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Comment by syshum | Hacker News Reader

Explain to me how my flying a 4 pound drone at a height of 100 ft to take a photo of my home is putting someones life in danger to the point where the FAA should require me to register my activity and pass a license program?

Edit:

"my kid are playing in our backyard. Do I have the right of privacy?": No you do not have a Right to privacy, I can put a camera on my roof or pole and record your backyard if I wanted and there is nothing legally you could do about it

Drones falling from the sky: General liability laws would apply no different than if I am mowing my lawn and a rock flys out and hits you, or if I am play yard Darts and I toss one over your fence which injures you.

I can not prove it is safe: That is not how a free society works, the burden is not on me to prove my actions are safe, the burden is on YOU to prove that my actions have a more likely than not probability of causing physical harm to others or their property

Other Air Traffic Hitting a Wing: Why are they below 400ft, or the less than 100 ft I would fly but still be under the FAA Regulations, My entire point is that under 100ft should not be under the FAA at all,

View on HN

1. If you don't understand how you flying 4pound drone at 100ft is putting somebody's life in danger, you absolutely under no circumstances should own or use a drone of any kind. Sorry if that sounds personal or insulting, but I'll stand by that statement.

2. I have a Mavic Air plus a few smaller drones. I'm extremely aware that I can push this thing to 65km/h and do some solid damage, either maliciously, but much much more likely carelessly

3. I have lent several drones to several intelligent, typically safe friends, either under my supervision or alone in a field. Universally they pushed them too hard too fast and lost control quickly. [I don't care if you're going to say "but that's not me". a) Every one of my friends said that, and b) how is anybody else to trust that _your_ claim specifically is truthful? Prove it.]

4. The more intelligent the drone, unfortunately the more likely the person is to underestimate its danger because "these things fly themselves" and "it has collision avoidance". My nerd friends have started using them like Tesla's autopilot - perfectly safe and awesome until the very moment it isn't, at which point it's too late if you don't have your hands actively on controls.

So as much as it'll HUUUUUGELY inconvenience me, I fully understand that if I need to register and license my car, motorcycle, boat, plane, etc... I need to register and license my other fast-moving piece of dangerous machinery.

It's obviously hyperbolic to claim that there is virtually zero safety risk of a 4 pound drone, but I also see a lot of hyperbolic exaggeration of the risk. The two main risk categories of drones are interference with aircraft and interference with the ground.

The aircraft risk is almost entirely mitigated by not flying your drone anywhere near low-flying aircraft. That requires a small amount of research. You should be far enough away from aircraft that the risk of your drone losing control and flying into aircraft flight paths (whether due to malfunction or operator mistake) is virtually zero.

The ground risk is harder to mitigate, because the normal failure states of a drone are falls and short but fast uncontrolled horizontal flights. The risk of property damage or injury in these cases is very real, but I think it's on par with the risk of some common recreational activities (like throwing or hitting a baseball), and much lower than the risk of some very common and well-accepted activities (like driving a car).

All these things (flying a small drone, playing baseball, driving a car, etc.) require some knowledge and diligence. I believe society can, should, and will establish a set of safety expectations and risk acceptance for new things (like drones) just like society has for old things (like baseball and cars).

> The aircraft risk is almost entirely mitigated by not flying your drone anywhere near low-flying aircraft.

The problem here is that any half-decent consumer grade drone has a range of a few kilometres and an operational ceiling of several hundred feet. You can't rely on 'just flying it sensibly' when a software bug could send it anywhere within the hardware's limits.

The risk of this causing serious harm is very small and the hyperventilation induced by it in some of the community is overblown, but it is there.

> range of a few kilometres and an operational ceiling of several hundred feet

The ceiling altitude is a software limit, which is applied relative to the take-off altitude. The physical limit of, e.g., a Mavic Pro is somewhere around 5km, where the air desity gets too low.

If you take off on 2km mountain and fly straight, the software ceiling still applies to the take-off height, so you can easily reach an airspace where you should not be (to my knowledge).

