FAA Taking a Look At News Corp's Use of Drone 252
nonprofiteer writes "The News Corp iPad newspaper has a drone they've been using for news gathering — mainly flying it over disaster zones in N. Dakota and Alabama. However, FAA regulations on drones are very restrictive at the moment, and they're not supposed to be used for commercial purposes (law enforcement is free to use them). The FAA is now examining The Daily's use of its drone. Could this set a precedent for how private businesses can use drones?"
FAA Shutdown (Score:2)
Hold on, I thought News Corp has effectively shut down the FAA and they were running just essential safety services.
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Yes. And what do you think investigating the safety of unlicensed aircraft falls under?
Re:FAA Shutdown (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only that, but the FAA employees who are still on the job keeping the public safe in the air, are doing so at their own expense. As in, "not getting paid".
Interesting how public employees are often characterized as "mooches" and "leeches". I wonder how many members of the Tea Party (at least the few who are not on Social Security or disability) would ever put in a day's work for free.
These FAA employees are what's known as "public servants" and they are apparently more honorable than the Republican senators who ran out of town on vacation rather than fund the agency whose job is regulating air traffic and air safety.
Re:FAA Shutdown (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:FAA Shutdown (Score:4, Interesting)
I have a feeling that if I thought my job was keeping planes from falling out of the sky, I'd probably keep doing it through a "blip" in my paycheck.
And this is where people get you.
"Your job is important and saves lives. We're gonna cut your pay."
"Well I'll quit then."
"You don't consider saving lives more important than money?"
"I do. I guess I'll keep working for lower pay."
"Alright, we'll see you in a few months when we cut your pay again."
If a job is so important that it would cost lives if people went on strike or quit, why are you messing with their pay in the first place? Why aren't they being paid an INCREDIBLE amount, equivalent to at least, I dunno, an entertainer?
I'm pretty sure the work that any competent FAA employee is worth more than a vast majority of sports stars, popular movie/television stars, popular musicians, and other celebrity figures. And yet they get paid a pittance in comparison.
Re:FAA Shutdown (Score:5, Insightful)
Would you really be comfortable walking away from your job just because the pay stopped temporarily?
Yes. I can't speak for other industries, but as a programmer, if a company can't pay me, I take it as a bad sign and immediately start looking for another job. Employers like that just abuse you and take advantage.
Re:FAA Shutdown (Score:4, Insightful)
While they get to go home, enjoy their friends, family, and insanity of having a fully stocked fridge of Grey Goose.
GG sir, you have been sold the "american dream", except you arent living it, you are just dreaming it...
Re:FAA Shutdown (Score:5, Insightful)
That's fine, but could you please try not to fuck things up for the majority of the country while you're at it?
You might feel differently if you had a family to support.
And you might feel differently if you were ever asked to work without a paycheck for a month or more, as the employees of the FAA are doing. I'm not talking about going into the office a few weekends to finish a project and still getting you check every two weeks on schedule, I'm talking about "You're not getting paid at all, and by the way, you no longer have the right to bargain collectively, which is the very thing that made the United States into a 20th century superpower and created a growing (at the time) middle class and brought prosperity and upward mobility to hundreds of millions of people in the last 75 years of the twentieth century before Ronald Reagan decided to treat air traffic controllers the same way he later treated his diapers.
By the way, this was only 18 months after Ronald Reagan had asked for the support of the air traffic controller union, promising to fight for their rights to collectively bargain and to give them what they were fighting for in their contract dispute. He told them that in writing, too. Not surprisingly, the letter to PATCO (the air traffic controller union) did not make it into the Reagan Library, though a copy exists (or maybe the original) at the Labor & Industry Museum.
Re:FAA Shutdown (Score:5, Informative)
Just to be clear, only 40 FAA employees have been asked to work without pay. The rest (who weren't involved in critical safety ops) weren't even given the option and were sent home. Those 40 will be paid once this is all worked out, and they will not under any circumstances walk off the job because they fought tooth and nail to get that position. We've lost a few of our best pilots in the past because they immediately jumped at the chance to work as a safety inspector, and if any of these guys walked off the job there is a line a mile long of people waiting to take their place and work for free on the hope they'd get repaid when things go back to normal.
