Drone rules article

[bfeist]

Congressional Hearing Offers A Sneak Peek At The Future Of Domestic Drone Rules
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-02/what-model-airplanes-have-do-drone-rules

[Ededge2002]

The drone business has huge potential and let's hope this is a step in the right direction.

[Andy Hoffer]

The drone business has huge potential and let's hope this is a step in the right direction.

Next up will be back yard and/or bedroom mounted drone detectors with lasers to blind aerial surveillance cameras.   

[sihinch]

Like this?

[Andy Hoffer]

Yes!  That's the super deluxe model - it has extra arms for lobbing grenades or handling a shotgun to invoke "drone moan" !

[pmackenzie]

FWIW, we had some interactions with some guys testing a drone up at our glider field over the summer. The way they behaved did not impress.

- They showed up and seemed annoyed that we had a contest that day. When I asked if they had permission they sort of huffed and said of course they had ATC approval.
    I meant did they have permission of the landowner. They left, doing a big circuit on the sod to turn around their truck and trailer.

- After a while they came back and set up at the far end of the field. They drove their vehicles right onto the sod and parked them there.
   Before they flew we went over to warn them about the winch turnarounds and the guy said " no problem , we will send you the bill if we hit one". No thanks for the heads up.

- Looking at the model, it was basically a big glider. Full carbon designed and built by some of the local FF guys. Power system was all hobby stuff. (AXI motor)
We mentioned the airfoil looked like a glider one and the guy said " but this one is better".  As if.
They guy who designed it likely used the same program (X foil) that he uses to design the airfoils for his FF stuff. In other words no better than what we have, just designed for a different application.

- It looked like they had no means of glide slope control. Landing approaches were long and fast. First time they came in right over us at low altitude, second time they did the same, but also did their turn to final over the road at about 15' high (I was taking video and though the camera it looked like he was going to hit me so I bailed out)

The whole thing had me worried that they would cause some sort of issue and we would be lumped in with them and lose our field.

Fast forward till the fall. We are at a contest and the field manager drives up and asks is "So and So" is here.
Seems he got a text earlier in the week from one of the drone guys that they had driven over some irrigation pipes and damaged them.
They had also been driving right across the full width of the field leaving ruts.
(There is an access road on the other side, so no reason at all to drive across other than being lazy)

Fortunately the field manager has a long relationship with our club and knew that we were not involved in any of this. He was ready to tell them to take a hike.
My fear is that if they had they caused problems off field then he might have had no choice but to ban all model flying.

So rather than seeing "huge potential" I see all this UAV stuff as being a real danger to our hobby. They see us as playing with toys.
(We are of course but then almost every non-essential activity people engage in just a game of one form or another)
You have to look no further than the US to see how UAV activity and pending regulation is having the potential to completely change the rules under which recreational model flying could be forced to operate.

This is why MAAC came up with sensible rules to distinguish us. No commercial activity, spotter on a buddy box and LOS when doing FPV.

Pat MacKenzie

[Ededge2002]

Sharing a field with a UAV should be a no go. They should be operated well away from persons of possible injury.  Any operator that did not yield to your warnings AND flew over your head CLEARLY isn't up to the task of operating in a safe and professional manner.
As I sort of work in this field I just see huge potential for growth as technology has and IS improving at a exponential rate.  The possibilities are endless and even the little Parrot UAV sold at Best Buy is an impressive little package. Lumping the huge uav  field in with your bad example is a little judgemental but as the public we do need to keep them in check.
Even my company's pipeline inspection systems warn of operating them in confined spaces with humans as although they are not fast they have heavily geared power and could cause physical harm.
  Please do not take my thoughts on this as disagreeing with you Pat I just hope that your bad experience was an isolated individual.

http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showatt.php?attachmentid=1604156&d=1197062458

[pmackenzie]

I think they did operate it without regard to our being there. Why they chose a weekend and not a weekday i have no idea.
Although it was a nice day and a new plane, we have all been there.

Sites suitable for it would be hard to find, and since the FF guys who built it also share our field that probably steered them to ours.
But to me it should have been operated at a full scale airstrip where things would be in more control. There are lots of grass strips around, many on private land.

They also should have had something to control the approach angle. The model had ailerons.,all they would have needed was to use them as spoilerons
and the glide slope would have been much steeper and they could have operated far more safely. But I guess "real" planes don't do that so they never though about it.

Based on what we overheard pretty sure they were flying autonomous GPS circuits with it, with the landing done manually.
We were still flying at the time, and had to make sure to come down when it looked like they were going to launch.

I will try to locate the video I shot and put it up on Youtube. It was a nice plane, the guys not so much.