You might be at an altitude above mean sea level that _can_ be covered by different airspace rules, but terrain is scary to aircraft, and safety altitudes around it tend to be generous.

If you're on a tall hill that would otherwise infringe on airspace you shouldn't fly in, chances are the safety altitude for that region is still going to be greater than the paper limit for if you were on plains at MSL.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowest_safe_altitude

Yeah, I was being conservative with the height. A low end drone can do hundreds of feet, a high end one can do much more.

As for height, it's measured relative to takeoff altitude I believe. So you can take off, fly off a cliff, and still be legal.

TBH, I think your comment mischaracterizes the OP and is really unfair to him. He didn't say that he doesn't know how a 4 lb drone at 100 feet could put someone's life in danger. They can do that at 5 feet if your reckless enough. Rather, he said that he doesn't understand how this risk translates to a need to have the FAA be the regulatory body involved with similar rules to the point of requiring licensing.

I've flown a few quadcopters and I tend to agree with him. There are real dangers, but they aren't materially greater than lots of other things that we choose not to spend my tax money regulating. I'd rather we not waste my money on regulating 4lb drones at 100 feet either.

Certainly possible; I'll let the OP address how much I've mischaracterized, but I've read the first statement as "Explain to me how this is SO dangerous that we need to regulate/do something about it", and I've made a point that other things which are in that danger category (for example, cars) are in fact regulated and licensed.

I feel it is more likely that the OP and yourself, have a different categorization of the danger of drones than I do. If the claims are there are other activities that dangerous which we don't regulate, please offer an example. A priori, it is likely we may disagree if they're in the same category of risk or not :-/

I think drones are close to the level of dangers of cars. I would be curious which other vehicles of that speed and potential for danger a person can control that are not regulated or licensed.

If the question is why FAA specifically, I guess it makes sense to me that agency in charge of flying things would be the one; may not make same intuitive sense to others.

(for the record, if you say "electric scooter", I think those should be licensed like regular scooters as well :)

Note that I've flown a $40 hand-sized drone, a $100 1-lb foot-sized drone, and a Mavic Air; so my experience is limited - but I really feel Mavic Air can easily kill a person with a moment's slip of attention, and it's ridiculous I'm allowed to just woosh with it around right now :S. I would personally _want_ to take a class, learn, and be licensed and demonstrate that I'm responsible. I think insurance would be a reasonable requirement as well, while we're at it... unpopular opinion I'm sure :)

> I think drones are close to the level of dangers of cars.

prosumer level drones are certainly a lot more dangerous than people who have only seen $40 toys would imagine, but i have to say this is a bit of a stretch. the mavic air you mention has a top speed of ~42 mph (although you won't find them traveling that fast for long) and weighs just under a pound. the maximum kinetic energy delivered is within a factor of two of a high school pitcher's fastball. the props can definitely cut you up bad, but it's not going to kill you unless it happens to hit a critical artery. this particular drone also happens to cost $800, fairly easy for a seriously interested professional to come up with, but most people are not buying a drone like this unless they plan to skip this generation of iphones. finally, a major reason why air travel is much safer than cars is that the airspace is actually quite sparse; there's just not that much stuff to run into if you're not near a major airport. when you consider all these factors together, it's not surprising that i can only find a handful of incidents where a bystander was seriously injured by a drone over the last 5 years, despite the fact that there are more unmanned than manned aerial vehicles in the US!

i don't know how you're going to compare this to a >3000 pound vehicle that routinely travels through densely populated areas at 30mph. the electric scooter would be a better comparison imo.

since i've already written a wall of text, i will say that i don't necessarily mind paying $200 and taking a course one time to be able to fly my drone with relative freedom. what i mind is having to call all 10 helipads (which may not even be operational) within 5 miles of me, one by one, every time i want to fly my drone 5 feet off the ground in my backyard.

