-tolerant designs under my belt. These things are not even close to being safe enough to fly over a crowd of kids at the park or above a neighborhood. And yet it happens all the time.
The industry has had an opportunity to address these issues, either technologically, through education or both. And they have note. Therefore, they are slowly being constrained through precisely the legislation they deserve to have to face.
One of the things I said years ago as drones started to become popular and people started to do stupid things with them was that "these people are going to ruin the model aircraft hobby for everyone". I am sad to say I was right. They are doing precisely that and more.
Not sure if there are any solutions at this point other than the kind of legislation responsible drone owners do not need and do not want.
Oddly enough this is precisely the same situation we have in the US with the firearm issue. Responsible firearm owners don't need legislation to be, well, responsible law-abiding citizens who harm nobody. Those who are in a range between careless and demented are the one's who ruin it for everyone else. This is now happening to drones. Same thing. Different hardware.
100% agree that regulation was the inevitable conclusion of the whole drone craze.
But what baffles me is the type of regulation they're proposing. The bad actor was appropriately found and punished in your story. My thought is, instead of more onerous requirements on end users surrounding registration, why not require the drones to meet some minimum technical requirement regarding capability? The problem doesn't seem to be in finding the person responsible, so why focus the legislation there, instead of trying to make the hobby safer overall?
Unless they think it's easier just to discourage people from the RC hobby altogether, which is what the current proposal would do.
Well, in the local case someone told the cops who was flying it (from the comfort of their backyard, BTW). In most cases it likely is very difficult to identify the pilot. Worst yet, you might never see the drone while they create great potential danger (flying over a freeway) or invade privacy (fly above someone's property or look into a home).
I am not for a minute proposing bans or anything like that. Yet the current framework and industry do not impose any level of responsibility on owners.
For example, I carry a one million dollar insurance policy to cover any damage I might cause with my model airplanes, helicopters or drones. However, the policy is only valid if I fly within a set of rules. Not surprisingly, I am not allowed to fly over people, homes or roads. Which means I tend to be extremely safety-conscious and never fly in any way that would endanger others or their property.
That is absolutely lacking in the consumer drone industry. People think nothing of flying their drones over anything or anyone and they don't even have insurance to cover the damage they might cause.
As a simple example, my solar array cost in the order of $50K. If some idiot crashes a drone into it it'll cost me thousands of dollars to fix it. It might even start a massive fire. And yet, unless you see who's flying the thing, they confess or someone identifies them, they will never be caught. When people do not suffer consequences for their actions they have no reason to behave with civility or consideration. Most people are good, but most people can be real idiots as well.
> They are nowhere near reliable enough to dare fly over structures, people or roads unless the pilot is willing to face the consequences of killing one or more people and possibly burning down an entire neighborhood.
If your entire neighborhood can be burned down by one consumer-level drone, you've got bigger issues.
Kids hit baseballs near crowds, with similar kinetic potential and the occasional injury and even death. We manage to survive as a society without strict regulations on baseball games.
If you think regulations around baseball fences and insurance arent huge, you have never taken part in little leauge, much les a major event. The amount of litigation surrounding baseball is staggering. Your analogy is unfortunatly, more apt tan you meant for it to be.
Second, we are in Southern California, where massive brush fires have taken out entire neighborhoods. This is particularly dangerous during Santa Ana wind conditions, where we can have sustained 30 to 60 mph winds.
If a drone crashes into fuel (brush, a home, etc.) and the LiPo is damaged or shorted you have a very high potential for a large fire. Add wind and more fuel to that and you can easily take out a chunk of a neighborhood if not the entire area.
For context, we had a small fire two blocks away just a few months ago. The hill on the side of the road lit for some reason. It was very windy. Before you knew it three homes --not adjoining-- had gone up, several fences burned and probably about a quarter of a mile of grass/shrubs/fuel burned-up. This was with two Super Scooper aircraft and three or four water-dropping helicopters dumping water and retardant at a furious pace (we live by a lake, so round trips are quick).
And then there are real cases of real homes, garages and businesses going up in flames due to drone or LiPo batteries catching fire:
In other words, no, I am not over-stating the danger of people flying drones around hills, brush, homes or roads. It doesn't matter how small they are, LiPo's are very energetic and can start nasty fires.
This is part of the problem I alluded to in my earlier note. People simply aren't educated about this stuff and actually think it is safe to fly these things anywhere and might even laugh at those proposing this is very dangerous. The industry has failed to educated people, which is why it will get pounded with legislation.
BTW, all of my LiPo batteries are stored in fireproof bags inside a fireproof metal container. My garage might fill with smoke but I am not going to lose my home over a bunch of batteries for my model aircraft.
This is a reality everywhere. California has bigger issues, yes, but that's not to say that a drone crashing into a neighborhood anywhere in the US could not launch a catastrophic event.
