The drone community is going to kill drone use

Just this morning in my local alt weekly: http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/sl...orized-mosquitoswhich-turned-out-to-be-drones

From reading the story, it doesn't seem like the operators were flying dangerously, and "over our heads" probably means in the general overhead airspace. The Stranger isn't known for their rigid journalism on these kinds of things.
Regular people who aren't multi rotor enthusiasts really don't like "drones". Hell, I don't even like them flying over me in the park though I know enough about them that I shouldn't feel threatened. I like them when we're the ones using them to get a shot, but yeah...they're inherently annoying to everyone else. Expect more backlash against them, and then even more if the average user keeps up with unsafe or unfriendly flying practices.

edit: Sorry Mick. I posted before I saw your request to tone it down.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jb.
This whole drone multirotor argument (now) over phantom crashes is laughable. Who the Hell cares if a filmmaker uses it capture shots. What most are concerned over is strapping a brick of c4 and flying it into a building or the white house. Rules will be in place and so will restrictions on your flight controller. And I agree with dusty, it does seem like you don't want anyone having your hobby. Lol
 
  • Like
Reactions: jb.
Andrius Simutis said:
Just this morning in my local alt weekly: http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/sl...orized-mosquitoswhich-turned-out-to-be-drones

From reading the story, it doesn't seem like the operators were flying dangerously, and "over our heads" probably means in the general overhead airspace. The Stranger isn't known for their rigid journalism on these kinds of things.
Regular people who aren't multi rotor enthusiasts really don't like "drones". Hell, I don't even like them flying over me in the park though I know enough about them that I shouldn't feel threatened. I like them when we're the ones using them to get a shot, but yeah...they're inherently annoying to everyone else. Expect more backlash against them, and then even more if the average user keeps up with unsafe or unfriendly flying practices.
Click to expand...

Interestingly, I've found that "people" don't like drones... but your average "person" finds them pretty interesting once they actually see one in action. The number of complaints I've gotten while flying can be counted on one hand while the number of times I've had people come over and ask me how it works and can they see it up-close is too numerous to even count.

Right now, drones are largely misunderstood by the general public and that misunderstanding is being fueled by the media ("if it bleeds it leads"). I just shot some staged aerials for a youth soccer promo this weekend and one of the parents came up to me and said "why do I hear about how these things are going to spy on us? you'd hear the motors and see the lights long before it was close enough to spy on me." We then proceeded to have a half-hour conversation about how it worked after I'd landed the drone. He left with a better understanding about how they work and what they can do and maybe the next time someone calls for a drone ban, he'll be against it (or at least a little less "for" it).

So much of this stuff could be solved with a bit less scare-mongering from the media and a bit more responsible (and respectful) flying from the hobby. The hobby already self-polices itself reasonably well, but as there's an influx of people coming in you get more flyers who do so recklessly and rudely and the self-policing model breaks down. Hence why most responsible drone owners actually WANT sensible regulations.
 
dustylense said:
So few multi rotors? LOL! Dude, wake up. There have been 3 versions of the Phantom alone. LOL. I just googled "DJI Phantom flight" and clicked on the video tab. 1,730,000 results. The Phantom 1 was released in January 2013. DJI sold $500,000,000 in 2014 alone. Thats just DJI and for 2014.

In fact, the analogies P13 used are right on spot. The only drone flight I can research up that in fact involved someone dying is a guy that killed himself flying a stunt helicopter (not even a multi rotor) into himself. Looks like he shouldn't have been playing with marbles.
http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2013/09/05/remote-control-helicopter-kills-man-in-brooklyn/

The only other story I can find of a multi rotor incident was the one with the guy covering the winter olympics. Guess what? It was one of those so called "big shots" flying a larger UAV. The guy like YOU. Who thinks his experience comes with safety.

Who is most likely to cause a crash or incident on a forklift? The guy that has a weeks experience on one? Or the guy that has years experience on one? Correct answer. The guy with years of experience. See, the guy will little experience on the forklift is going to approach things more carefully. Whereas the guy with years on one thinks "I'm a pro" I can go fast and get this done. I know, because I'm a licensed forklift operator.

I remember my first lift off of my UAV or "multi rotor". I was super careful. I didn't just zip up up and away. Even to this day with at least 500 hours flight time, I'm very careful when flying. I won't fly over large crowds. I won't fly were signals can get interrupted. I tell bystanders to step back when coming in for landing. I choose the flight paths before taking off. Every time.

You said it yourself man. "Ive seen some serious injuries from multi rotors (****mostly the bigger ones****)". Yeah, from those so-called experts! But yet in your post there is a common theme I noticed. You keep referring to the new comers as "idiots". When did you lose your idiot status? Or are you some how above that for some reason. What separates you from being in the idiot category?

