U.S. proposes to allow drone operation at night, over people
reuters.com
reuters.com
I read the Wikipedia article on Active Noise Control. The third paragraph under Explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_noise_control#Explanati... mentions that if it's at the source, it needs to be just as loud as the source (as opposed to being by the ear, in which case even a whisper might be enough).
In addition to being as loud as the source, you need to blast it in all directions. So I guess it's hard/impossible to perfectly hit the same sound waves in all directions. If you ever miss, you'll just be doubling the noise.
Maybe that's why you'll be hard-pressed to find anything in a fixed installation that uses active noise cancellation at the source - even if it's heavy, periodic, and uses a lot of power anyway - such as a home air conditioner. Noise cancellation close to the ear seems much easier for this reason, and maybe at the source it's just impossible.
Buuuut... that’s not really viable for anything civilian or even commercial.
(There existence is still not officially acknowledged of course, but many pictures exist.)
I was very curious about the technology they used to reduce the noise, as black hawks are very loud.
Though I guess high and light applications would disturbe less.
However, air passes over a propeller much, much faster than over a wing, and creates shock waves in a way that wings don't.
The major issue is that until drones came around, you didn’t have to worry very often about large number of high performance aircraft operating throughout civilian airspace, at very low altitudes in crowded areas.
That’s still pretty fast, of course. That points to using bigger props as a potential way to cut noise.
Cities, townships, what have you, will care about whatever their active constituents tell them to.
It took a few years, but a neighborhood organization managed to get a crackdown on motorcycle noise in Chicago. I don't know if it worked because I moved away before it went into effect. But there was a ton of press coverage for a very long time, so there's no way the offending riders could know that people don't like them.
Loud Motorcycles In Alderman's Crosshairs As LSD Noise Monitoring Starts: https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170824/lincoln-park/loud-m...
I think the poster was referring to active constituents.
But I think you are wrong. I don't know of anybody who wants a loud car or bike trekking by their house. But yet it still happens over and over.
It is unclear if enough "active constituents" are not complaining or they are ignored.
I don't disagree. But in context.
On track day at the local race track? Sure. At a professional sporting event? Great. Going down a residential street when people are trying to sleep? No way.
It's people in gated communities and quiet suburban neighborhoods where there is rarely much noise who complain about noise because the baseline amount of noise they experience is so low that every single loud noise is highly noticeable.
When I lived on a busy intersection, the noise level was always there, it just became background.
When I lived near a flightpath, the sound of airlines was regularly there, and it also just became background.
I now live in a very quiet area, and every passing motorbike is a disturbance.
Then again, the other thing that's changed is my age and expectations of life. Whether or not that's related or not, I dunno.
There is very good reason to treat it differently from the usual honks and airbrakes.
A simple fender bender on a motorcycle can be fatal which is the reasoning behind the phrase "Loud pipes save lives."
Are some people doing it to be obnoxious? Probably. Are some people doing it out of the desire for increased safety? Yes.
I rode a (non Harley, well engineered) motorcycle for years and always thought the claim that you needed to make your bike loud to enhance perception was bollocks. The right answer is to always ride with the awareness that people can’t/don’t see you and plan lane position accordingly.
Could you explain what exactly ?
The joke is that Harley owners spend more time in the garage with their bikes than riding them. They require a lot of maintenance to keep running. From a risk perspective, the onerously frequent maintenance requirements increase the chance of a mechanic introduced error having negative safety outcomes. The fact that every owner basically “has” to work on the bikes rather extensively means that they are more likely in general to be worked on by not so qualified mechanics. The extensive customization culture surrounding the bikes also comes with a lot of really easy ways for safety compromising designs to be introduced via ill thought out customization.
These may seem like small factors but all of them represent much more real risks than the imagined safety benefit that might come by making your bike excessively loud. Someone telling you to ride a Harley and also telling you to make it loud for safety is not giving good safety advice — to maximize safe riding you should never try to lower the responsibility of the rider to be aware of other drivers not seeing them - you can’t make yourself more visible by being loud and shouldn’t encourage someone to think this will work and thereby encourage them to not proactively defend themselves from a driver who might not see them.
There are other safety relevant issues with the bike design — notoriously bad brakes and gearboxes, poor suspension, heavy with a low center of gravity that makes turning a relatively higher effort activity for shorter riders and generally makes recovery from problem scenarios more difficult, the “Harley wobble” (yes wobble can happen with other bikes but it tends to be more severe with Harley’s) ...
It’s probably also worth pointing out that there have been something like 4 large recalls in the last 5 years for clutch problems that can lead to sudden brake failure. Also, the twin cam engine design is inherently not long lasting with many failure modes which means breakdowns are common (engine failure/fluid leaks are not generally conducive to safety).
With cam tensioners changed you'll get 100k out of a twincam before needing work with just oil and tires(and whatever parts rattle off).
