Appeals court strikes down FAA drone registration

sorrygottarunway said:
Well I'm eating my words, today in FLL there was a drone at 4300ft just 5 miles west of the airport they were warning all of us about.
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When was that? We were parked at signature for a while today.

Was the drone legally there or some tool decided to fly it up there? (Legally as in waivers and coordinated with ATC)
 
We landed around 7:15pm- it was definitely a surprise to ATC- someone had reported it to the approach controller, so it wasn't in the know at the time. They wanted us to see if we could spot it to get an "updated" position.
 
sorrygottarunway said:
We landed around 7:15pm- it was definitely a surprise to ATC- someone had reported it to the approach controller, so it wasn't in the know at the time. They wanted us to see if we could spot it to get an "updated" position.
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Fun. DFW is currently testing drone detection equipment- but- even if you see the drone, the operator can literally be anywhere. Even with commercial drones and remotes, some have a range approaching 5 miles.
 
A Life Aloft said:
Even when they are told and there are clear rules, some of the operators simply don't care.
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That's the crux of the issue - whether you think the FAA should be registering drones and whether you think the pilots need training and licenses, it still does nothing to stop a man with a plan from doing whatever he wants.

People who want drugs get drugs. People who want guns get guns. People who want to drive drunk without a seatbelt on an invalid license in a car with a busted headlight just do it. They don't go asking for permission and registration.

A person/people who want to use drones for stupid/dangerous activities and put others at risk are going to do it regardless. Just flipping through the websites above it seems like it would be easy enough for me and I can barely update JeppFD.
 
JeppUpdater said:
That's the crux of the issue - whether you think the FAA should be registering drones and whether you think the pilots need training and licenses, it still does nothing to stop a man with a plan from doing whatever he wants.

People who want drugs get drugs. People who want guns get guns. People who want to drive drunk without a seatbelt on an invalid license in a car with a busted headlight just do it. They don't go asking for permission and registration.

A person/people who want to use drones for stupid/dangerous activities and put others at risk are going to do it regardless. Just flipping through the websites above it seems like it would be easy enough for me and I can barely update JeppFD.
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It's bit of a mess and a real conundrum. We have a lot of laws and severe penalties/punishments for many crimes and bad behavior, yet people who don't care are always going to commit those crimes and often over and over until they wind up in jail for a much longer period of time, so that the opportunity is taken away from them. There needs to be some solid rules and some stiff fines and penalties so that some of the jack wagons can perhaps be dissuaded. But the others who don't care regardless of such punishments? Not much will persuade them, unfortunately.

I had thought that some sort of minimal license/permit, registration and a brief but decent safety class which could even be taken on line and some sort of educational type of handbook made available, might be a first step.
 
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tomokc said:
Enforcement should be pushed down to local LEOs because FAA doesn't have the resources. There are already cops near airports, sporting events, large gatherings, etc., and if clearly authorized they can intervene. FAA won't grant this authority, nor will they enforce their own regs, which is why states & cities are writing their own regulations. This violates the congressional mandate for FAA to be the exclusive regulatory authority over the NAS, but if they're not policing reckless operators, somebody has to.
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The last thing you want is an untrained LEO unfamiliar with anything related to aviation, being tasked with aviation related law enforcement. Barney Fife, meet John Q Public.
 
denverpilot said:
The last thing you want is an untrained LEO unfamiliar with anything related to aviation, being tasked with aviation related law enforcement. Barney Fife, meet John Q Public.
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I've had only one negative encounter with an LEO while operating a drone, and almost everything that came out of his mouth was wrong, and he didn't need me to correct him. I simply invoked the "Alexa Silver Uh-Huh" feature until he was done.
 
Drones are a huge issue for Firefighting. They arrested at least one operator this week in AZ for flying in a TFR.
 
A Life Aloft said:
It's bit of a mess and a real conundrum. We have a lot of laws and severe penalties/punishments for many crimes and bad behavior, yet people who don't care are always going to commit those crimes and often over and over until they wind up in jail for a much longer period of time, so that the opportunity is taken away from them. There needs to be some solid rules and some stiff fines and penalties so that some of the jack wagons can perhaps be dissuaded. But the others who don't care regardless of such punishments? Not much will persuade them, unfortunately.