See, by reading your post and taking the sentence "As someone who flew multirotors before they were the "cool thing" for video people to buy" you somehow think you are special. Entitled to more of an opinion and input than others. Calling everyone else who would like to enjoy what you enjoy "idiots". Hard to take somebody like that serious.

$500,000,000 in 2014 for DJI sales. Go out today to common areas and see if you can find a phantom flying. I haven't seen a phantom in the air in over a month. And there are LOTS of Phantom units out there. All in the hands of so called "idiots"....

I think you're just upset that the hobby isn't inclusive to just you anymore.
Click to expand...

Never called all new-comers idiots. I said those who buzz airports and crash-land on the White House lawn are idiots. I also said that as more newbies come into the hobby, we'll have more and more idiots running around (because there are more people total), which stands to reason. As we have more people enter the hobby, we'll also probably see an increase in red-heads too.

FWIW, there are idiots at all skill levels in this hobby. It's not limited to new-comers by any means.

It also stands to reason that as prices and other barriers to entry (skill level being the primary one) go down, we'll have more people who buy these things on a whim and fly them with little regard to the long-term impact of their flying on the hobby. If drones are banned, they'll just pick something else up. Forgive me if that makes me a little apprehensive.

To this point in time, the hobby side of things has been mostly self-policed. That doesn't scale to new-comers with little investment in the hobby itself. It also doesn't scale well with the increase in interest in the hobby. You get pockets of idiots who think it's "totally cool!" to fly their drones into heavily-trafficked airspace just for fun.

And for the record, I welcome anyone who wants to become involved with RC flight... as long as they do so in a responsible, safe and respectful manner.
 
jbregar said:
Interestingly, I've found that "people" don't like drones... but your average "person" finds them pretty interesting once they actually see one in action. The number of complaints I've gotten while flying can be counted on one hand while the number of times I've had people come over and ask me how it works and can they see it up-close is too numerous to even count.
Click to expand...

Ha! Totally. You also have to realize that it's Seattle. The same person writing a screed against any flying of "drones" is also writing screeds against the parks department for trying to ban smoking in the parks. Either way, they'd never say anything about it to your face here.
But where will this go? Will the people who don't like drones outweigh the persons that are interested in them? Will enough of the people be annoyed by buzzing in the park that it gets banned?
 
  • Like
Reactions: jb.
Andrius Simutis said:
Ha! Totally. You also have to realize that it's Seattle. The same person writing a screed against any flying of "drones" is also writing screeds against the parks department for trying to ban smoking in the parks. Either way, they'd never say anything about it to your face here.
But where will this go? Will the people who don't like drones outweigh the persons that are interested in them? Will enough of the people be annoyed by buzzing in the park that it gets banned?
Click to expand...

Right now, I don't know. They have so many awesome uses, but there is definitely a perception problem among the public as a whole. Some real, reasonable regulations with teeth would go a long way towards cleaning things up a bit.

I think there's a decent-sized group of people who're interested to very interested in drones. On the other side, I think there's a very vocal minority that are staunchly against them for various reasons. The huge bulk of people are ambivalent about them and are easily swayed by scary arguments like "they're spying on you!" or "what if they take down an airliner?!" Both of those are largely silly scare tactics, but they are effective.

To be honest, I'm more worried about someone dropping a Phantom (or Inspire or S900 or whatever) into the middle of a soccer game they were filming and hurting a few kids. I'm also worried about the full-scale pilot reports about drone sightings (even though I know that most of them are probably mistakes or made up) because they reinforce the scary idea that one of these things might take down an airliner. I cringe every time I see drones mentioned on the news because I know that it's probably going to be negative and that's another bump in the road to mainstream acceptance of UASs.

Acting like these things aren't dangerous at all and comparing them to marbles and toasters doesn't help our case. They ARE somewhat dangerous... and worse they LOOK even more dangerous than that. They probably SHOULD be regulated, just like cars are. Flying one responsibly requires knowledge and skill and I believe you should be able to prove you have them before you take to the skies and put other people at risk. That said, we should weigh the risks with the regulations and come up with a balance that's not overly onerous. Ideally you want the requirements to get into it to be just onerous enough that fulfilling them requires getting the knowledge and skill it takes to be safe... and even better if it also weeds out the idiots who'd get wasted and fly their drone onto the White House lawn.

I almost gave the whole thing up a few months ago. It often feels like we're heading towards an inevitable ban based on media reports alone.
 
