[C8]

I am having a hard time liking drones. It seemed like a neat idea on paper but in reality, drone use is turning into a disaster. Consider the following news stories in the last month (Google them):

1. Drones force down firefighting helicopters which fear collision
2. Drone almost crashes life flight helicopter with patient
3. Drone almost goes into airplane engine
4. Drone flies over peoples' back yard and video sunbathers
5. Drone flies by apartment windows- may be videoing people on balcony or in window

There are serious problems with drones that do not exist with many other consumer products:

1. The owner is hard to trace if a drone is used for a crime and the drone can disappear quickly- it is hard to find out where the control signal is coming from, this makes it an ultimate crime tool (eventually a drone will drop a grenade)

2. Drones severely endanger air traffic and will eventually kill flyers- this is not a place for toys and voluntary appeals for using good judgment are a complete joke when lives are at stake

3. Drones allow extremely intrusive behavior. A drone can buzz just 20 feet over you in your back yard and video you in an area that would be considered trespassing if done on the ground- again it is nearly impossible to find out the owner or confront them. We are being robbed of our own use of our lawns ( yes a person with a camera could do this but they might have to trespass on someones property to do so- drones ENCOURAGE easy espionage and intimidating spying)

I cannot see any alternative except the banning of drone operation for personal use- after the first fatality, air flight will be hammered as people become scared of flying

What say you?

[SeaGypsy]

There has been at lest one fatality, guy smashing his own head open with his own drone, think this was in NY about 2 years ago.

For sure there will be a growing call to restrict the use of drones. But there are a pile of uses which make sense, in farming for example, weed spotting, stock locating, probably not long before drones round up herds of animals, vastly more efficient than manned helicopters.

In Australia commercial drone use is regulated under aviation law, requiring very expensive licensing & very specific flight path rules. Private nuisance drone laws are yet to be enacted.

Meanwhile, as far as I am aware, nothing prevents us treating these things as wasps & shooting them out of the sky, throwing things at them etc. A good clip went viral a few days ago of a guy jagging one with a fishing rod & line. The good drones are not cheap, the people owning them are not going to keep flying where they get shot at.

[Cog]

Tough call as I typically never favor any laws that restrict personal liberty. But try as I might I see no Constitutional right to fly a drone. I would probably favor some type of training or licensing scheme that ham radio operators and pilots have to follow with strict guidelines on what is allowable behavior. As least restrictive rules as possible until we have more data on the hazard that drones pose.

[careinke]

I think if a drone is in your "airspace" it should be a valid target. Especially if your daughter is sunbathing on the porch.

[SeaGypsy]

Short of being a protected species & arguably an invasive one, with no badge of authority to survey (Officer proxy status) for sure shoot 'em down or have fun trying!

[fleance]

Drones can be used in both positive and negative things. Unfortunately, some people use it in bad things that harm other. So, I guess there should be rules imposed when and where to use. Also, who are allowed to buy and use it.

[dinopello]

I have a drone. It's not a GPS nav drone but it does have camera with realtime video link. But without GPS, it pretty much has to stay line of sight and pretty close at that because it is really small. So, to me that's a toy like the RC planes that have been around forever. The GPS nav drones can fly far and high because they can be recovered so they can be problematic. I live in a no-fly zone though so technically it is probably illegal to have any type of aircraft in the air, toy or not.

CNN had some nice drone encounters with animals recently

[C8]

Regarding shooting drones- this is illegal currently. There are 2 concerns: 1. a falling drone hurting someone or property 2. the private property rights of the drone owner being violated. The law clearly sides with drone users over those who don't wish to be watched.

A drone is not allowed to view someone where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy- such as peeping in a window. The problem is that, in the real world, it is almost impossible to enforce this. Drones operators are not identifiable by victims or witnesses- drones are mass produced and non-unique. Drones can speed away if someone attempts to capture it or attack it so their is no evidence or way to find the operator by opening the unit. The technology confers total superiority to the drone user over the victim and makes spying safe, easy, and (for the most part) legal.

[C8]

Good story from the NY Post- there is going to be blood as a result of this. The more I think about it a drone is the perfect engine of chaos and crime.

http://nypost.com/2015/08/16/drones-and ... r-traffic/

Drones create deadly obstacle course in skies above New York City

At 5:07 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 2, Shuttle America Flight 5911 descended toward JFK Airport for a landing that was in every way routine — including its encounter with a potentially deadly drone.
The 37-seat twin-engine jet out of Richmond, Va., was just 15 feet from the tarmac and traveling at 100 mph when the pilot spotted a black, four-rotor “quadcopter” hovering 30 feet above the ground alongside Runway 13L.
“There’s a drone next to the runway,” the pilot radioed to air-traffic control.