I had thought that some sort of minimal license/permit, registration and a brief but decent safety class which could even be taken on line and some sort of educational type of handbook made available, might be a first step.
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Honestly, so many of these deices are now connected via RC to Apple and Android devices that I'm nearly positive their position and altitude could be fit into an ADSB- Out data stream and fed to the real system - this would at least allow aircraft to see immanent threat drones, and ATC would probably have a clue as well. I understand that we don't have 100% cell service in the country - but honestly, how many of the encounters happen in the middle of nowhere North Dakota, ?
 
denverpilot said:
To be clear, wildland firefighting.

They have very little to do with the average apartment or dumpster fire. lol.
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I dunno, dumpster fires can be quite entertaining.

toilet-fire.jpg
 
deadstick said:
I heard our local FD uses them in large structure fires to surveil the perimeter and to assess how the fire is developing.
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At one point the FAA was actively enforcing their regs on PDs and FDs and (trying) to prevent them from using them.
 
wheelsup said:
At one point the FAA was actively enforcing their regs on PDs and FDs and (trying) to prevent them from using them.
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Has that been since Part 107 was rolled out? Operating under Section 333 was all but impossible due to 500' setbacks from "non-participating persons, vehicles, vessels and structures." We're working with several public agencies on regs, licensing, waivers, authorizations, safe ops and equipment.
 
Finished a long "mission" showing all the Memorial Day traffic showing up at the lake. Did about 1800 feet in a slow .5mph slip, which will be turned into a "time lapse". When it finished I flew it back in a sporty manner. After landing it was a 40 minute question and answer with all the people wanting to know a) how to do t, b) is it easy - happy part though, everybody was happy and thought it was neat, rather than trying to shoot it down.
 
tomokc said:
Has that been since Part 107 was rolled out? Operating under Section 333 was all but impossible due to 500' setbacks from "non-participating persons, vehicles, vessels and structures." We're working with several public agencies on regs, licensing, waivers, authorizations, safe ops and equipment.
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333
 
tomokc said:
Has that been since Part 107 was rolled out? Operating under Section 333 was all but impossible due to 500' setbacks from "non-participating persons, vehicles, vessels and structures." We're working with several public agencies on regs, licensing, waivers, authorizations, safe ops and equipment.
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I offer that first responder use of SUASs are public use aircraft and that the Part 107 restriction on 500' setbacks only applies to civil aircraft (as does all of Part 107).
 
hook_dupin said:
I offer that first responder use of SUASs are public use aircraft and that the Part 107 restriction on 500' setbacks only applies to civil aircraft (as does all of Part 107).
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I don't believe that the 500 foot setback still applies, as you can now no longer operate directly overhead non-participating /non sheltered people. One of the exceptions to the 400agl rule is that you remain within 400' of a structure.

SUAS can operate in wildfire TFR's they simply need the approval of the controlling agency. I'd bet really surprised if they don't use them to monitor fires when the fire fighters are not flying...
 
Drones are just too easy to fly to an airport. Registration won't fix that, unfortunately. I literally just had a Phantom 4 shipped to my house (the hard part was figuring out which CC would make a payment to DJI). I took that thing out of the box, figured out how to send the message to DJI to activate the drone, and within an hour, I had that thing rocketing straight up toward final approach course for 19R here in MKE. I respected the 400 AGL limit, but any user could choose to not do that because my village is "pretty far" away. You could very well hit an airplane in minutes and requiring registration will not help.

IMO, the drone industry is great and we will benefit from a limit on actual regulation. What we need is more protection/detection. The question I have is how close are we to TCAS-like detection for drones. They are technologically-advanced machines and surely we can come up with something that can detect the presence of a machine that uses stabilization and freqs for control. Heck, there are companies that are developing anti-drone technology for spacial use. That could be incorporated into aircraft.
 
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