Yes, I am serious, this is how hard people actually fight for those particular jobs.
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Just to be clear, only 40 FAA employees have been asked to work without pay. The rest (who weren't involved in critical safety ops) .
I think its pretty horrifying that the US federal Government is going to operate with volunteer safety inspectors. Surely the only safe way to proceed would be to shut down aviation, or pay their people.
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It's illegal to work off the clock around here, and with good reason. If they don't pay you file a complaint with the relevant agency and get your money, or at least a lien or some other guarantee of being paid. Working for free is really, really bad and it shows a certain lack of respect for your time and the well being of workers in general.
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Re:FAA Shutdown (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm a fan of the Tea Party (I won't go so far as to call myself a member, since it's kind of like Anonymous in that regard... It is what you want it to be)
Well, it isn't "what you want it to be". What it is is a PR campaign, conceived by a PR company, and funded and some very rich and powerful people, for the purposes of ensuring that their agenda steers America. And that agenda is to keep grinding the poor and middle classes into the dust while ensuring that cooperations pay no taxes and get access to lucrative government work - funded by the poor and middle classes. Reverse wealth re-distribution. When the Tea Party says "we want the government out of our pockets" by our they mean cooperations - and when they say "we want the government out of our lives" they mean they want private cooperations to provide the services that would otherwise provided by the government - they want those contracts. They cherry pick from US history (and whose history could not be cherry picked to tell whatever story you wanted?) to create the illusion that this was the society envisioned by Americas founding fathers. And they carefully construct an illusion that makes the Tea Party seem like a party of scrappers, of ordinary folk espousing the ideals of ordinary folk, when really, those people are just unpaid advertisers of big business and continuing the status quo, while America sinks.
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A blip? you mean 2-3 months worth of pay. I guarantee you they don't make enough money the rest of the year to consider that a 'blip'. how rude.
" I've done more free work at my current job t"
liar.
" I've also volunteered quite a bit of my time to causes slightly more important than my job"
irrelevant to the topic.
If your boss said you won't get paid for 3 months, would you continue to work your 8-16 hours a day?
Would any of the pilot? attendants?
" Don't pretend that wouldn't be held against you..."
So your arg
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I have a feeling that if I thought my job was keeping planes from falling out of the sky, I'd probably keep doing it through a "blip" in my paycheck. Also, if I thought I would be potentially fired on the resumption of my pay. Would you really be comfortable walking away from your job just because the pay stopped temporarily? Don't pretend that wouldn't be held against you...
I agree, you are correct. But this is really one-sided. At any job, I trade my labor for money. From the employers' point of view, no labor, no money. I don't get paid if I don't work! But then you have situations in which the employer expects labor for no money. It's not just this one, I have heard of many. And like you say, if you refuse, once things are back to normal you're fired; for not working for free!
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You're all really funny people! Obviously you have only worked in the US or in the west. Go to Russia or Ukraine or anywhere in the former soviet bloc. You won't find any employers who pay on time every time. You only option is to go to a different employer who will also be iffy on paying on time. The problem is that most of your salary is "chyorny" meaning black: not taxed and not reported in the company's clean books (every company in Russia has two sets of books, one for the government and the other
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Not saying it's as bad as Russia, but I've been hit by it personally more than once.
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So why aren't you in line with your app?
- Dan.
Re:FAA Shutdown (Score:5, Informative)
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Thanks for mentioning us contractors, most of the news stories don't seem to care much about us...
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To be honest, when I started reading about that I became quite happy that I no longer fly. I'm not concerned with controllers purposely doing a half assed job, I just know what it's like to work the same job even as the resources to do it get cut and mistakes are more or less inevitable when that happens.
The amount of work and the standards don't necessarily decrease just because the funding does.
See below (Score:3)
See the FAA ATC below that says, yes, they are getting paid.
As for this part:
"the Republican senators who ran out of town on vacation rather than fund the agency"
Strange that this is what's drawing your ire when the Senate... which as been controlled by Democrats since 2007... hasn't submitted a budget in 2 years.
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Strange that this is what's drawing your ire when the Senate... which as been controlled by Democrats since 2007... hasn't submitted a budget in 2 years.
The Senate can't submit a budget. All appropriation bills must originate in the House. Senators can advise House leaders what would and wouldn't make it's way through the Senate, but in the end, it's the House's job to get the budget ball rolling.