“Uh, location please?” responded the rattled controller.
“Drone is now at the edge of the runway,” the pilot responded.
It was the third drone to buzz JFK in three days.
Shockingly, about 50 drones have been spotted this year by commercial pilots heading to Kennedy and La Guardia airports, The Post has learned.
In fact, drones have become so popular that they, along with lasers, are becoming a virtual obstacle course in the skies above the metro area.
“You’ve got cheap and powerful gadgets coming into the hands of reckless people or people who don’t understand the risk,” said Patrick Smith, author of the book “Cockpit Confidential.”
“I expect it to happen at some point,” the Kennedy-based pilot said of a drone-airliner collision.
Pilots say a drone that gets sucked into a jet engine is every bit as deadly as birds, which caused hero pilot Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger to ditch US Airways Flight 1549 into the Hudson River in 2009.

“It could cause a crash. Anytime you lose an engine, that’s an emergency situation,” said a local commercial pilot who requested anonymity.
Lasers pointed from the ground into a cockpit are also dangerous, experts said, with the ability to blind a pilot.
Both devices are increasingly popular — Amazon sells drones that can fly up to 5,000 feet for less than $700 and powerful green lasers capable of sending beams thousands of feet into the night sky for less than $20.
More than 650 nearby drones were reported by pilots nationally through Aug. 9 of this year, according to Federal Aviation Administration data. There were 238 drone sightings in all of 2014, some as high as 10,000 feet.
“The FAA wants to send out a clear message that operating drones around airplanes and helicopters is dangerous and illegal,” the FAA said in a statement Wednesday.

Laser incidents in local skies have also surged, with 95 incidents reported by planes flying to the three major airports so far this year. Incredibly there were 12 incidents affecting planes near Newark Liberty Airport reported in a single night, July 15.
There were only 89 laser incidents in all of 2014.
Nationally, there were 3,894 laser incidents last year, about the same as the year before.
Drones are banned from flying within five miles of airports and must stay below an altitude of 400 feet. But the rules haven’t stopped drone enthusiasts, and not a single one has been caught this year.
“The users of drones are not aviators; most are kids or young men that just like to fly things around,” said a New York City area air-traffic controller.
The main issue with catching dodgy drone users is that the drone could be a mile away from its operators and there’s no easy way to find either of them, unlike a laser that is spotted from a very specific point and leaves a trail.
“There’s no signature point trail to bring you back to the origination point,” said a law-enforcement source, who noted that since most incidents occur on weekends, they are likely hobbyists and not deliberately threatening.
However, he warned that tighter restrictions were needed.
“I’ve seen the damage a single bird can do to an aircraft. I can only imagine what a device made of hard plastic and metal might do,” said a law-enforcement source. Pointing lasers at planes is a federal crime carrying punishments of up to 20 years imprisonment and a $250,000 fine — but it’s also hard to stop.
“These green lasers have become a problem for us,” the air-traffic controller told The Post.
The FAA says it is still investigating the July 15 incidents.
A California man was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison last November for shining a laser into the cockpits of two news helicopters from his car.
Endangering a plane with a drone carries up to a $25,000 federal fine.
Last week the Queens District Attorney’s Office said it would charge drone users endangering planes with first-degree reckless endangerment, which could mean seven years in prison.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Meanwhile, as far as I am aware, nothing prevents us treating these things as wasps & shooting them out of the sky, throwing things at them etc. A good clip went viral a few days ago of a guy jagging one with a fishing rod & line. The good drones are not cheap, the people owning them are not going to keep flying where they get shot at.

Well, in the real world I live in (in KY, with close to the most permissive gun laws in the country), if I start blasting away at things with my gun, I most likely get arrested and prosecuted.

Consider: many liberals want to take away my right to have a hand gun to defend myself from break-ins IN MY OWN HOUSE.

So yeah, gun fantasies are nice, I suppose. (I must confess that I stick to the mostly politically correct nekked wimmin on the internet for my fantasies). But somehow, I don't see an "armed militia" blasting away at drones as a realistic solution.