Genuine question, but does it change much compared to a wild bird ?
Yhey don't respect regulations nor space rules either, and I hope it's OK. If we lump drones in the same category shouldn't it be OK as well ?
"Most accidents occur when the bird hits the windscreen or flies into the engines. These cause annual damages that have been estimated at $400 million within the United States of America alone and up to $1.2 billion to commercial aircraft worldwide."
Relatively few fatalities for humans, but very high cost. And they are not made of metal or durable plastics. They are also less likely to fall onto your head with rapidly rotating blades due to technical failure.
I would trust bird reflexes more than those of a random drone operator, birds aren't made of metal, and, without regulations, drones could weigh whatever the customer wants to pay for. News crews might replace their helicopters by drones weighing a thousand pounds.
Regulations do not necessarily mean that you can't fly any drone without a permit.
Have you seen the kind of damage large birds do to aircraft?
This wouldn't be an issue if we were only talking about upgraded small RC aircraft being used as drones, but some companies are selling much larger drones that are way outside of existing "bird strike" parameters.
You can't have dozens of unregulated news drones the size of a small car flying through the same airspace as rescue choppers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_strike
Relatively few fatalities for humans, but very high cost. And they are not made of metal or durable plastics. They are also less likely to fall onto your head with rapidly rotating blades due to technical failure.