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Drone?
As in, Glen Beck?
Easy solution (Score:3, Funny)
Get Johnny 5 to drive it.
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"No Disassemble!"
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You're confusing Total Recall with Short Circuit.
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Er, other way around. Bah...
scary (Score:4, Interesting)
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As a private pilot, drones scare the #$%@ out of me. Planes are hard enough to see at over 200mph closing speed.
It was worse in Iraq. More than one A-10 flying ground attack missions struck loitering drones. Thankfully the Warthog is a lot tougher than a drone. I'd hate to think of a 737 engine swallowing a small commercial drone and shelling a turbine. Very scary.
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The only problem with drones is knowing that they're there. They're inevitable, and why I watch the rollout of ADS-B with interest.
That's why I ALWAYS am on approach control in Echo airspace and up. Here in North Cali, Beale AFB has "temporary" flight restrictions going at least half the time for UAVs in the area, and the only real restriction is that you have to have a VFR flight following or be under IFR.
Having learned on the "steam guage panel" and now flying with a Garmin 496, I can declare with confide
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As a private pilot, drones scare the #$%@ out of me. Planes are hard enough to see at over 200mph closing speed.
And as a hobbyist RC/drone guy, private pilots that think they have the rights to the sky just because they got there first annoy the *** out of me. I place them in credibility right next to those guys at the turn of the century that tried to ban cars from the road because they spooked the horses.
Drones and planes can coexist under some reasonable rules. I stay under 500' and way away from airports and their approaches. I'd even throw and ADS-B on my drone if the hardware was made light enough. Most of the
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I'm not worried about RC's below 500', in fact would not mind playing with some with my daughter. If struck an R/C would not likely do enough damage to bring me down.
I'm worried about the inevitable larger drones flying around with GA aircraft that could cause serious damage from a mid air collision.
Most of us just fly for fun under visual flight rules, and it is incredible how fast a tiny dot turns into a huge plane in your face.
Re:scary (Score:4, Informative)
Drones and planes can coexist under some reasonable rules.
So this I'm fine with and I agree.
private pilots that think they have the rights to the sky just because they got there first annoy the *** out of me.
But this I'm not. The difference between a hobbyist RC/drone guy and an actual pilot is that if a collision occurs, the hobbyist will lose their RC plane while the pilot and his or her passengers (family?) will die. IMO, pilots are quite justified in being frightened of drones/RC planes appearing anywhere other than where they are expected (e.g. parks, below 500'). If we want drones or autonomous aircraft sharing "real" airspace, we need lots more rules/regulations/enforcement, and I think it's reasonable for the bulk of that burden to be on the hobbyist, sorry. But like you say, new technologies like ADS-B might be the bulk of that.
Re:scary (Score:5, Insightful)
I am *both* an RC pilot (helicopters and fixed wing) and a full scale pilot (glider, single and multiengine plus instrument rating), so for me it's not a "them and us" (like it appears to be for you), because I'm counted in "us" for both sides.
I *have* been buzzed in a full scale by RC aircraft, which was extremely dangerous (it wasn't someone I knew, it was out over the boonies in Texas halfway between Victoria and Houston). For good reasons, you don't go flying either drones or RC aircraft near full scale (we were at 1500 feet, far higher than RC aircraft ever should go, and a largeish yellow RC aircraft passed between our two aircraft - we were in a formation of 2 aircraft). For VFR, see-and-avoid is extremely important, it's extremely difficult to see-and-avoid an RC plane which is perhaps 1/8th the size of something small like a C150. The RC pilot couldn't have possibly had a reasonable idea where exactly his aircraft was relative to ours due to the aircraft being at a minimum 1500 feet away from him (and in controlled airspace). Had we collided, the RC pilot would have been without a few hundred bucks. At best, the repairs would cost me several thousand (or even the loss of the entire airframe if the damage were bad enough) or at worst I could have ended up dead. The stakes are much higher if you're in a full scale aircraft so it's only right that full scale wants anything unmanned to have adequate systems to prevent collisions!