While I agree drones can be dangerous if used by careless people, I also believe that the benefits of drones far outway the risks. I mean, never before would you have been able to view locations from around the world this way: http://travelwithdrone.com/

Like jbregar mentioned, there needs to be a balance. For the sake of discussion, what would be some appropriate regulations that you wouldn't mind having on drone usage? Being required to pass a safety/law/usage test (similar to a driver's license)? What about a fee for usage of drones? (I think a fee would be a very ineffective regulation, as it will be difficult to track as more and more drones are being used). What are your ideas and thoughts?
 
I think the NPRM is a pretty good start, especially with the "micro-UAS" add-on.

I'd like to see something similar with the hobby community as well. I think it's important to know airspace and how it's used. I wouldn't be opposed to some kind of registration for drones requiring an ID number (like a tail number) so a given drone could be traced back to its owner.

In terms of rules, I'm all for a codified height restriction around the 4-500ft range and a 3NM buffer around airports. I think you should have to comply with NOTAMs and no-fly zones unless you petition for and receive authorization.

In order to comply with these kinds of things, I could see requiring some kind of altimeter indication... possibly other hardware features.
 
dustylense said:
In fact, the analogies P13 used are right on spot. The only drone flight I can research up that in fact involved someone dying is a guy that killed himself flying a stunt helicopter (not even a multi rotor) into himself. Looks like he shouldn't have been playing with marbles.
http://blogs.wsj.com/metropolis/2013/09/05/remote-control-helicopter-kills-man-in-brooklyn/

The only other story I can find of a multi rotor incident was the one with the guy covering the winter olympics. Guess what? It was one of those so called "big shots" flying a larger UAV. The guy like YOU. Who thinks his experience comes with safety.
Click to expand...
The death of the lad in New York was an RC stunt heli, nothing even like a multicopter, although some stories have tried to misrepresent this case as a multirotor incident to mislead the argument. The safety record of UAV/Drone/Multicopters - whatever you want to call them is exceptionally good, you can read some detail here: http://www.uavhive.com/2015/03/10/a...e-experts-attacking-the-multicopter-industry/

"Deaths are extremely rare in the radio controlled model aircraft hobby. To my knowledge, there have only been two or three in the entire history of the United States, and those have involved gas-powered very large models flying at high speeds, not the type of battery-powered, slow-moving, small multirotors (quadcopters) that are most popular for aerial photography."

"With any technology, accidents are inevitable. 3,500 teenage deaths a year are attributable to texting while driving. That’s a quarter of all traffic accidents. Texting is mostly fun, it is sometimes very useful, but I doubt anyone would suggest that the price we are paying as a society is “worth it.” Yet I don’t hear people asking to eliminate texting or even to implement technology that makes texting impossible from the driver’s seat (I’m sure that could be done)."

I'm soon to be a fully licensed and CAA approved flyer myself, I know plenty of people who are, we all agree that the regulation (considering quadcopters to be treated the same as full sized helicopters) is excessive and the dangers are overplayed, there's profit to be made in regulation and insurance and some are making a nice earner from the hysteria.

I've noticed in the US where the media often have real helicopters some of their news crews are going out of their way to exaggerate so called near misses as multicopters pose a threat to their jobs, I really fail to see how anyone can claim a credible near miss using camera footage from a helicopter equipped with a 36-72x zoom.

I should add I think it's a dangerous game using hobbyists as scapegoats, the technology exists as it does and at the price point it sells for because of hobbyists, they are the lifeblood of the industry. The 3DR Solo has Arducopter which is open source and written by amongst others, the hobbyists, Openpilot, written by hobbyists, without them as the backbone to the multicopter industry we wouldn't be having this very conversation. It's hobbyists driving use of the DJI SDK to make the Phantom and Inspire do more. Don't turn on hobbyists, instead turn on those exaggerating the risk and trying to drive a wedge between hobbyists and professionals.
 
Last edited:
Look I think we need some basic rules, but the biggest danger from drones is the media. FEAR is what they peddle - danger from falling, privacy invasion, terrorism uses, flying into aircraft, etc.
Here in Australia, they charge $5,500 for a licence !!! I mean the things fly themselves.
Also the company that hires the drone person, whether it's a media company, or a sports promotion company, etc, has to have a seperate operators licence - another $3500. Does that make sense ?
I'm all for a few rules and a licence but lets not make it so difficult and expensive that people will bypass the system.
 
malibudutchie said:
Look I think we need some basic rules, but the biggest danger from drones is the media. FEAR is what they peddle - danger from falling, privacy invasion, terrorism uses, flying into aircraft, etc.
Here in Australia, they charge $5,500 for a licence !!! I mean the things fly themselves.
Also the company that hires the drone person, whether it's a media company, or a sports promotion company, etc, has to have a seperate operators licence - another $3500. Does that make sense ?
I'm all for a few rules and a licence but lets not make it so difficult and expensive that people will bypass the system.
Click to expand...
Some very good points, the media are making drone hysteria to sell copy and as click bait for stories they publish, this week a UK newspaper, the Daily Mail, which seems to have a vendetta on drones, ran a story saying you can buy a zoom equipped drone for £30 and that burglars were using them to check out security systems and then rob houses, which is utter BS.

