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Government

FAA Has Approved More Than 1,000 Drone Exemptions 62

coondoggie writes: The Federal Aviation Administration today said it has issued 1,008 exemptions to businesses wanting to fly unmanned aircraft in the national airspace. Such small drones have been on the bad side of the news in the past few days: there have been at least three complaints about the diminutive aircraft flying near the flight path of JFK airport in New York. All three of the flights landed safely but the events prompted New York Senator Charles Schumer to call for "tougher FAA rules on drones," as well as geofencing software that could prohibit a done from flying higher than 500 feet, and keep it two miles away from any airport or sensitive area.
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FAA Has Approved More Than 1,000 Drone Exemptions

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  • "...geofencing software that could prohibit a done from flying higher than 500 feet, and keep it two miles away from any airport or sensitive area."

    ...for those law-abiding drone operators who choose to use it.
    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by alhead ( 1386235 )
        I completely agree with your sentiment, and such simple protections do generally keep people from getting themselves into trouble inadvertently. However, I am a bit leery about the false sense of security that comes with regulations that people don't really understand. Also, I'd hate to see the relationship between commercial drone operators and the FAA develop to the point where regulations on non-exempt drones become a huge barrier to entry for startups etc. that don't already have said exemptions.
    • "...geofencing software that could prohibit a done from flying higher than 500 feet, and keep it two miles away from any airport or sensitive area."

      ...for those law-abiding drone operators who choose to use it.

      Which would be many of us who do (or want to do) such things commercially, and like the idea of getting paid without risk of our assets being seized and without the potential for criminal charges. ;-)

  • by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Tuesday August 04, 2015 @01:28PM (#50250485)

    1) Have the legislature pass a law against X with exemptions to be granted by agency Y and get the executive to sign it. (Ideally, X outlaws everyone from doing anything - see below.)
    2) As an employee of agency Y, get into a position of power to grant exemptions
    3) Accept bribes (quietly, the "invest $500K in my brother-in-law's fishing charter" kind) to grant exemptions to the law
    4) PROFIT!

  • by JeffOwl ( 2858633 ) on Tuesday August 04, 2015 @01:29PM (#50250495)
    I am assuming they mean above ground, because otherwise it would be a stupid idea (I'm not saying that's impossible). Do you require drones to be equipped with laser or radar altimeters? Do you require them to use DTED?
    • Most drones today are equipped with altimeters either barometric, ultrasonic, inertial, or calculated from GPS. The 500 ft would be from the point of origin. Since most recreational drones are meant to be line of sight that means less than 5 miles, the terrain is not going to change that much.
    • Or 500 feet above sea level.
      • Or 500 feet above sea level.

        No flying drones in Denver where the ground STARTS at 5,000 feet above sea level and goes up from there... There is a reason they call it the "Mile High City" and it's not because they allow pot smoking.

    • by sims 2 ( 994794 )

      Yeah I would expect a minimum accuracy to be +-100ft.
      Ideal would be +-10ft most equipment won't do that especially none of the cheaper stuff.

      And I would hope that a gov't requirement would bring the cost's down due to volume like it did with the led light bulbs.

      But as a poster noted above unlevel terrain would be a problem in places (grand canyon).

      While it should be cheap enough to geofence around areas the height limit may be a bit of a problem.

      Height above ground seems silly in some places and height abov

    • I am assuming they mean above ground, because otherwise it would be a stupid idea (I'm not saying that's impossible). Do you require drones to be equipped with laser or radar altimeters? Do you require them to use DTED?

      I would expect that they would be happy with the following rule.. The 500' altitude restriction referenced from the GROUND level at the point of launch. I would further use a 1 mile radius from the starting point as a limit. The only other way this works is you have and are following DTED and do not exceed 500' above an adjacent DTED observation point, which doesn't seem practical to me.

  • ... to fly drones outside your own personal property. That would solve many of these issues very quickly. Pilots are trained to understand airspace restrictions, to file flight plans, and to look up TFRs before they fly. Obviously, you can't trust normal people to do these things, so licenses should be required. Flying a drone without a license should be a prosecutable criminal offense, and even worse if you bust airspace.

    • The FAA's current '333' waivers DO require actual pilots licenses and registered aircraft.

      It's definitely necessary for someone flying a 3-pound plastic quadcopter 25 feet off the ground to take a look at whether or not some gutters need to be cleaned out ... to hold a pilots license, get a tail number for that 3-pound toy copter, coordinate with the local tower, and of course file a flight plan. Should probably be required to know Morse code, too, just in case. You can't be too careful. This should also
      • Did you miss my comment about flying over private property owned by the pilot (or presumably, where the owner has given the pilot permission to fly in it)?