Private pilots don't have an entitlement complex - it's that if the air has a lot of drones in it the stakes are pretty damned high - a collision can easily kill you. For the drone owner the stakes are very very low. They lose a bit of hardware, big deal. Therefore do you think it's surprising that full scale pilots don't like it? Especially when to accomodate the drone pilots, full scale pilots will have to fit their aircraft with extremely expensive hardware, probably costing a lot more than the entire cost of your drone. Anything that goes into a full scale aircraft has to be certified and have a paper trail a mile long, and therefore tends to be extremely expensive. Full scale pilots therefore feel that to pursue your hobby, you are imposing some serious costs onto them.
Generally with my full scale hat on I have no problems with RC, generally RC is pretty self-limiting, you can't fly too far away without the aircraft becoming a dot you can't really control, and an RC pilot watching their model can do an adequate job of see and avoid (and collisions between RC and full scale are rare enough that I've only ever heard of one). However, this isn't the case with FPV and drones where the aircraft can easily be beyond visual range of the owner.
Drones in particular I think by regulation will need some kind of safety systems to prevent them from wandering where they shouldn't be. It's all very well having ADS-B, but systems fail, and drones need adequate failsafes to prevent them entering airspace where they shouldn't be, and it should be put in the regulations that the drones have this kind of thing. Failsafes like monitoring the ADS-B out and shutting down the engine as soon as a problem is detected. RAIM equipped GPS, etc. Unlike RC they don't really have the "self limiting" feature of needing to be seen adequately enough to be able to control the aircraft, they can easily operate at beyond visual range of the owner or any spotter he may have. Being in the RC world I do know that quite a few RC pilots don't have exactly the approach to safety that full scale pilots have, after all their butt isn't in the plane. (Personally all my models have a failsafe, and I test the failsafe. The last thing I want is my 12 cell T-Rex 600 flying off into the distance and colliding with something, there is a *lot* of energy in those rotor blades and they can do a great deal of damage. People have been killed by similar sized RC helicopters).
If you want to operate in the same airspace as full scale, you'll need to follow the same regulations as full scale, that means you ne
The FAA has done nothing. (Score:2)
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And Microdrones is safely in Deutschland, far away from the rules of the FAA. They can market them for whatever purposes are allowable in Germany. So I can only assume commercial use by real estate agents is legal there.
Terrible summary (Score:2)
The "News Corp iPad newspaper" is The Daily - http://www.thedaily.com/ [thedaily.com]
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They are jackasses, but the summary could have at least used the title of the magazine rather than "News Corp iPad Newspaper", when further down in the bit taken from the Forbes blog named the Daily, but didn't have a URL to it.
That said, the Daily is pretty good, not much News Corp bias in it, a far-left coworker who hates everything Fox News/NI turned me onto the Daily after trying it out when it launched in March.
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They did, but the mention was near the end of the summary which probably wasn't the wisest choice of placement.
How? (Score:2)
I'd like to know how the FAA is investigating this, they've been closed down the last month because their funding bill's become a political football and they ran out of budget the first week in July
It's not a toy (Score:2)
As a drone pilot, I feel the scare factor of drones are way over rated. Yes, there are issues, but nothing that can't be handled with the proper procedures. People don't bat an eye at flying in clouds with other planes, but put a plane without a person on it in the sky and all of a sudden we have a flight risk. But scary is what sells on the news (and in APOA).
This little thing is the same thing as a hobby RC plane. I doubt any pilot out there is seriously concerned about RC planes, and this fits in tha
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I'm not seriously concerned about RC planes, but only because they stick to parks and you don't see them above 500' (you won't see me below 500' unless it's near an airport). Commercial RC planes are probably not going to be doing orbits around a public park at 500', so by their very nature their behavior is going to differ from what's been demonstrated to be fairly safe.
The reason flying through clouds is a non-issue is because (a) there exists equipment to make that safe; (b) ATC is there to ensure safet
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When people are flying in the clouds they:
- have an instrument rating, which means they have been tested on their knowledge of "the system" with a practical, a written and an oral test.
- are talking to air traffic control
- are following certain navigational procedures (altitudes to fly)
- it's their butt on the line so they are careful to do it well because generally they want to still be alive at the end of the flight.
