The Current State of Drones, Laws, Regulations, Fear and Loathing.

Washington, DC--it's a painfully slow process for politicians and FAA bureaucrats to accept the need, legitimacy and relative safety of those little civilian drones. 

There was the initial hysteria of passenger jets crashing, mass privacy invasion because of those little drones.  The panic reaction was bolstered with thousands mistaken or deliberately false reports of sightings claiming drone misbehavior.  

Thankfully as the number of drones in civilian hands increased by leaps and bounds, the bogus reports quietly subsided considerably. 

Very recently progress has been made in allowing the commercial use of drones under a somewhat loosened set of rules and guidelines.  Along with the more realistic drone rules the FAA created the Part 107 licensing exemption with a written test for commercial drone pilots.  

They have allowed for considerable expansion of drone use in urban areas for news gathering, filmmaking, property inspection, marketing and photography.  

The FAA still must give a bit on night flights, first person view and use over highways and people. Slowly that too is happening.

The same is needed for low altitude flights below 150 feet near, but not adjacent to airports.  Inspecting a roof of a building with a drone that's a half mile from an airport from 30 feet above should not require anything more than simple caution. 

We've still not seen a single fatality, serious injury or property damage caused by a drone.  This despite nearly four million of them in the hands of all manner of men, women and children. 

Drones are a natural tool for news gathering purposes. Their excellent broadcast quality cameras, safe low altitude flight and minimal expense will save countless jobs in America's newsrooms.  

For news gathering drones are substantially preferable to helicopters in all but those high speed police chases.  The liability issues of drone use is also minuscule compared to that of helicopters. 

Still safety is a real concern along with the upscale price of drones that ultimately keeps their owners cautious. None of them want to see their precious drones damaged or lost.  

Finally superior drone video has become slowly integrated in our nation's TV newscasts.   There is virtually little noise and no pollution emitted from these marvelous little machines.

Hopefully police will begin to use them to document traffic accidents saving time and money.  Drones can cut the time busy streets are obstructed for traffic investigations by two-thirds.  

The Netherlands has been using them to deliver defibrillators to save the lives of heart attack victims.  Drones are excellent tools for use in critical missing persons cases, search and rescue. The benefits of our civilian drones make for a better and bright future.  

Camera Armed Quadcopters, Public Safety and Privacy Examination.

Los Angeles, CA—When the topics of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles or drones are brought up so are the issues of fear, loathing and regulation.  Ignorance of the unknown is always a source of difficulty.  However take a look at the issues with an open mind. 

Aerial photography is not new, but until now it was just expensive.  We’ve co-existed with fixed wing airplanes and helicopters, all of our lives.  It’s settled law that we have no reasonable expiation of privacy outside of our homes and the other shelters we inhabit.

For nearly two decades we’ve been under observation from high-resolution cameras mounted on satellites.  We’ve all seen those incredible Google Earth views.  All of those privacy issues have been addressed and settled in the courts redundantly.

Suddenly we have great diminutive cameras and UAV’s to take them to the skies.  The privacy laws remain exactly the same.

There are huge advantages for these new UAV’s such as search and rescue, looking for lost pets, newsgathering video and filmmaking.   Safety inspection of roofs, transformers, power lines and elevated structures can be accomplished now with ease and without risk of injury.  

Additionally UAV’s have proven to help both sales people and buyers of real estate see a better view of those properties.

Aside from all of this, there is a long established hobby involved with remote controlled aircraft.  Millions of teens and adults have been enjoying this great hobby.

We’ve all seen videos and pictures of catastrophic helicopter crashes in our cities.  Death, destruction and horrible injuries occur when these things happen.  Those terrible accidents are somewhat rare but by no means isolated.  I lost two friends over the years in news helicopter crashes.

Now we have the small, light UAV’s and they're a game changer for the better.  Mishaps are not uncommon with the new UAV’s mostly due to pilot error.  The difference here is the UAV’s almost always escape damage!  Injuries are beyond rare and very minor if they happen at all.  UAV damage is proving to be somewhat less than that what would be caused by a thrown common tennis ball.

We all know about the large, heavy military UAV drones usually armed with weapons that governments use.  They cost as much or more than conventional aircraft and are simply not part of this discussion. 

The proliferation of these new small UAV drones like the one involved in the photo above and the video below will save millions of dollars for news organizations, businesses and government agencies as they reduce tragic accidents.

The video below shows what happens when a pilot loses control of a UAV in a populated area.  This should not have happened and it resulted from simple inexperience.  However you will see first hand the worst-case scenario of my own UAV mishap.  No damage or injuries whatsoever. 

My UAV was lost for nearly three months. The UAV and its little GoPro camera survived without single a scratch! They are both back in service today.  Nobody was injured nor was there even a hint of property damage. 

Should the battery die in an airborne UAV, they automatically go into a lower power mode and gently float to the ground. 

Watch the disappearance and crash landing of my UAV over the Westwood neighborhood of Los Angeles last January.  The little 64 Gigabyte SD ram card onboard saved and objectively documented the entire event.