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by btiede
3862 days ago
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Thanks for your perspective on this. |"Why would people wanting that bother learning how to use a drone?" Good point. I suppose they might still gain some value from having the aerial view as opposed to setting up multiple shots from cameras/phones on the ground? Then again if, as you say, the shots from a small commercial aerial drone are not clear because of stability issues etc., then it is pointless to use one. Is drone camera stabilization getting better though, to the point where it would be very easy to capture a good, high quality image from a higher altitude even with a small drone in the near future and is that something regulators should take into consideration now?
How do you think the drone industry should be regulated and what weight class(es) do you think it these regulations should cover? |
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As to regulation? Hard question to answer, but I find it hard to believe treating everything from 1/2 a pound up to 55 pounds the same makes any sense - consider what two orders of magnitude in weight means for motor vehicles. 300lb worth of motorcycle is treated differently to 3000lb worth of car, and very differently again to 30,000lb worth of truck (or 30lb worth of bicycle).
I think there's an important difference between non-commercial and commercial use of drones - I know when I'm flying for fun, there are conditions and circumstances in which I choose not to fly, where it'd be way to easy to accept additional risk as an aerial photographer if it meant getting "the shot" and thereby earning the money.
I justify to myself that my small quads weigh less than a football, and I've got control over them so I'm significantly less likely to hit somebody accidentally. I've intentionally flown my quads into myself to see just how much it'd hurt, and while I'm comfortable saying "I wasn't injured" I'm 100% certain that the mother of a small child wouldn't see things the same way. It kinda hurts, but at least with the plastic props it doesn't break the skin. (I wouldn't do that with the carbon fibre props on, I'm too chicken for that...)
If _I_ were making the rules, I'd probably ignore anything under ~500g or 1lb, they're no more dangerous that a skateboard in my opinion, and far less likely to be used by creeps/crooks/terrorists than a cellphone camera. From maybe 500g up to somewhere around 2 or 3kg should be considered fundamentally different, but still in the category of "potentially dangerous toy if misused" - perhaps treated similarly to a gocart or a dirtbike - if you want to own and use one away from people, no problem, but if you want to ride your dirtbike around town it's gonna need lights/rego/insurance. Once you get up towards 5g or more, you're getting up to where I'd also like to see operators to have demonstrated some basic training/understanding of the risks and an acknowledgement that they understand and accept responsibility for them - I'm thinking along the lines of ham radio operators license here - you'd need to read some theory, sit an exam, but mostly you'd lose the "I didn't know it was dangerous" excuse.
That's almost certainly not "good enough" to work out properly in a lawyer-happy no-universal-healthcare society though. Which is sad (both for US based drone hobbyists, as well as those of us from elsewhere who's local laws are very likely to be heavily based on US laws...)
(Note: from a non US point of view, I find it astounding that "drones need regulating", but it's a fundamental human right to buy an assault rifle at a gun show with no paperwork. The perspective and risks and responses seem all way out of whack from half a planet away. Not saying "all guns are bad", but surely "very few drones are as dangerous as an AR47" is unambiguously true...)