RC and drones on the other hand are flown by people who don't know the rules of the air. F
It's Not A Drone (Score:2)
I know (Score:2)
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It's not really different from an RC plane or helicopter. There's currently no legal way to use any of them for commercial purposes. RC aircraft may be used only for recreational purposes, as spelled out in FAA Advisory Circular 91-57. A UAV for commercial purposes would have to be certified, and the pilot would have to have a commercial certificate and whatever ratings the UAV required.
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Precisely. Because piloting a small RC aircraft for fun is entirely safe. Piloting one for commercial gain turns them into unstoppable killing machines.
Re:Drone vs. RC (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, it can't be explained in a 30 second sound bite. Sorry if I have exceeded your attention span.
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Basic assumption is that as long as they are toys, the numbers and sizes will remain small...Of course, it can't be explained in a 30 second sound bite. Sorry if I have exceeded your attention span.
Try going 31 seconds and you might find a few toys like this:
http://www.rc-diecast.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/lanc.jpg [rc-diecast.com]
rj
Re:Drone vs. RC (Score:4, Informative)
That aircraft requires a special waiver to be legally flown anywhere in the US. Both the pilot and the aircraft have to be certified. It is not allowed to be flown anywhere near a populated area without special exception waivers for things like air shows at airports too close to a city.
'Giant Scale' aircraft have a different set of rules specifically because of things like size and energy they contain in flight. They require all sorts of special features of the radio (which aren't really all that non-standard anymore, all my radios have the features even though I have no flyable aircraft that large) to ensure that if something goes wrong the aircraft becomes the least dangerous flying object it can be.
Its not a toy, its an experimental aircraft, and is regulated as such.
Its easier to fly an ultralight class aircraft carrying yourself than it is to fly that aircraft, and could actually be cheaper. I've got a a turbine powered F-16 that'll be a little larger than that when completed that will cost upwards of 7k USD (The turbine itself costs roughly 5k and will probably be the reason it never gets finished) to finish it and fit it out properly. You can buy a used ultralight for 6500, if you're crazy enough to do so.
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RC aircraft are also restricted to ceiling height, location of use, and size/weight as I recall. The idea being to keep them small enough not to do much damage when they crash, EVEN if they crash into an airplane.
Commercial use of these things would quickly escalate such that you couldn't pick your nose in public with out 3 news drones recording the fact, and they would start posing a serious threat to safety around news worth events as a couple dozen news organizations rush camer drones to the site, all j
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RC aircraft are also restricted to ceiling height, location of use, and size/weight
http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/reviews/868/Mac-Hodges-B-29.jpg [rcuniverse.com]
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I'll see your WWII bomber and raise you a turbine-powered gunship...
Mi-24 Hind [youtube.com]
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RC aircraft are also restricted to ceiling height, location of use, and size/weight
http://www.rcuniverse.com/magazine/reviews/868/Mac-Hodges-B-29.jpg [rcuniverse.com]
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2363332&cid=36980352 [slashdot.org]
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RC aircraft are also restricted to ceiling height, location of use, and size/weight as I recall.
You recall incorrectly.
FAA Advisory Circular 91-57 gives some suggestions, but they are only suggestions. The AMA has restrictions on weight and locations of use, but it's restrictions only apply to it's members.
There are no restrictions on altitude -- glider pilots regularly go up to thousands of feet. (You might run into some problems with the FAA if you went over 18,000 feet or so -- but that's way, way beyond the norm.) but As for location of use, there may be some laws and locations here and there (
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> Basic assumption is that as long as they are toys, the numbers and sizes will remain small.
Seriously? You're saying that commercial use will outpace recreational use? Think of who is going to be using these things. A couple of news organizations per town, maybe?
Did you read the article at all? The "drone" the daily is using isn't that much larger than a large toy plane, and that's just because it's hauling an SLR. I've seen standard toy planes fitted with remote cameras as well - a large RC craft isn't
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No, piloting one for commercial purposes means a whole new set of rules. What hours are you permitted to fly them? What kind of lights do they need? Who radios the tower? What radio spectrum is reserved for their safe control? Who regulates collisions in that band? Are NOTAMs required when they're operating in an area? What are the altitude limits? How many can you operate in an area? How many can one operator own? How many can one operator control? Are they allowed to be autonomous? What kind o
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Precisely. Because piloting a small RC aircraft for fun is entirely safe. Piloting one for commercial gain turns them into unstoppable killing machines.
