Drone Hobbyists Angered by Congress Ending the Aerial Wild West

Almost every time we have a BBQ or other outside event someone buzzes a drone overhead and just sits there watching us. Almost every time I go out hiking I hear the high pitched whine of a drone flying around the country park. It seems no matter where I go there is someone flying one. They are a total nuisance, create tons of noise pollution in areas that are usually quite tranquil, invade privacy and just annoy me all around to be honest.

Calling the state of drones the &quot;wild west&quot; pretty much puts the conclusion at the start.<p>How about, &quot;Drone hobbyists angered at pointless laws that treat their hobby like it&#x27;s a problem&quot;

The article is talking about the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.congress.gov&#x2F;bill&#x2F;115th-congress&#x2F;house-bill&#x2F;4&#x2F;text" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.congress.gov&#x2F;bill&#x2F;115th-congress&#x2F;house-bill&#x2F;4&#x2F;te...</a><p>The problematic portion for drone hobbyists is &quot;S.2836 - Preventing Emerging Threats Act of 2018&quot; that was attached to the FAA Reauthorization bill. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.congress.gov&#x2F;bill&#x2F;115th-congress&#x2F;senate-bill&#x2F;2836&#x2F;text" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.congress.gov&#x2F;bill&#x2F;115th-congress&#x2F;senate-bill&#x2F;283...</a><p>In it&#x27;s current form, it has some really vague wording and definitions. For example, the bill frequently refers to &quot;threat&quot; without a solid definition. It basically says that &quot;threat&quot; will be defined by the Secretary or Attorney General at a later time.

I&#x27;m mildly incredulous on the actual scope of the bill compared to what&#x27;s being reported (it&#x27;s a learned behavior), does anyone have the name of the bill or the full text that I may go read for myself?<p>Mostly because as as a remote pilot, I have a feeling the proposals may be much less onerous than we&#x27;re being lead to believe by Bloomberg here and what hobbyist groups are complaining about.<p>Stated as a Licensed Part 107 operator. I think <i>everyone</i> should be required to undergo <i>some</i> kind of training, with tiers for educational, hobbyist, and commercial. I learned a lot more in those classes than just how to fly a Phantom DJI and found the regulatory knowledge alone to be HIGHLY insightful.

As a pilot and former flight instructor, I&#x27;m not terribly sympathetic to the recreational drone complaints. There are recreational kite fliers too, and they have FAA regulations that apply to them, I don&#x27;t hear them complaining. There are model airplane pilots, they have FAA regulations, they have a community that is very serious about education, training, mentor-peer relationships and self monitoring and reporting.<p>I do not see this at all with the drone pilot community. It&#x27;s a community of individuals. And even if it&#x27;s less than 1% of the total drone pilot population, there is a real problem with this bizarre demand that they have a right to do what they want. They do not. This is shared space. Ham radio operators have more rules, testing, peer review and community than recreational drone pilots.

Long gone are the days of needing only a Technician class radio license to operate FCC uncertified radio and video transmission gear, strapped onto a cheap foam RC plane from China, piloted by a human with nothing more than a controller, video goggles, and an antenna to achieve mile-long distances and thousand foot heights.<p>THAT was the wild west.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=NfzBiZUPSo0" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=NfzBiZUPSo0</a>

What year will we see the following scenarios actually happen:<p>* Someone flies a drone into a government facility with an explosive | camera | contraband?<p>* Public figure&#x2F;celebrity or official assassinated by drone<p>* Drone causes infrastructure damage or transportation accident<p>* Drone used for spying &#x2F;financial gain<p>---<p>Honestly, the lack of the above happening in any large scale, notable or meaningful way shows that there arent a ton of people out there looking to wreak havoc with drones.<p>What I am surprised by is there are not yet a range of security services based on drones - i.e. a swarm of autonomous drone cameras which patrol a given asset&#x2F;area where they autonomously recharge themselves and fly around - coupled with motion sensors&#x2F;proximity sensors that being triggered are dispatched to investigate.

This is just to clear the airspace and sell licensing fees to Google, Amazon and the like in a few years.

Why are HN so keen on defending drones? Serious question. Is there any altruistic reason or do hackers just like drones? What about privacy issues? Drones seem much more intrusive than the CCTVs people here normally are against.

