Drones and Common Sense Rant

ATN_Pilot said:
You started out making sense, and then dropped off into nonsense.
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What's nonsense? Raising taxes to actually cover mail, or putting air tanker service where it can actually be used effectively, in smaller companies hands with less waste and more efficiency.
 
ATN_Pilot said:
Expecting a nationwide mail service to ever break even is asinine. Privatizing anything that is necessary for public safety is downright insane.
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It can break even by not promising services it can't deliver and expecting the bloated infrastructure to back up unrealistic promises. Seems to be the common theme with regards to management in any industry these days, do more with less. Happily I'm a trust fund kid that doesn't worry about retirement, but I've never touched it and seeing the changes in aviation and other industries in the last 25 yrs is disheartening.
 
I know nothing about Drones. How are they operating drones out of sight? With a GPS or computer?
 
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MikeD said:
The military is exceptionally inefficient; the epitome of fraud, waste, and abuse. When the day comes when we actually have to fight a peer enemy, we may not be as successful as we think we may be.
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This seems a bit profound coming from you. When was the last time we fought a peer enemy? WW2?
 
ATN_Pilot said:
Expecting a nationwide mail service to ever break even is asinine. Privatizing anything that is necessary for public safety is downright insane.
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So a return to the days of the post office making money is unrealistic and insane? Because they used to turn a profit.
 
The Post Office would be making a profit today, right now, if not for a congressional requirement passed in 2006 that forces the Postal Service to do something no other corporate entity is required to do — prepay the healthcare costs of every current and future employee who will retire over the next seventy-five years. It's called the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. If the Post Office is required to do it but corporate America is not, then you have to ask what the real intent behind this legislation is. I think that's rather obvious — make the service financially unsustainable so as to force privatization and placement into corporate hands, at which point that "requirement" is going to disappear so that corporate America can profit from it.

In other words, they were intentionally set up to fail.
 
RDoug said:
The Post Office would be making a profit today, right now, if not for a congressional requirement passed in 2006 that forces the Postal Service to do something no other corporate entity is required to do — prepay the healthcare costs of every current and future employee who will retire over the next seventy-five years. It's called the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act. If the Post Office is required to do it but corporate America is not, then you have to ask what the real intent behind this legislation is. I think that's rather obvious — make the service financially unsustainable so as to force privatization and placement into corporate hands, at which point that "requirement" is going to disappear so that corporate America can profit from it.

In other words, they were intentionally set up to fail.
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Yup.

@mshunter, have a dose of facts.

(Incidentally, the Postmaster General of the United States is also banned from lobbying the Congress of the United States for an increase in postage rates. Which means that, despite the exploding costs, Grandma can still send me a relatively cheap birthday card [postcards were 1€ in Finland when last I was there, for comparison!] and I can keep receiving useless bulk mail. Imagine what would happen if the bulk mail rate went up—how much LESS of it I would get...)
 
scoobs said:
I know nothing about Drones. How are they operating drones out of sight? With a GPS or computer?
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I have a DJI Phantom 2 Vision+. I can fly it three ways, visual contact and direct control, direct control viewing flight path via onboard camera streamed to my iPhone or iPad mounted on the controller, and via programmed waypoints using GPS.

While flying using programmed waypoints, you are range limited by battery capacity. With upgraded and modded batteries, folks are getting flights of over 20 minutes - that represents quite a distance BVR.


Manufacturers are making some attempts to address the problem:

http://www.dji.com/fly-safe/category-mc
 
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Here is the original unedited video. The drone is over the area for some time and it eventually landed. Even after the firefighters shoot the water on it, the idiot does not leave. They then try and reach it from a hose on the ground and fail. He finally leaves.



"The footage above shows the drone flying over the town of Montgomery when it appears to get sprayed (at about the 12-minute mark) by a firefighter on the second floor of the home, and again (at about 12:50) by a firefighter on the ground.

The drone's operator, John Thompson, wrote on Facebook that the gadget cost $2,200. He accused the firefighters of misconduct, and implied that they can expect a bill for the device."

Here's the moron's facebook page:


 
A Life Aloft said:
Here is the original unedited video. The drone is over the area for some time and it eventually landed. Even after the firefighters shoot the water on it, the idiot does not leave. They then try and reach it from a hose on the ground and fail. He finally leaves.



"The footage above shows the drone flying over the town of Montgomery when it appears to get sprayed (at about the 12-minute mark) by a firefighter on the second floor of the home, and again (at about 12:50) by a firefighter on the ground.

The drone's operator, John Thompson, wrote on Facebook that the gadget cost $2,200. He accused the firefighters of misconduct, and implied that they can expect a bill for the device."

Here's the moron's facebook page:


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What an idiot. If he would have kept his distance and not overflown the site, the firefighters probably wouldn't have cared. Of course, how likely would he have yielded to police or news aircraft?

I think an easily obtained license (like a HAM) paired with stiff penalties would improve the situation.
 
There is already a ridiculous amount of regulation in aviation as it is. Throwing more on top is going to stifle the industry.

Like it or not these things are here to stay. Eventually, as technology improves, you're going to see a lot of pilot jobs go away, and with that a big part of GA.

I find it tantalizing ironic that for a fraction of the money spent on fighting established fires, one could deploy a fleet of RC aircraft equipped with sensors to detect forest fires before they grow to any significant size. Yet they are doing everything possible to shut down the growth of the industry.

But, personal opinion, we spend countless man hours, lives, and money fighting a completely natural event. The vast majority in the west are started by lightning strikes, a completely unpreventable event. 200+ years ago they would burn and put themselves out. Fires are a normal event in forests, and help rejuvenate the land.

There are of course fires that need to be controlled when they threaten large population areas.
 
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