BTW, even if the issue was narrowed down to burning down a single home it would be serious enough not to have these things flying above neighborhoods. Let's be sure we are not doing the typical HN thing of getting lost in an endless and pointless minutiae argument --typical of programmers-- where everyone is trying to find the missing "case:" statement in the poster's scenario to show just how smart they are or have their position hold. If you want to find one, you can, that doesn't mean these things are anywhere near fault tolerant or safe to have flying everywhere.
There is no position that can support the idea of someone having fun flying around and taking pictures in exchange for a range of negative outcomes from hurting to killing someone on the ground or causing varying degrees of property damage.
That's what we are talking about:
Taking pictures in exchange for creating public danger.
If you want to find a "case:" where my argument is wrong, feel free. YouTube is full of evidence of the danger posed by these things.
At this point the genie is out of the bottle. As much as I hate heavy government involvement this is likely becoming a case where no other option remains on the table.
This has now become the gun debate with different hardware.
> There is no position that can support the idea of someone having fun flying around and taking pictures in exchange for a range of negative outcomes from hurting to killing someone on the ground or causing varying degrees of property damage.
Again, that argument means I can't play baseball with my kids in the backyard. It's not a standard I'm prepared to just accept on your say-so.
>that argument means I can't play baseball with my kids in the backyard
Not even remotely close to the same thing. If you honestly see these two activities as equivalent it likely explains why you are having trouble understanding my point. That's just human nature. Which, as a lateral thought, is one of the things that scares me about the future of AI. If people can't see fundamentally simple things what erroneous preconceived notions are we going to bake into AI?
Now, if you tell me you want to be able to toss a baseball at 90 miles per hour in your backyard and hit it with a bat with the same force and violence used in a ballpark, no, nobody should do that and if you think it is OK to engage in this behavior I suggest you consider the idea of your neighbor doing this and your own kid being hit in the head with a 100 mph baseball. The only way something like this makes sense is if you have so much land that the ball isn't even likely to leave your property.
Rights and how we choose to behave in a civilized society are a balancing act between what we would like to do, how we would like to be have and how we want others to behave towards us. If you don't want your kid killed in your own backyard by a 100 mph baseball then don't suggest it is your right to fire that baseball from your own backyard in a random direction. You have to care for others as you want them to care for you and yours. It really is that simple.
I don't want to burn down someone else's house or cause them harm. That's why I don't fly my planes, helicopters or drones above other's property. In exchange, I expect people to extend the same consideration towards me and my family.
The same applies to loud music. I respect my neighbors and don't play music loud or late enough to disturb them. I expect the same consideration in return.
None of this is because of laws. This is how you have to behave in a civilized society.
A shorted battery with enough energy to fly something is able to start a fire. If you don't believe me, just short the battery and see what happens.
BTW, about 25 years ago I used to manufacture motor controllers for model airplanes and drones. Back then I bought almost every available motor controller in the market for testing. The final test was to short the output of the motor controller (simulating a potential reality of a crash). Every single controller in the market at the time went up in flames.
In other words, in a crash there's some probability N of one of the M motor controllers on the drone shorting or the motor being prevented from spinning. Without safeguards (which is the case with most consumer products of this class and particularly true of cheap Chinese products) this means nearly 100% of the the energy in the battery will go towards heat generation, potentially culminating with ignition of anything from the battery to the motor and, eventually, any fuel in contact with the same.
BTW, back 25 years ago my motor controllers were differentiated by addressing a number of these safety features, including short circuit protection, stalled motor protection and more. Every single motor controller shipped went through automated testing that included short circuiting the output, stalling a motor and more.
Yes, LiPo's are nasty due to their chemistry, yet, at the end of the day, this is about converting the energy in a battery into heat, inside or outside the battery pack.
Well, the entire problem is that in the current situation the "below 200' AGL" is completely unenforceable. The same with the line of sight restrictions, not flying around airports, etc.
That's why they are creating regulations because the current softball rules are simply being ignored and the law enforcement and regulators have no means to catch the violators nor to prove their guilt.
The result is this heavy-handed nonsense, but the drone owners have only themselves to blame here. E.g. RC plane/heli pilots were never this kind of nuisance requiring such heavy handed regulation.
The other aspect is that this regulation isn't being made just for hobby pilots. It is likely meant to cover the upcoming commercial services (e.g. goods delivery by a drone, TV crew drone usage, etc.) that are impossible today without waivers issued on a case by case basis. A transponder on a large 10-20kg drone is nothing.
Aircraft typically need to stay above 500, and toys below 400. We could move aircraft up to a minimum of 2000, move the toys up to a maximum of 1000, and let the serious fancy big drones have 1200 to 1800.
This would make it very hard for anyone operating smaller aircraft under busy charlie or bravo shelves. Also, would there be exclusions around airports for pattern work?
