Civilian Use of Drone Aircraft May Soon Fly In the US 196
An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from the Seattle Times:
"Drone aircraft, best known for their role in hunting and destroying terrorist hideouts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, may be coming soon to the skies near you. Police agencies want drones for air support to find runaway criminals. Utility companies expect they can help monitor oil, gas and water pipelines. Farmers believe drones could aid in spraying crops with pesticides. 'It's going to happen,' said Dan Elwell, vice president of civil aviation at the Aerospace Industries Association. 'Now it's about figuring out how to safely assimilate the technology into national airspace.' That's the job of the Federal Aviation Administration, which plans to propose new rules for using small drones in January, a first step toward integrating robotic aircraft into the nation's skyways."
Fourth Amendment (Score:4, Informative)
This has major fourth amendment implications--When technology is in use by the civilian public, there is supreme court precedent saying the fourth amendment generally doesn't reach it. (An old thermal imaging case.)
Re:Modern Day Kite Fights? (Score:5, Informative)
Newsflash: Sometimes people leave the city for recreation.
And now I'll really blow your mind: Some people don't even live in cities to begin with
Re:Every commercial airliner already is a drone (Score:4, Informative)
What's the big deal? The pilots on a commercial flight are just there to make the passengers feel better.
No, they are not. I wish people would stop repeating this stupid myth. Airline pilots do an enormous amount of work during a flight, particularly takeoff and landing. It may well be that their jobs could be automated away, or that this will be possible in the near future, but it's nowhere near happening yet.
Re:Every commercial airliner already is a drone (Score:3, Informative)
No they don't. If it's not a puddle jumper, the damn thing lands itself.
How about we listen to an actual commercial pilot? http://www.salon.com/2011/08/04/can_jetliners_fly_themselves/ [salon.com]
Remember when...... (Score:1, Informative)
Remember when we all objected to drones in our skies years and years ago and we were told this technology would NEVER be used on American soil to spy on Americans?
Remember that anyone?
Now this shit IS coming to our soil and WILL be used against us. Fucking Liars the lot of them.
Re:Every commercial airliner already is a drone (Score:5, Informative)
Well, unless you count 737s, 757s, 767s, 777s, and a few dozen other 100+ seat commercial aircraft as 'puddle jumpers', you are wrong. These airplanes have the capability to autoland, under a highly restricted set of conditions, involving maximum wind speeds (on the 737, max headwind 25 kts, xwind 15 and tailwind 10), clearing a large ILS safe zone on the surface of the airport to assure no interference with the localizer & glide slope antennas, minimum visibilites (because many autopilot systems work only the ailerons & elevator, not the rudder, and once you are on the deck you need the rudder to track the centerline, which the autopilot can no longer do, and neither can you if you can't see), etc., etc., etc.
I flew 600 hours for a major airline on the 737 last year. I did exactly one autoland in the entire year, and it was because the Captain & I wanted the procedural practice, the airport had a CAT III ILS, and it was a quiet day & ATC was accommodating.
I really wish I knew what urges people to forcefully declare they know about something when they plainly don't. It only subtracts from the discussion and your credibility.
Re:hand size copters for media and protestors - (Score:4, Informative)
If you're going guerrilla, there's no 7.5KHz pipe restriction, those restrictions are purely based on national laws, and most radios are developed for international markets, compliance is handled in software. Many of the better selling radios are easily modded (against the instruction manual) to operate in modes that aren't legal anywhere.
Having said that, yes, full frame-rate video transmission is a bitch, quadruplely so for 1080p (to get wide field coverage with good detail on what you really wanted to see). But, a FHSS radio TX-RX pair that can handle it over 1km will cost less than $3K [vfmstore.com].