>>(for the record, if you say "electric scooter", I think those should be licensed like regular scooters as well :)

and that is likely where we will continue to disagree

You seem to have the belief that the default position should be regulation and people need to justify where there should not be regulation

Where I believe in freedom and you believe in regulation... This is a fundamental difference

I do not believe electric scooters should be regulated, I do not believe alot of things that are regulated today should be regulated

and I do not believe the government should regulate what I choose to fly for recreation on my own property, thus why I believe I should have completely control from ground level to 100ft.

"if I need to register and license my car, motorcycle, boat, plane, etc..."

I highly doubt you need to take an RC car to your DMV and get it registered. You almost certainly don't have to do so even for some manned coneyances (bicycles, electric bicycles in a growing number of jurisdictions, vehicles never intended to be used on public roads, etc.).

Trying to compare a toy/hobbyist drone or RC plane to a full-blown car (let alone aircraft) in terms of responsibility and registration requirements is patently absurd.

> vehicles never intended to be used on public roads

Presumably you wouldn't have to register your drone if you never intended to fly it in the public airspace. Indoors in your own facility? Have at it.

I think part of my concern is that this sort of regulation implies there's no such thing as private airspace, which means that even something as relatively-harmless as putting up a shed is a "danger" to aircraft and subject to FAA regulations by this exact same logic. Oh, and if you want to fly a kite you can, well, go fly a kite.

Realistically, trying to enforce control of airspace below 100ft over private property is going to be a fool's errand at best. That's space that ought to be fair game for unregistered aircraft (at that point I'd hardly call them "aircraft" anyway).

There IS private airspace indoors (it is why drone races typically happen in warehouses or stadiums). Outdoors, there is no private airspace so much as there is Class G airspace which is all airspace under 1200ft as long as you are out of range of any landing strips/airports, or under 700AGL if you are near certain larger airports. It is not legal to fly any manned aircraft in class g unless either transiting through to land/takeoff, or if you have clearance. However, it happens fairly often (just look at sightseeing helicopters as an example). A common problem with drone hobbyists is that they don't know anything about commercial airspace. Much of the concern has been about flying near airports where transiting low-altitude space is necessary. If drone operators had been assiduous in avoiding those areas (as RC aircraft operators have been) then this would be less of a concern.

I agree though, that there is very little possibility of enforcing low altitude airspace rules, unless they force some kind of software/transponder system into use. even then, the home-built drones are just too easy to make to guarantee it.

Yeah, the zero foot drone limit 'near' airports is just ridiculous.

Exactly. It's a step away from registering paper airplanes.

I can't, but here's the kicker...neither can you. In this business, you're not allowed to presume safety. Unless you've been trained to understand the ramifications on airspace, you really don't know. That's not how a safety first culture works. You don't make a change to a business critical production system without going through change control...why is it so absurd to consider registering your activity in airspace before you do it? The only reason I can think of is that it's inconvenient for you, which sucks but that's not good enough.

Stats is on his side. He CAN assume it is safe, since given how many are in the air, and how few problems we have, in his scenario we can assume it is safe unless shown otherwise.

I am for the regulation, but, I am also against people not using basic stats.

Riding a pair of rollerskates can be dangerous to the people around you, but, you wouldn't force people to licence to do that right?

You can hurt someone if they get a paper aircraft in the eye, but you don't licence them either.

It has to be on the basis of how likely you are to get problems, and how dangerous those problems are going to be. Saying "I can (or can't in this case) conceive of a situation where this could be a problem" isn't a high enough bar.

For larger drones, hell yeah you will need licencing, and flying near aircraft, then again, yes.

But this case? In this case, he has stats on his side.

As luck would have it, I have a degree in statistics and I'm a trained statistician! So let's talk about stats.

Let's assume he's 99.99%[0] safe to fly his drone in this situation. That means 1 in 10,000 drone flights are not. That's actually not a great safety margin when you consider how often this is done a day. There are 2.5 million drones in operation at the moment.

You're overemphasizing the individual case here and not the population at large. There's actually a formal name for this type of statistical fallacy, though I've forgotten it. There's TED talks about it and everything.