How would folks operating the toys even know about these altitudes? Really, if the toy can enter echo airspace, it should require some sort of license to operate.
> Aircraft typically need to stay above 500 [...] We could move aircraft up to a minimum of 2000
Moving aircraft to a minimum of 2000 might mean not being able to stay below the clouds. I randomly looked up the METAR for the nearest airport, and at the moment, it has clouds at 1500.
If the clouds are only at 1500, it seems really unwise to fly without an instrument rating. It wouldn't take much of a weather change to get a VFR-only pilot in deep trouble. The clouds could quickly go right down to ground level.
Once an emergency develops, violating altitude rules is quite alright.
Changes to the rules could be an incentive for many pilots to become instrument rated. That isn't a bad thing.
There are many stable weather patterns where the bases will stay steady at 1200-2000 feet AGL for many hours. Lots of airport pattern work and short cross countries are safely flown in conditions like that.
Rotary wing aircraft are flying even lower than that fairly frequently.
An instrument rating is likely to cost as much as the original private pilot rating - and things are already stupid expensive. Over most congested areas, planes are suppose to maintain 1000' vertical separation. Over water (not boats/people/etc) and other non-congested area, that can drop to 500'. Just because a hobbyist drone is capable of flying higher does not mean it should. If someone wants to fly under part 107... they are already working within the system.
Why not just limit drones to class G air space? Even in dense locations this gives plenty of room to fly in. This also restricts drones from flying too close to airports. This is unrestricted air space anyway.
In general, I don't think drone aviation has reached its tipping point, so I'm glad things like this are happening in advance to control airspace. We can't even agree about where scooters belong in cities, so I don't want "move fast and break things" to be happening over my head. Whether or not it's the right thing will get figured out in the long run.
Is this stricter than rules for small, manned propeller aircraft?
Arguably, they should be because there's a cost and training hurdle to being a pilot that isn't there for drones, so the risk drones pose to safety is greater than the average Cessna pilot.
The way this is implemented, it would be trivial to spoof, wouldn't it? It seems like only a matter of time before the people who pushed this regulation feel the brunt of that.
> The way this is implemented, it would be trivial to spoof, wouldn't it?
Yeah but that's pretty much the case with anything flying today. The idea that it's breaking federal law to spoof the ID and that it's relatively easy to catch the guilty party due to the short range of the transceiver is deterrent enough.
It's the equivalent of swapping car license plates, only with a greater likelihood and penalty of being busted.
This is how they define the tech required "Remote ID is the ability of a UAS in flight to provide identification information that can be received by other parties".
I wonder if this definitely means the drone itself has to have an extra transmitter or is an app running on the operator's smartphone enough. In Europe people flying drones use an app that lets you "Check In" with local airspace authority if you are operating in controlled area (where I am close to 50% of airspace in 50km radius is some kind of controlled area).
If you don't want to use an app it is required to phone the area admin before flying in controlled airspace. Also it is good to have a given day's map as it shows today's low altitude military routes. One of those routes is nearby and it is not uncommon to see F16's flying at ridiculous speeds at what appears to be around 200m altitude. It is interesting that they don't show those routes on US airspace maps I saw.
This falls into the same gotcha as many laws. Someone with ill intentions is not going to follow this law, so this law doesn't really stop this from happening.
Am I reading this right that the standard remote ID broadcast is specified as "something in an unlicensed band, everything else about it you figure it out"? Isn't the point of this to be interoperable with other receiver systems for things like BVLOS operation? Seems like a funny place to throw in a shoulder shrug.
> With regard to direct broadcast capabilities, the ARC recommended the FAA adopt an industry standard for data transmission, which may need to be created, to ensure unmanned aircraft equipment and public safety receivers are interoperable, as public safety officials may not be able to equip with receivers for all possible direct broadcast technologies.
So the final rule will probably name a specific standard, but it’s TBD for now.
ADS-B[1] was and is somewhat pointless because it was not designed to accommodate smaller flying things... the sort of things that there are a lot more of.
So now we have a whole whack of incompatible systems like FLARM[2] to address that segment. The FAA is actually promoting another incompatible system for drones. This system won't actually allow anyone in the air to know the drone is there. It will only be for the purposes of law enforcement ... because that is the main priority right now...
I'd say the better way to think about it is "The government has no implicit right to be aware of my whereabouts at all times."
Stuff like automated license plate scanning is controversial because of the fact it enables this type of wholesale surveillance. And if the government doesn't do it, it just availed itself of third-party doctrine.
I'm personally torn. I don't generally agree with any scheme through which a surveillance infrastructures implemented; heck, I don't even like what license plates have become used for. Yet I do sympathize with the problem of lack of employable measures against drones in emergencies.
Hell, I'd probably be happier with less license B.S. and more implicit acknowledgement that if your drone gets in the way of something major, it will be slagged, and you're out a drone. Then again, that approach just encourages arms races...
