Comment by NikolaNovak | Hacker News Reader

Comment by NikolaNovak | Hacker News Reader

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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).

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

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.

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

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