But you can probably get better than 99.99% assurance of safety here...and you do that by registering your intent with people who assess safety for a living.

[0] this is, of course, a ludicrous statistic. It's illustrating the absurdity of thinking that just because something is unlikely doesn't mean it won't happen. In this case, when it happens people can get seriously or fatally hurt.

I'm curious where you are getting your 99.99% figure, and why you thought that is a would be a safe assumption to make your point out of. Do "trained statisticians" frequently assume with data?

If you can provide evidence that drones are 99.99% safe in the aforementioned "this situation", I will be happy to recant my retort. Otherwise, please avoid strawman arguments.

As for @myrryrs argument. I believe the sentiment is along the lines of "don't let perfect be the enemy of good" - which I am in favor of. Blanket rules that disallow amateur drone usage in relatively safe situations are overkill. General safety rules that urge drone users to stay away from airports - probably a good idea. If my intent is to fly my drone around in the woods while I go mountain biking, why should I be required to tell anyone?

Let us add regulation where regulation is needed - not throw it around like a panacea whenever something unpleasant happens.

99.99% is a wild assumption merely to illustrate the fallacy in thinking that just because something is unlikely doesn't mean it won't happen.

And I'm all for "don't let perfect be the enemy of good" in many situations...but none of them are where people die if mistakes happen.

Thought experiments are useful, but the post you were replying to was essentially saying "show me the data," and no real data were shown.

And yet, you eat food prepared by others, take buses, play sports, swim, step foot on a boat, cross streets.

(I am only guessing you do these things, most people do)

ALL of these are where people die if mistakes happen.

It just comes down to risks.

Again, I actually think that a licencing situation for larger drones would be a good idea, I think bans near airports is good. I just hate some of the arguments people use to get there.

I'm curious if you've flown a modern consumer drone recently? Something like a Phantom or a Mavic.

I have and I would trust a reasonably intelligent person who is into the hobby to handle them with care and educate themselves on the proper regulation and procedures (and other details like caring for LiPO batteries). I don't know if I'd trust the average person with the hobby.

I'm not claiming that we need extremely strict regulation, but I can see why people would want to over-index on more regulation.

I've seen people here compare drones to boats, cars, etc. I feel like that's a bit of a false equivalency.

Mistakes happen all the time with drones yet no one has died. RC helicopters? They have definitely killed people, but no one is concerned about those...

The FAA is interested because the MSM news published so many salacious articles about how big bad and scary drones were and those stories got clicks.

Drones were/are new and budding technology and they can be somewhat autonomous which scares the public. People’s lack of understanding about the programming and the sensors used coupled with the addition of a camera made this yet another very a un-newsworthy clickbait scandal.

I used to build program and fly high powered drones but the media made the political environment nearly intolerable. Between the public’s reaction and the politician’s growing interest, I stopped building and flying.

As a sidenote, when I was a kid I flew “large” 5’ rockets. They used slow burn explosives to produce fire. Now there is the potential for some real damage. No one cared

the FAA has been intensely interested and collaborative with the drone industry for YEARS. since 2015 at least when I saw people from the FAA at commercial drone conferences talking about the importance of how drones would be operated safely. They first had commercial exemptions in section 333 and then formally passed Part 107 in order to address the needs of commercial operators in 2016. To say that the FAA is "only interested because of the mainstream media" is pretty inaccurate. they've been interested for YEARS.

You tell me this like it’s news. I had individual FAA drone permits in 2016. I was following developments closely it was a little before then that the public started to freak out with all the news coverage of mostly a few phantom owners doing stupid things. Yes this was a MSM created event starting back in 2014 and FAAs concern grew from that. There were loud public demands for the FAA to regulate drones based on fears one would collide with a plane. Those fears were created and nurtured by the MSM

You made a fake argument just to prove a point irrelevant to what anyone was saying? Nobody said that semi-unlikely implied it won't happen...

ok, lets talk stats.