Some time ago I wanted to see what kind of videos people make with drones, and the top result on Youtube was a compilation of videos of nude girls sunbathing who absolutely did not want to be filmed.<p>When I saw that, I realised that there are too many assholes in the world to allow unregulated drones. Some people will invade the privacy of others without any thought, and the only course of action is to require registration of drones.<p>It&#x27;s a shame -- I&#x27;m sure there are plenty of responsible drone pilots out there. But the jerks ruin it for everyone.

Ending the Aerial Wild West implies that the wild west is no more. There are plenty of places to buy drone parts, controllers, etc... that do not require any registration. Would it perhaps be more accurate to say, that the wild west is slightly limited to true hobbyists and terrorists? Would such regulations just limit the average person from buying their &quot;toy&quot; drones? The drone hobbyists that I know are not impacted by this. They use 3d headsets and race their drones through buildings up to 6 miles away.

The eventual value of low level airspace for drone use vastly exceeds the value of any current use. If we wait long enough we will get to read lurid articles about reckless people in manually controlled aircraft blundering through drone space, putting the lives of themselves and others at risk for no good reason.<p>The governments of the world have entirely dropped the ball on anti-collision systems for small aircraft up to now. I anticipate them doing no better now that there are even smaller aircraft added to the mix.

I think it&#x27;s fair enough that there should be law to choose out fly zone only for drones to still preserve privacy, tranquility and lessen the noise pollution, some people might think that drones are also hobby for people, but not all people don&#x27;t have the same exact common things to enjoy.<p>City of LA is now issuing permits for this kind of issue<p>Excerpt: The city and the county of Los Angeles have issued nearly 60 permits for drones on film and TV sets in the last year, according to data from FilmL.A., which handles permits for the Los Angeles region. In addition to the permits, applications for drone waivers have poured in, with more than 200 companies and individuals requesting authorisation from the FAA to operate drones for film production, per the FAA website.<p>full article: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;beth.technology&#x2F;drones-over-hollywood-an-aerial-view-of-video-security&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;beth.technology&#x2F;drones-over-hollywood-an-aerial-view...</a>

While I think many of the provisions for drones are too restrictive, one provision is crucial:<p><i>The law also weighs into the controversial issue of whether drones should have radio beacons that identify their position and registered owner. It would grant the Federal Aviation Administration the authority to require that. The agency is drafting such a regulation at the request of homeland security and law enforcement agencies and has signaled it may require retrofitting millions of drones already in use.</i><p>Autonomous drones are far cheaper to produce than automobiles. And what if an autonomous drone drops grenades in a public area? Who do you blame? How does the law prevent further issues?<p>We better crack down on unidentified drones.

LOL it will be harder to own a drone than to own a gun

About time. I&#x27;m F*ing amazed this has gone on so long! As if no one has duck taped some github computer vision human recognition AI&#x27;s with some strapped on Pistol&#x2F;Semi automatic hooked up to an onboard arduino.

Ultra light aircraft don&#x27;t need test&#x2F;license while drones would be required to have it.

Terrorists are already using Drones to attack people[1]. ISIS are buying and perhaps using drones in Europe[2]. Unfortunately, this means drones will need to be regulated like they are weapons, because they are used as weapons.<p>1- <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;08&#x2F;04&#x2F;world&#x2F;americas&#x2F;venezuelan-president-targeted-in-attack-attempt-minister-says.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;08&#x2F;04&#x2F;world&#x2F;americas&#x2F;venezuelan...</a><p>2- <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jpost.com&#x2F;Breaking-News&#x2F;Two-arrested-in-Denmark-for-attempting-to-smuggle-drones-to-ISIS-568039" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.jpost.com&#x2F;Breaking-News&#x2F;Two-arrested-in-Denmark-...</a>

This is bureaucratic nonsense. For 50 years, RC planes have been fine. This is a knee-jerk overreaction to take out their frustrations on convenient bystanders, eg hobbyists, when they can&#x27;t defend against terrorists with flying bombs whom aren&#x27;t going to register anything. Plus, how will it be enforced? Going to put FAA goons in park trees to catch those felonious dads shooting Estees model rockets and buzzing RC planes (aka &quot;drones&quot;) around?