I've been looking into commercial insurance, there's only a couple of insurers offering this and they don't appear willing to sell just third party liability insurance (which is all you need legally), they insist on covering the copter rig too, but the excess works out about 50% of the price of the drone I wish to use, that's a really poor deal. The insurance itself is 20 times more expensive than the insurance a hobbyist can buy. With this in mind I understand why there are people that won't even bother going legit.
 
Like I said, the NPRM here in the US is about right regulation-wise.

Total cost to get your operator's license and register an airframe is estimated at around $500.

As for hobby use, I think a short course in airspace and how not to be a jackass would go a long way. Maybe a small operator's license fee to cover the cost of the course and to have something to take away if there are violations.
 
"Total cost to get your operator's license and register an airframe is estimated at around $500"
jbregar is that right - your operators licence is only $500 !! Is that an FAA approved commercial licence ?
Did you see the cost in Australia ??
 
I tend to think of drones the same way as green lasers. They've become widely available, easy to use, and have been heavily abused by a few. However, there aren't sweeping regulations that have shut the industry or market for them down. I hope that nothing horribly conspicuous and disastrous happens with a drone, otherwise we may see a knee jerk reaction that heavily limits them. Right now, things don't seem to be tracking in that direction, despite terribly embarassing stories about morons flying them near airports and such...
 
malibudutchie said:
"Total cost to get your operator's license and register an airframe is estimated at around $500"
jbregar is that right - your operators licence is only $500 !! Is that an FAA approved commercial licence ?
Did you see the cost in Australia ??
Click to expand...

That's from the FAA's Notice of Proposed Rule Making. It's their first-draft of the rules they're looking at for commercial UAS in the USA.
 
Good to see this discussion has interest.

Keep in mind my OP though, my concern is over the idiots, not the diligent folks. There's fair points on both sides, but comparing to a toaster is well... a touch far fetched.

There are those abiding by the rules, and those are the folks you'll likely never hear about because those rules help keep them from causing possible issues.

The people i'm talking about are the ones being reckless, breaking the rules, etc... And by beef is with their sheer lack of sensibility when they see just how cool it is to fly over crowds/cars/etc... Now, when toasters can fly, that will be a grand day for sure, and will make it more relevant to the conversation.

the fact is, drone use will increase, and thusly, accidents will increase. in the dji forums there are people clamoring for unrestricted heights in the software, i for one think the software should have limiters built in that enforce the local laws. Is that practical and perfect? of course not, i don't live in a walgreens world, but i sure as heck will advocate for a better one
 
Looks like most good points have been made, mine would be that's it's indicative of an epidemic of lack of common sense.

dustylense said:
$500,000,000 in 2014 for DJI sales.
Click to expand...

In looking for a source of dusty's numbers, I came across this Forbes article on the egomaniac who started DJI, fired Colin Guinn, and said of Steve Jobs, “I appreciate Steve Jobs’ ideas, but there is no one I truly admire”

DJI's on track for $1 BILLION sales this year, just secured $10 Billion of funding, and the owner is the world's newest billionaire, worth $4.5 Billion ($4,500,000,000). Wow.
Now if they can just keep the Inspire from dropping like a rock...

A very interesting read, even with no mention of safety other than the top of the story.

Bow To Your Billionaire Drone Overlord
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2015/05/06/dji-drones-frank-wang-china-billionaire/
 
Thanks for the article. It's a good read.

Seeing his attitude about things, I can see why DJI's customer support is so incredibly terrible.
 
Darren Levine said:
There's fair points on both sides, but comparing to a toaster is well... a touch far fetched.
Click to expand...

Not trying to speak for anyone else, but it is a fair comparison because of the amount of negative coverage compared to actual numbers. I always think of the bird-flu and mad cow stories from a few years back (as a former news producer I wrote many stories about both) where you could count the number of deaths on one hand, yet annually the regular old flu kills thousands here in the U.S. and gets a fraction of the coverage. Making matters worse is the fact that politicians have latched onto drones as something that gets publicity, that's never good. The toaster analogy shows what a hot button topic drones have become, there certainly aren't any calls for a license to toast bagels, yet they are more dangerous - assuming those numbers are accurate. They hype doesn't match reality.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top