Lets NOT assume he is 99.99% safe.

Lets look at the 825,000 drones sold in one year, and estimate it from the number of problems that they had with those.

We don't just pick a number when we have a perfectly good sample to work with.

I AM looking at the population at large.

If there are There are 2.5 million drones in operation at the moment, which I am happy to agree to, and we are not seeing many problems, how much of a sample do you need?

99.99% is a wild assumption merely to illustrate a fallacy. If you want better probabilities, I have none, since so much is dependent on external factors. Applying a blanket probability to "how safe is it to fly a drone" is meaningless.

But almost 2000 drone incidents were reported in 2017 alone. For airplanes in that same time, unless I'm wildly misreading the FAA website, is...7. That's isn't quite apples to apples since the criteria for inclusion in each as an incident is different, but this is HN and not an FAA study. Point still being that even considering how unlikely something seems you need to compare it to the base rate.

After reading this thread, i thought of a sort of obvious solution.

Require some amount of liability insurance.

There are all sorts of complex regulations that could be put in place, but this is an easy, low effort one.

There is no regulation requiring private pilots obtain insurance. Such a requirement comes from the bank whose loan made it possible to acquire said plane; and most any airport with hangars will require evidence of it. I'm not sure what buying insurance does. It certainly provides no standardization of rules or training.

Have you read any FARs? There are FARs for flying kites and ultralights. What about any of that do you think is so complicated? Feel free to use a regulation in FAR 91 as an example for something onerous that insurance can obviate. One of my favorite regulations in these UAV conversations is:

§ 91.119 Minimum safe altitudes: General. Except when necessary for takeoff or landing, no person may operate an aircraft below the following altitudes: (a)Anywhere. An altitude allowing, if a power unit fails, an emergency landing without undue hazard to persons or property on the surface.

There is no reason at all why a drone should ever hurt someone, other than sheer incompetency and lack of imagination. Now where are you going to get that imagination? And how are you going to obtain competency? Insurance doesn't get you either of those things.

Are you assuming that the insurance industry will sufficiently regulate safety to achieve a safe overall outcome? (Note that this is in significant parts true today in the manned, piston-engine aircraft world.)

Or just suggesting insurance so that the injured get paid?

I’m suggesting it’s a very lightweight regulation. We are in this weird time, where actual safety is hard to ascertain.

The safest solution is to simply ban drones. But, there might be some utility there. Building up a history of risk would be super helpful. Some things are obvious. A six ounce toy is less dangerous than a 12 rotor monster. But that toy can still cause problems when it’s floating over the freeway.

I think insurance would create a data collection environment that could drive more realistic, useful regulations.

FWIW, movie studios generally require 5 million liability for drone shots. It’s pretty cheap to purchase, but those pilots are professional. Expanding to amateurs is complicated. Insurance gives some visibility into that complexity.

And you are using the internet statistics fallacy in an argument (did you know that 42.42% of statistics are made up on the spot?).

Considering the # of drones in operation at the moment, we can assume a MUCH lower risk to manned aviation assets than .01%. I'm sure that regulations aren't being driven by statistics (unfortunately, with things that get lots of attention, they rarely are).

You’re thinking of the fallacy of composition.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition

As a pilot of both full-sized aircraft and quadcopters, I think I can explain how 100 feet could potentially be a danger. Directly underneath the approach path of a runway that is less than a few hundred feet away might be bad.

Otherwise, there isn't a material impact. Noone should be flying their airplane within 100 feet of his house (by regulation).

I don't mean to call you out specifically, but this is really the problem with our regulatory environment. Lots of people involved with regulation actually have remarkably little understanding of the cost and benefits associated with the regulations that they advocate. I wish that I could go into more detail, but I've seen some truly crazy things being decided by people who literally had no idea of the consequences of their actions or how people in their field actually behaved.

You should write the Uniform Law Commission to enact private property rights up to 200’. [1] They are already considering this. You should have the right to fly a drone just over your property the same way you could drive an unregistered, non-street-legal vehicle on your property. You can’t go on public roads (or over public property or other peoples property), but you should have rights over your own property.