Next on FOX; "When Drones Attack"
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R/C flying is almost always done in open fi
FAA: You're Not Allowed to Have Fun At Work! (Score:2)
So there's essentially no technical difference between the RC planes/copters you're allowed to fly for fun and the ones you're not allowed to fly for money (except that businesses are more likely to pay for bigger drones than hobbyists.)
But what if you're having fun playing with model airplanes at work? Sure, most people don't get paid to play with toys, but they also say that about jobs in the computer game industry....
And what if your job is developing RC drone aircraft? Do you have to get them cert
The press can not ignore laws and regulations (Score:3)
So there's essentially no technical difference between the RC planes/copters you're allowed to fly for fun and the ones you're not allowed to fly for money
Just as there is no difference between the plane you are allowed to fly for fun with a private pilot's license and the plane you are allowed to fly for money with a commercial pilot's license. It may be the exact same plane. Seriously, its all about money changing hands. Say you are a private pilot. A buddy asks for a favor, fly him from point A to point B. No problem with a private pilots license. It he offers money, then its no go until you get a commercial license.
And if the FAA is saying that News Corp can't use drone aircraft to perv on vacationing celebrities at the beach, but everybody else can, that seems to have serious First Amendment issues.
The first amendment allows the press to
Re:Drone vs. RC (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, I guess all that spying, hacking, manipulation of global politics, extortion, bribery... isn't really a big problem. They're fair and balanced!
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Drones can fly significantly higher than RC planes or helicopters, and have a greater likelihood of interfering with air traffic.
Re:Drone vs. RC (Score:5, Informative)
Drones can fly significantly higher than RC planes or helicopters, and have a greater likelihood of interfering with air traffic.
Drones ARE RC planes.
Don't confuse military drones with those used by newscorp. They used the md4-1000.
http://www.microdrones.com/produkt-md4-1000-industrie-en.php [microdrones.com]
climb rate 7,5m/s *
cruising speed 15.0m/s *
Peak thrust 118N
empty weight 2650g
recommended payload 800g
maximum payload 1200g
maximum take-off weight 5550g
portability arms foldable
dimensions 1030 mm from rotor shaft to rotor shaft
flight time up to 70 minutes (dep. on load/wind/battery) *
battery 22.2V, 6S2P 12.2Ah or 6S3P 18.3Ah LiPo
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This isn't even newsworthy, in fact I think this article is a lie. The title is "FAA Looks Into News Corp’s Daily Drone, Raising Questions About Who Gets To Fly Drones in The U.S.", but there is no mention of the FAA proactively going after News Corp, in fact the only mention of the FAA doing anything is an email
The term drone isn't even right (Score:3)
Hell, we don't even call them 'drones' in the aviation industry. 'Drones' are targets for military tests. The current term in favor is 'UAS', or 'Unmanned Aircraft System', but there was some talk of switching to 'Remote Piloted Vehicle' or 'Remote Piloted System' or some such...
Anyway, this doesn't really meet the standard for what the FAA is usually concerned about vis a vis UASes. It's an RC helicopter.
Then again, the RQ-11 [wikipedia.org] is even smaller and it's considered a 'UAS', technically... But I don't think any
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The only difference between the two would be the radio, my radio will function perfectly for a good couple of miles if you have line of sight to the object (i.e. its in the air and not obstructed by the ground curvature or trees/buildings). At 10k, pretty much the only way you're going to go from the ground to 10k feet is with an EFI that can deal with the barometric pressure change. Thats the only reason you're not going to fly an RC sport aircraft as high as a drone, and only because the drone was desig
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The only difference between the two would be the radio, my radio will function perfectly for a good couple of miles if you have line of sight to the object (i.e. its in the air and not obstructed by the ground curvature or trees/buildings). At 10k, pretty much the only way you're going to go from the ground to 10k feet is with an EFI that can deal with the barometric pressure change. Thats the only reason you're not going to fly an RC sport aircraft as high as a drone, and only because the drone was designed to deal with 10k+ feet altitude changes.
this "drone" has a operating altitude of up to 1000m and a flight radius up to 1000m on RC, far less than a mile. [microdrones.com]
Re:Drone vs. RC (Score:4, Informative)
How is it different from an RC plane or helicopter? Those are used all the time for commercial arial photography and videography.