I think training similar for what commercial drone pilots require isn’t far fetched, however. A hobbyist probably doesn’t need to read aerospace maps, METAR reports, etc., but should be able to answer the safety questions with ease before they start flying their equipment.
I’ve held off on getting my Part 107 certification because I’m too lazy to drive to the testing center, but this shit isn’t rocket science and puts up a high enough barrier of entry to keep the skies reasonably safe.
I wish the FAA had gone this route first before debating potentially expensive electronics on every consumer drone, I think it’s going to hurt more than it helps.
No. In fact the proposed regulations specifically disallows drones from using ADS-B unless they have filed a flight plan and the pilot is on radio with ATC, or certain other exceptions. This is due to concerns about overcrowding the ADS-B spectrum.
The FAA is clearly taking a much longer view of this than most people on this thread, and describing a system which scales safely to having huge drone fleets in the sky, which most of the "just wing it, it'll work itself out" counter-proposals here do not.
If anything I'd think that drones would save lives on net. Right now we get our packages delivered via multiton diesel trucks that speed through neighborhoods as fast as they can manage. Sometimes people step in front of these vehicles and are maimed or killed. Some of these people are children. All so we can get our AirPods delivered on launch day.
Drones could be a substitute for many truck deliveries, but the FAA has banned such uses. This endangers more lives, creates more pollution, and increases delivery costs.
Good. Drones are incredibly annoying and have already ruined many things like a pleasant day in the park. I don't want to live in a future with huge drone fleets buzzing around every time I step outside.
People said the same thing about technologies such as automobiles, airplanes, and cell phones. Yes, they have some annoyances and safety issues, but overall they have made our lives much better. I would rather let each state and municipality decide on whether to ban drones than to limit the future of the entire country.
Because think of all the rogue actors who can deploy anonymous drones including from other countries
Right now all our skies are clear but once we have a lot of drone traffic, we may have really bad stuff happen. It takes just one drone flying over a crowd to cause massive problems. Let alone a coordinated attack in multiple areas.
If you don’t know who to go after, to make an example of, after a crime (what if a drone drops grenades??) then you should be catching this drone with a net and disabling it.
Drones are the first type of robot that will be in PUBLIC PLACES which is cheap to produce. Autonomous cars are dangerous but expensive so we will not likely encounter cars which are unregistered and we don’t know who made them. But w drones it’s easy!!
To the downvoters: can you speak about how you would address the danger? Let’s have a conversation
> To the downvoters: can you speak about how you would address the danger? Let’s have a conversation.
Your concern seems to be about bad actors. Yet you also mention how easy and cheap drones are to build. There's thousands of online tutorials showing how to build them for extremely cheap. So how does this solution address the problem of bad actors? Bad actors are just not going to install the identification methods or remove them from commercial bought drones.
With a radio based system the only way you have to track these people down is arrays of radios to track signals (automated fox hunting). But that doesn't scale well. Tracking drones is really a difficult problem.
So considering that, what does this do other than harm good actors? Most of the problems are really uninformed actors. Punishing people doesn't resolve the issue of uninformed actors because you are being reactionary and not proactive, meaning the damage is done.
I also find it ridiculous that drones are being regulated more than private aircraft. Drones have such a lower potential for harm.
2) If it was legal, it would be a bad idea because you're shooting down something with a lipo. Great way to start a fire.
3) Identifying a rogue drone is quite difficult. They aren't easy to see. And how do you know the radio signal you are intercepting is theirs? It isn't always that easy (in fact, that's what I was talking about with the city wide fox hunt). This might be easy in a small area where there is only one thing flying around, but as soon as you have multiple things it is hard to identify what is what. The easiest way is to get a yagi and aim it at the drone, but you're still going to have to follow it for awhile to make sure you have the right one. And are you going to do that for every arbitrary flying object? Seriously, that is a ridiculous notion.
"Honey there's a drone outside! Get my yagi so I can check if it is operating legally or not!"
This will not deter competent attackers or help catch them. Disabling remote ID will be as easy as jailbreaking your phone. The hard part of a drone attack would still be sourcing explosives and modifying drones to carry and deploy such payloads.
Reminder: downvotes are for comments that do not add value to the conversation, not for opinions you disagree with. Instead, if you disagree with someone you should contribute to the conversation by leaving a comment stating why you disagree.
The DMV has to keep as many people driving as reasonably possible, since in the US it's practically impossible to live life normally without a car (excepting major cities)
Flying, on the other hand, is viewed as a privilege by the FAA. You do not have a right to fly anything. And the FAA will do everything it can to make sure flying is safe, even if it means barring the majority of the population from ever qualifying to fly.
I don't think they will treat drones any differently.
So to everyone who is shocked at how hard the FAA is being about drones, welcome to flying. This is par for the course for us pilots.