[1] https://www.unmannedairspace.info/uncategorized/ulc-proposes...

That proposal appears to only create additional restrictions: operating a drone under 200' without the permission of the property owner would be considered "aerial trespass". There was nothing in the article about guaranteeing the right to fly drones up to 200' over your own property. One presumes that under this proposal you would need the permission of both the property owner and the FAA.

By establishing property rights you make a stronger case for the right to fly a drone on your property. Certainly the FAA will have a safety say, but property rights will also be important. In the end, much of this may be decided by the courts.

It's not that the drone is the problem, it's what else is up there. Just yesterday I had 2 f-16s fly over my apartment [0]. Their height, by my estimate, was about 500 ft. Could I be wrong about the height? Sure, but I could see them quite clearly and hear them very well. Since I live near an AFB, I'm used to low bypass jets overhead. But yesterday was different, they were easily 5x as low as they should have been. Heck, they commonly fly low over games and that's as good a place to fly a drone as ever. The risk of an f-16 coming down near a stadium event is very very low, yes, but not a chance worth taking.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/Denver/comments/9m8b6s/what_was_wit...

if 2 f-16s actually flew 500 ft over your house there was almost certainly a temporary flight restriction over the area, which is very easy to look up. it's also already illegal to fly anything anywhere near a large stadium during a game.

the thing that frustrates me about this debate is that section 336 already had a pretty strict (and mostly reasonable, imo) set of rules for flying drones with severe penalties attached (up to $250k fine and possible jail time). idk why an informed person would call for stricter rules instead of just having the FAA enforce the ones that were already on the books.

> it's also already illegal to fly anything anywhere near a large stadium during a game.

The so-called stadium TFR can be read here: http://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/detail_7_4319.html

In particular, it has exceptions for:

A) The aircraft operation has been authorized by ATC for operational or safety purposes, including authorization of flights specifically arriving at or departing from an airport designated by ATC using standard ATC procedures and routes; B) the aircraft operation is being conducted for operational, safety, or security purposes supporting the qualifying event, and is authorized by an airspace security waiver approved by the FAA; C) the aircraft operation is enabling broadcast coverage for the broadcast rights holder for the qualifying event, and is authorized by an airspace security waiver approved by the faa; D) the aircraft operation has been authorized by ATC for national security, homeland security, law enforcement, or air ambulance purposes;

I use exception A fairly regularly. I can imagine a flight of 2 Vipers would fall under exception B (if an opening ceremony flyover) or D (more likely for a transit operation).

That's easy, here's what happens when a drone strikes an airplane wing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH0V7kp-xg0

As discussed when this was on the front page, a static airplane wing reacts differently to an active airplane wing, which is forcing air out of the way around it. Also airplanes don't generally fly at 100ft, unless you are at an airport.

I agree that drones should be heavily regulated, but this doesn't seem like the argument as to why.

um, no it wasn't. Any airflow near the boundary layer at that speed amounts to a rounding error in the test. The range of approach paths that result in significant damage would still be the same. Not only does this damage the wing, but you're also putting a large chunk of damaged lipo battery in close proximity to the fuel tanks. Not something I hope to ever encounter.

We nearly got to see the result with a live rotor recently (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBRI0Q1fq7s), which I'm glad only turned into a near miss.

I have a number of multicopters, and I fly small aircraft; I don't want to see either side regulated out of existence.

First: Going in I understand the impact a drone could have on a given aircraft wing if it were to impact. I also understand how that compares to a bird or at higher speeds as I've watched the linked video. I learned a lot I didn't know from it.

Now, honest question from someone outside the hobby who sees good arguments and reasons on both sides and doesn't seem to be swayed to one side or the other yet.

How many people flying drones, would you estimate, on a given day are flying their crafts within airspace that would be restricted for them, generally, if they were to be registered and request use of their regular airspace -- on a given day?