Using an RC plane or helicopter for commercial purposes requires a license to do so, its in a subsection for experimental aircraft in the FARs (Federal Aviation Regulations).
If you're not doing it commercially, its not illegal to do in certain areas. Pretty much anywhere thats populated is not one of those areas unless you get a waiver, which is what flying clubs do, with the assistance of the AMA who provides the club insurance, and thus has it in their best interest to make sure the club follows the rules. Its an actual functional self policing system.
Any serious RC pilot is an AMA member. Its cheap ($60 bucks this year for an individual, a little more for an entire family) and comes with a couple million in insurance for when you put your tricked out heli through some beamers front windshield ... which I've done. You won't find too many RC pilots that will even talk to you about RC without an AMA membership as its one of the few organizations that fight for RC pilots (Think of them as the EFF for RC pilots, though they are a for-profit organization).
With that said, the AMA will help you get waivers, and they'll help you get the permits to do commercial work, but that requires a massive amount of FAA ass kissing cause frankly, its far too easy to do bad things or hurt someone fucking around with an RC aircraft, for instance:
My all electric seaplane weighs about 1.5 pounds, and will do roughly 70mph before it becomes dangerous for the aircraft. That'll take your head off if it hits you at full speed, and if the motor is throttled back, you won't even hear it happen, which is generally how it sounds when its out of control on its way towards the ground.
My Raptor 50 heli, which has a camera attachment of my own making weighs about 7 pounds when fully loaded, will do somewhere between 45-60mph, haven't clocked it to be sure. It doesn't even have to hit you to kill you, I've seen a rotor strike the ground, break off and hospitalize a guy standing 10 feet away. Fortunatly the blade 'flew' into him like a wing in stable flight rather than end on like a knife. The bruise left behind stretched from his crotch to his nipples. Internal bruising of organs, but nothing permanent. He got lucky. Those blade tips when the rotor is at speed like its supposed to be (1800-2100 RPMs depending on your setup), the blade tips are moving at well over 300mph. When they break off, you don't want to be close by.
The real killer is the bird I'll never finish.
Its a turbine powered F-16. Will weigh about 29 pounds dry with no extra equipment when completed, between 33-35 will fully equipped and fueled. While I don't know how fast it will go once completed, others flying the same bird have broken 170 and there are some unofficial speeds of over 200mph reported. I'll never finish this aircraft because the turbine is about 3 times the price of everything else combined, and to be honest, my vision isn't good enough to see this plane at the distances you have to deal with when the aircraft is doing 150+ miles an hour, and well, why the hell build it if you're not going to fly it like its meant! This aircraft requires a special AMA waiver to be legal, which I probably couldn't qualify for due to the vision problems either.
The point to that however is that 29 pounds at 150-200 mph is enough energy to total a small house, and as such, it gets treated specially.
If you want to fly a little airplane away from people, its legal.
Flying that same aircraft in a populated area, or an area without a waiver is illegal.
Flying commercially is possible with a waiver, which is rather difficult to get especially if you're trying to do some shit thats not kosher. Its almost as difficult as getting a pilots license for commercial flight (which isn't really hard, but does take time and money and requires certification). Its almost easier and cheaper to just fly a small plane to do this as a non-government entity.
I highly doubt News Corp got a waiver, otherwise this wouldn't even be a story.
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Its almost easier and cheaper to just fly a small plane to do this as a non-government entity.
And this is the most coherent statement so far. Looking at the video in TFA (would that be TFV?) you could do a better job chartering a small high wing plane and using a half decent camera. While cool (I want one), the video quality is pretty shaky, it doesn't go very high and it's not all that interesting as a news story.
I guess the big deal for the journalists is that you can keep one in a box in your trunk, pop it up when you see something reportable and there you are. Not that it's all that hard to c
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How is it different from an RC plane or helicopter?
IIRC the difference between regulated activity and unregulated activity is sometimes a matter of altitude. And of course what's on the ground underneath it all (dense population), and what is nearby (airport), can also cause regulations to come into play. A declared emergency zone (local police and fire) can also cause an otherwise unregulated environment to become regulated, even at extremely low altitudes.
