Airspace under 500' AGL is traditionally considered to be under control of the landowner - unless they are near an airport and the airport needs right of way for passengers. While the FAA technically controls ALL airspace, they can only use it for right of way purposes when dealing with passengers. It doesn't appear to be valid for unmanned aircraft.
The FAA has a few things to say about drones here: http://www.faa.gov/news/updates/?newsId=68004. There doesn't appear to be a specific drone law in place by the FCC, only waivers to allow flying the drones by an agency.
That poses the question whether we are within our property rights to shoot down any drone flying around inside it? Given the FAA is limiting these drones to operate below 400' AGL, they would appear to be a fair target.
"Airspace under 500' AGL is traditionally considered to be under control of the landowner"
Sorry, but this is not true. Airspace above private property is considered public right of way, in the same way that a sidewalk in your front lawn is public right of way. The ceiling of what belongs to the landowner is a gray area of law, but is generally considered to be the space that is actively used. If you have a trampoline, for example, then your active usage is slightly higher than that of your neighbor without a trampoline.
The FAA operates under a white-list. Everything is illegal until a regulation is made to make something legal. Radio-controlled aircraft have an exemption for recreational flight. Unmanned aircraft operated for recreation fall under that same exemption. For commercial, or civil usage, a certificate of authority (COA) is required on a per-case basis since no blanket regulations exist yet.
"That poses the question whether we are within our property rights to shoot down any drone flying around inside it?"
No. If someone drives an R/C car along the sidewalk in your front yard, you are not entitled to shoot it because of your property rights. At best, you could try to prosecute for trespass. Same with a flying vehicle, but unless the flying vehicle is under 20ft or so, the odds are not in your favor.
What if I utilize an RC plane on my property up to 490ft. Does that extend my rights? Say I have RC drones that regularly patrol at ~400ft the perimeter of my property.
It might be a good idea to read the Wikipedia article on air rights that kordless linked (the GP of your post). IANAL, but it seems like flying an RC plane in the way you describe is just the moving version of a 'spite poll,' which are not considered a 'reasonable' use of the airspace above the land you own. You can operate an RC drone above your property, you just don't have any particular right to use it to get in the way of anyone else who wants to operate an aircraft above your property.
I realize there are other ways to disable or destroy a drone and that you're curious about the legalities. But if you did literally shoot a drone, you'd probably go to jail. If you miss you'll send a bullet miles away, endangering others. If you hit the drone, you'll rain shrapnel on the anyone below. Even then, I doubt a hit would disappate the bullet's kinetic energy safely.
See that is the nice thing about shotguns, they spray a pattern of pellets, lethal out to 50 maybe 60 yards and harmless to people down range. I've been duck hunting in fields where the next blind over was close enough to see the pellets land in the water between us.
The other interesting question which has yet to be answered is whether laser damage to video sensors in an unmanned vehicle in the landowner's "airspace" is actionable.
The final interesting question is whether or not its actionable if your R/C plane that you were flying around on your land and it happened to run into a drone and both fell out of the sky is a problem for you or for them. (I'd start that one off by suing them to replace your airplane)
I don't doubt though that all of these will be tested in court though.
Bullets fired at any verticle angle will fall 'ballistically' which is a fore-shortened sort-of-parabolic curve due to air friction. If the angle is large, then the fall is essentially at terminal velocity. A shot at a drone is likely to be at a large angle.
The reports of 'celebratory gunfire' deaths are all necessarily speculative - the angle of the shot is impossible to measure. We can resort to physics to get a better answer than that derived from headlines.
A close friend of mine was killed by a stray bullet this year at a 4th of July celebration. She was in a crowd of thousands of people gathered to watch some local fireworks. The shooter was miles away and probably has no idea that they murdered someone.
FWIW, I saw a drone hovering above the 5 freeway back in September right after the border patrol crossing. I think it was in the strip between Camp Pendleton and Oceanside.
It looked about the size of a microwave or a toaster oven, had at least 4 blades, and seemed to have a ridiculously good, likely six-axis attitude control and was simply hovering over the 5 doing god-knows-what.
Definitely a strange welcome to San Diego after being gone for 5 years.
That sounds like it would have been within R-2503A, which is the restricted airspace over and around Camp Pendleton. The Marines operate UAVs so it could have been part of a military exercise.
Thank you so much for this info! So, if I understand you correctly, the airspace above the freeway is still restricted even though the Highway is public land? Is this accurate?
I agree that it's entirely feasible that this was a military exercise.
What seemed particularly strange about it from my POV was that the drone was hovering directly above passing traffic. As I mentioned, it had extremely good attitude control and was just lingering directly above the flow of traffic with what looked like cameras.
I can't personally understand why a "military exercise" requires hovering over civilians for extended periods of time, but I'm sure there could be extremely reasonable explanations. I'd still like the benefit of at least being offered one though.
Is it just me or does this not seem like a big deal? Yes, they didn't comply with the law, but they appear to have done it out of laziness rather than trying to hide something. After reading the full FOIA request linked in morisy's comment, it seems to me that they were responsive to the request, but not the the extent that Muckrock wanted. They didn't want to go dredge up the footage video that the drone sales team gave them. They probably didn't really know where it was. But they did say that they didn't purchase any drones, and acknowledged a sales inquiry.
Unless there's missing information, this sounds like a non-story. It seems like the San Diego PD looked at a quote that was sent to a different police department and never bought anything. They didn't respond to the FOIA request because they hadn't bought anything. Am I missing something?
We asked them for any documents related to drone purchasing plans, drone guidance, internal reports on usage, etc. That they decided not to go through with a purchase is irrelevant in this case: They flatly stated they had nothing, which was, at best, inaccurate.
Public records laws are of little use if the government can lie or mislead without oversight or repercussion.
Full FOIA Request: https://www.muckrock.com/foi/san-diego-county-55/san-diego-c...