Is that even possible for anyone to guess? Am I asking a question that's unreasonable and too difficult to ask? That's just something that I think would give me and others on the outside some sort of idea how this would actually impact people wanting to fly drones.

I also realize this is being put in place to prevent an accident before it happens. That's obviously unneeded (any accident) and I'm sure no hobbyist or anyone for that matter is trying to get their drones tangled with an anything in the air, let alone an airplane.

I have no idea what the number would be, and probably no one else does either. I don't think the real issue is the total numbers though, it's always the outliers that are the problem -- as someone below stated: "jerks ruin everything".

The vast majority of hobbyists are thoughtful and considerate. RC aircraft have existed for a long time with few problems, with many of those aircraft being considerably larger, faster and higher flying.

It's the few users that don't consider the ramifications of their actions, like in the video I posted, which can ruin it for everyone.

How do you know an airplane won't fly at 100 feet over your backyard?

I actually get some nice airshows at my house: their is a field across the street, and so one a year the farmer flys in some fungicide. He flys at ~1 meter over the corn, then at the end he climbs just enough to get over the power lines and my house, turns around in my backyard and returns for the next pass.

I have a friend who travels the country taking pictures of houses, and then going door-to-door trying to sell them. I'm not sure how low he flies, but this job is best done from low.

"How do you know an airplane won't fly at 100 feet over your backyard?"

If an airplane is flying that low in a place that's not in close proximity to an airport, then something has already gone horribly horribly wrong and the existence or nonexistence of tiny propeller-powered aircraft no more (or less) dangerous than a bird is hardly going to be a factor.

If it is in close proximity to an airport, then there are already rules restricting the use of RC aircraft within certain radii of airports, so further regulation is redundant. Also, given - again - the existence of winged feathered creatures, the risk does not go away (and in fact is probably not even significantly decreased).

>>How do you know an airplane won't fly at 100 feet over your backyard?

because it should be illegal for them to do so, and be a violation of my property rights as I should have ownership interest and control of this airspace

There is already some legal precedent for upto 83 Feet, the FAA insist they control everything from 1 nanometer above my grass, the courts disagree but the FAA generally does not advance any cases below 100 ft because they are scared shitless of getting more court precedents establishing property owners control the airspace around their property

I think your comment makes a lot of sense and makes some good points. Sorry you were downvoted. HN is very pro regulation of drones. I never understood why.

People often overreact to new things. They did it with books, televisions, cars, etc. Maybe unease about change?

You'll see people react one way to the annoying sound of a nearby drone but not bat an eyelid when it's a helicopter (let's say it's a sightseeing helicopter rather than rescue chopper) or a lone person on jetski terrorising an otherwise quiet harbour.

I have a friend who will say "I hate drones, I just don't like them" with no real explanation. Nothing about the sound or risk. No bad history with them. I'm not discounting the risk or annoying sound, but I firmly believe a non-negligible percentage of people dislike them and then later retrofit an argument.

HN is very pro Regulation.

Pro Liberty content is routinely down voted here

1000ft or 100ft it doesn't matter. You could kill someone operating at 10ft in the wrong place (near a helipad). The standard glidepath flown by jets is 3deg. From the touchdown zone, 100ft covers a 1900ft arc.

All sorts of things could kill people in exactly the right circumstances. A handful of people have probably died after losing control of their vehicle swerving around someone's dog that wandered into the street. Just because something can add the final straw to a situation causing a bad thing to happen doesn't mean the likelihood is high enough to be worth regulation.

Considering how many drones are in operation ans how many accidents haven't happen I think we should err toward no license required under a certain altitude over private property (the same altitude at which you need to put a red light on a structure in that area sounds like a food starting point).

Lots of people have died avoiding animals. Slow down, honk your horn, and keep driving under control.

And yet we don't require licenses in order to have most common pets...

Don't most cities and towns require dog licenses? That seems like a fairly common pet and I know we have to get a license.

I live in one of the most busybody states on the east coast and I've never heard of a city or town that required a license for a pet.