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How is it different from an RC plane or helicopter? Those are used all the time for commercial arial photography and videography.
Oh, right, it's News Corp.... so it must be evil.
Yes. Precisely. Now you're getting it. Fact is, Newscorp poses a much greater threat to the general public than any number of camera drones.
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Let's face it, their track record demonstrates a willingness to hurt innocent people to get their story. So yeah, it's News Corp so it must be at least suspected of evil.
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They drove MySpace into the ground?
Re:Drone vs. RC (Score:5, Funny)
Be nice. Rupert Murdoch has a kind heart. I heard he was listening to some of the tribute messages that the fans were leaving Amy Winehouse on her voice mail after she passed, and apparently he was moved to tears.
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From RTFA, it is hard to tell if News Corp was using a remote controlled vehicle or an Autonomous Arial Vehicle (UAV). The regulations regarding UAV's are *extremely* tight right now. People doing UAV robotics research outside of enclosed spaces are under some very restrictive regulations. Remotely Piloted Vehicles (RPV), not so much.
If I was a robotics researcher that had to travel half way across the country to the Nevada desert to do my research, and found out that News Corp had deployed UAV paparazzi
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Autonomous Arial Vehicle (UAV)
I think you meant Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.
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Good point. I'm having a bug-prone day today. It's a good day to avoid 'git commit'.
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Autonomous Arial Vehicle (UAV).
Psssht. It's just a knockoff of the UHV (Autonomous Helvetica Vehicle).
Re:Drone vs. RC (Score:4, Interesting)
Drones have no pilot, and often suffer from doing incredibly stupid things, such as running into things, flying too low, and coming close to other aircraft.
Your point is a good one, but drones may or may not have a pilot. Predator drones for example do have a pilot -- he's just hundreds or thousands of miles away.
Ultimately, the only practical distinction between drones and R/C planes is that R/C planes are flown by pilots who always have line of sight to the plane itself (and when they lose this, the planes typically crash.) Drones often do not. And yes, people do put FPV (first person view) gear onto R/C planes and fly them like drones -- which basically turns them into drones.
The FAA is expected to clarify the distinctions between the two further soon. The R/C community is hoping that they don't get caught up in any regulations the FAA puts down, but we'll see how it goes.
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So, if you put a dwarf inside the drone and let him hold the remote control and fly the thing, it'd be ok?
That's Johnny Quest you insensitive clod.
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Dear slashdot,
Where the fuck is the 'report blatant spammer' button so we can weed out accounts like this douche ourselves without having to mod them down on every story they post too?
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Dear slashdot,
Where the fuck is the 'report blatant spammer' button so we can weed out accounts like this douche ourselves without having to mod them down on every story they post too?
For all we know, he's paying Slashdot for some extra ad space.
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and adamandeve.com sells buttplugs...what's your point?
He sells "bedazzled butt plugs".
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Sorry you got modded down, this is pretty fucking funny.
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Sorry you got modded down, this is pretty fucking funny.
Yeah. Well, at least we know that residents of Mississippi and Alabama read Slashdot.
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Now I've got to worry about some suit banging on my door?
Not if the drone gets him first.
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Are you doing it for commercial purposes? Did you RTFA? There are regulations against commercial drones.
I did. The reference to the suit knocking on my door was that he might not have the same idea I had about my hobby or might, in general, start making my life a PITA.
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Hobby flying falls under specific and fairly nice rules. Don't fly closer to an airport than 5 miles unless it's near a building abduction below the roof. That kind of thing. Hobbyists do consider it dangerous to fly outside of sight. You can expect s visit if you crash it and you were flying it irresponsibly, if they can find you.
However NO COMMERCIAL permits are being granted. Only experimental UAVs and law enforcement uavs can legally get a permit. They have been looking at it for years but are unlikely
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I'd worry more not about a suit banging on the door, but what happens if it hits a full scale aircraft. What kind of redundancy do you have built in to make sure your failsafe works? How are you avoiding controlled airspace? Is the camera good enough that you can adequately "see and avoid" other air traffic? Flying low alone isn't good enough, there's plenty of low flying light aircraft (for example pipeline patrol, powerline patrol, law enforcement, agricultural operations).
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We should send them to Texas, I hear they need rain.