        It's just like driving a vehicle: if you have a big farm, there is zero requirement to register your car with the state government or get a driver's license, as long as you keep your vehicle on your own land. You can even let your 12-year-old kid drive your car on your land. It's only when you drive onto public streets that all that stuff becomes mandat

        • Did you miss my comment about flying over private property owned by the pilot (or presumably, where the owner has given the pilot permission to fly in it)?

          No. Why should it make any difference? Commercial aviation goes over your property too. Are you saying that somebody launching a 3-pound quadcopter into the air above their property is inherently safer at 1000' than is the person who does that from some empty lot or a wooded park in the middle of nowhere?

          You don't seem to understand that you don't own the air over your property.

          • This exactly shows why morons like you have no business flying without a license. You have no concept whatsoever of "airspace".

            You don't seem to understand that you don't own the air over your property.

            Bullshit. You own the air up to 500 feet. Commercial aircraft are not allowed to fly within that zone without permission or a really good reason.

            Are you saying that somebody launching a 3-pound quadcopter into the air above their property is inherently safer at 1000' than is the person who does that from s

            • Uh, as someone who *does* have a pilot's certificate, the GP is more right than you are.

              First of all it's a certificate, not a license. Yes, the distinction matters. And there's lots of not-commercial aircraft - in any case the airspace rules are no different.

              You don't own the air up to 500 feet by any means. The FAA's rules (mostly for fixed-wing aircraft) are in 14 CFR 91.119 [cornell.edu], paraphrased:
              - Always where an emergency landing can be conducted without "undue hazard" (note, not "no hazard") to people or prope

              • by fnj ( 64210 )

                A bit of confusion over nit-picking terms is not surprising, given the FAA itself sounds confused. From http://www.faa.gov/pilots/become/ [faa.gov], "FAA's rules for getting a pilot's license (certificate) " and "There are several different types of pilot's licenses...".

                One might be forgiven for assuming that the certificate is evidence of licensure.

            • Bullshit. You own the air up to 500 feet.

              This is factually incorrect, pure and simple. You have no idea what you're talking about.

              No, someone with a 3-pound quadcopter has no business operating at 1000' because that's federally regulated airspace, unless that person has a proper pilot's license and type rating for that aircraft.

              Which is exactly why your entire premise about being over your own yard or over some other patch of dirt means exactly nothing in the context of your complaint.

              What I'm saying is that someone who owns the property and also the drone shouldn't need a license to operate their drone, within their airspace (up to 500' AGL), as long as they stay within that box.

              But you think they're going to somehow be smart enough, without a pilot's certificate, to stay under 500' above their own dirt, but can't be trusted to make exactly the same decision thirty feet to the right, above a different patch of grass? People who are go

              • by adolf ( 21054 )

                What say you if a quadcoper/"drone" had a cryptographically-secure mechanism to prevent it from flying above 500' AGL?

                What if it had an active (and useful!) default LIDAR/RADAR/SONAR looking at the ground to enforce this, with complementary GPS?

                Might that be OK from the non-licensed aviator perspective?

                Might it be worse, from the FOSS perspective?

                (and for the inevitable slippery slope argument: I'll volunteer to watch the watchers. All of them, no matter what they are watching. Nobody has anything to fea

                • Scenario: You're standing at the top of a 750' cliff, and launch for a 200' view of something at the edge of the cliff. You fly one foot to the left, which means you're still 200' above your own head, but technically 950' above the dirt that is immediately below the drone. Does it precipitously drop 250' in an effort to keep itself legal, thus leaving it 50' below your feet and just inches from a collision with the cliff face? What happens when you are granted permission to fly from the observation deck of
        • by Toad-san ( 64810 )

          True that. Otherwise, think about prison yards (recent drop by a drone of drugs in one), athletic fields (imagine a drone ditching, aldning, crashing in the middle of a professional football or baseball game), back yards as you mentioned, stampeding farm animals, hovering outside a business's windows and photographing commercial secrets. The list goes on and on and on.

  • Perhaps a drone shooting automated turret at the airport is in order.

    It could also take out those pesky geese!

  • by Anonymous Coward

    This is SO FUCKING STUPID!! Is the FAA now opening a new division and hiring more bureaucrats just to process drone exception paperwork? What a stupid waste of money! That's how you know it was invented by government employees.

    The real solution is very simple: just declare that drones are only allowed to fly in class Gulf airspace, knock it off with the bullshit bureaucracy, and watch sales of sectionals, airspace databases, and GPS units increase. THERE! I fixed that for ya.

    Oh, and as common sense,

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • Yes sir, and what about those darned motorcars? Always roaring about belching smoke and steam, and dripping oil... why, last week my prize mare almost threw a shoe after slipping on a patch of that foul petroleum distillate.

  • There were incidents with drones, but did that ones fly with a FAA exemption? Or were they unwarranted flyers?
  • An UAV license for buying a drone should be a law.

    I am an UAV pilot myself. Flying a multi-rotor and fixed-wing UAV well is not that simple. It requires extensive theoretical and practical training.

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