It’s extremely common to require dog licenses. My rural New England town does.

You could kill someone by playing football near a helipad too, should we heavily regulate playing football everywhere too?

Anecdote: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz3Z-3gAl_M

Seriously. It's like this phony electronics ban on flights. Eliminating all risks in one are is insane and unreasonable because it's so often to the detriment of everything and everyone else. Next, laser pointers will be outlawed because some idiot might shine them towards a plane. Instead of eliminating RC planes and model rockets for an edge-case that can never happen, maybe the FAA should focus on things that matter like human factors.

And what makes you think that the FAA is not looking into those?

One reason for the electronics ban was evacuation, people starring at laptops are not that quick to get out of a burning plane. Considering that there always cases of people evacuating planes with their handluggage, that seems to have been some reason to it. That is was lifted was fine, it took a while but in the end it was lifted.

Also, every flight incident is thorouighly investigated. there is a reason why investigators are even putting to gather crashed planes in a year-long puzzle. And the decline in flight incidents is proof that this approach is working. The aerospace industry is also one of the most prolific players regarding crew management (as in workload distribution between pilots and increasing situational awareness). Again something entities like the FAA are pushing for.

Finally, the statement that RC planes and model rocket are an edge case that can never happen is, without further details, just a wild statement.

Move fast and break things might work in consumer electronics and social media apps, in industries like aerospace, automotive, oil and gas, nuclear power it can, and did, get people killed.

> Explain to me how my flying a 4 pound drone at a height of 100 ft to take a photo of my home is putting someones life in danger

If someone has to explain this to you, you shouldn't be the person flying a four pound drone at a height of a hundred feet. Seriously, it's not ok.

From an air traffic perspective this is very similar to asking "Why can't I erect a 100 foot unlit unmarked pole in my back yard without having to register my activity?"

There shouldn't be aircraft flying 100 feet above your house but I can think of a ton of scenarios where it could happen, and in most of them running into a drone takes the situation from "dangerous, but not an incident" to "fatal incident."

You can put up to a 200ft tower in your back yard for radio purposes without registration so long as you're at least 4 miles or greater from an airport (closer requires proportionally smaller towers - around 1mile/50ft). https://hamradioschool.com/g1b01-maximum-antenna-structure-h...

But not without a building permit and not without setback requirements.

Those are required in many populated areas. Most of USA would not involve such requirements.

If that drone falls, it will hit the ground at ~55 mph (ignoring wind resistance etc.). I would rather not have a 4 pound object smack into my head at 55 mph just because some parent thought their child could handle it

Are you next to a lake? Are there fire control airplanes reloading? (Yeah, this happened).

Are you next to high tension power lines? Is there a helicopter coming in to do maintenance?

The point is that you don't know, and neither does anybody else unless people are filing and reading flight plans.

Not sure why you're downvoted. Like said elsewhere, jerks ruin everything.

Regularly, multiple times a week across the West US in fire season, are air ops (sometimes large ones) shutdown because people think it's more important for them to get their next YouTube video with their drone than it is for helicopters and even jets to do water and retardant dumps.

OK, you have your drone and fly it over your home. But me and my kid are playing in our backyard. Do I have the right of privacy? And, what if your drone smashes in my head? Unless you own a 10,000 acre ranch...they are legitimate concerns. What we do about it is the question.

> me and my kid are playing in our backyard. Do I have the right of privacy?

you probably have a right not to be filmed for commercial purposes, if at all. however, I don't think you have some fundamental right not to be looked at by people who have line of sight or to ban any equipment that might give them that. even if drones didn't exist, I could fly a plane at a legal height and look at your backyard through a telescope or from a nearby hill.

in addition to the sibling reply,

> Unless you own a 10,000 acre ranch....

this is precisely the point. EVEN if you own a 10,000 acre ranch in the middle of nowhere, the regulations technically prohibit you to fly a small hobbyist aircraft around your own property. Does that sound reasonable?

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