Harley's trying to innovate(electric bikes/scooters, dual sport). Problem is their consumer base is stuck in past/vanishing. Some people use fountain pens instead of more modern pens, even though they might be more inconvenient/expensive. While I only own Japanese bikes now, I can't deny there is a 'feeling' of riding a Harley.
And there’s that fat-ass Harley hauling it’s bulk down with that one scrawny disc and anemic caliper. ‘cuz, you know, style. Always seemed like a lawsuit waiting to happen. Can you imagine a car manufacturer saying, “the braking system is not even close to state-of-the-art because it wouldn’t look good”?
Even if Harley's have other safety compromises, loud pipes can make them safer. Even if you ride with awareness, loud pipes can make you safer. There is generally a lack of hard evidence, but it only makes sense that they would to me.
It can simultaneously be true that loud pipes save lives and loud pipes annoy people; whether the tradeoff is worth it to you is the real question.
"Loud pipes save lives" has never been proven by any data. Decent article/rant about this saying: https://www.revzilla.com/common-tread/stop-saying-loud-pipes...
The lack of hard evidence should be your first clue, because you know the loud pipes crowd would crow to sunset if there were even the slightest shred of evidence. But it “makes sense”, does it? How many things did we think we knew because it “makes sense” until one day, “turns out...”?
So one must first establish that loud pipes save lives. And the onus is on the one making that claim.
That said — wearing a helmet can cause one to take more risks out of a belief in greater survivability odds. On the track in full safety gear — the odds of crash survival really can be high enough to justify the extra risk taking mentality — loud pipes don’t boost survivability to anything remotely the same degree as helmets — in my opinion it’s very likely that someone who genuinely (and mistakenly) believes their loud pipes make them more perceivable will allow that belief to influence their actions and be very likely to drive less defensely.
On the general topic of helmets increasing risk taking — I actually do think this belief can lead to meaningful increase in chance of mistakes in other contexts. I’m an avid rock climber — a very small percentage of climbers always wear a helmet but most only wear one when doing climbs with significant amount of loose rock. The main safety use of a helmet when climbing is protection from falling rocks or other objects — there are some rare circumstances when a helmet could protect you when you fall but those are quite unusual — generally only happen when you get flipped upside which usually only happens when you mismanage the rope position. It’s _possible_ the helmet could help protect from a climbing fall but much better protection is to correctly manage rope position which is necessary, typically straightforward, and also something you are unlikely to do wrong when climbing at your level. If you put a helmet on and suddenly feel “able” to take more risks when climbing you are making a big mistake — the very marginal extra fall safety of the helmet is not worth increasing your risk taking at all — but it can often be hard to avoid increase to risk taking even when you are aware the increase is not justified. In my opinion, the helmet is not worth making this trade off (except in areas with lots of risk of rockfall or dropped gear from parties above).
No, the reasoning is to come up with some plausible excuse to run open pipes. Safety, however, is a cloud of bullshit to distract you from the thirteen year old boy in leather making vroom-vroom noises.
You wanna “save lives”? Ride like you’re invisible. Because that “cars pay more attention to loud pipes” bullshit is going to get you killed with a false sense of security.
Signed, 35 years of riding on stock pipes, and haven’t collided with a car yet.
Perhaps I was lucky to get a cop who wasn't so much of an asshole that he'd write me a ticket despite seeing my best intentions to deal with a situation that could happen to anyone. Then again, I could have been pulled over by a guy who would have started off nice and thanked me for being conscientious enough to stop for the part that night.
So people that don't make a good impression get screwed out of a grand they probably don't have. Relying on the benevolence of police is not going to work out well for average people in the long run.
One of the reasons states increase fines regressively is because the targeted acts are committed most frequently by those at the lower end of the income spectrum, and existing fine amounts were insufficient to deter such activity.
I think the negative effects of noise pollution are underestimated. It's never properly taken into account when people plan things. Part of it is many people don't understand just how soul destroying it can be (yet).
This is however exceptionally helpful for blind people navigating near a road.
I haven't seen the BMW in question so it might be unnecessarily loud, but electric cars are often so quiet you could barely hear one coming.
One of the more dangerous aspects is in areas where cars are reversing / manoeuvring at low speeds - e.g. car parks. I'm fully sighted and still occasionally have a near miss with an electric / hybrid that I haven't noticed reversing!
Bicycles do present some measure of danger, albeit reduced thanks to the lower momentum & crushing power.
Some material from the RNIB, a UK charity: https://www.rnib.org.uk/rnibconnect/silent-deadly-electric-h...
Plus if you are in California look up AB1824 which changed the loud exhaust regulations to assess a fine in every case. Used to be if you got pulled you could simply produce a receipt stating you fixed the loud exhaust and pay no fine but people were skirting that with obvious success. So yes, governments do care. Some HOA and Condo association ban all motorcycles because of noise.
Now with regards to drones, noisy little suckers. The other issue is a private citizen is heavily restricted where they can even fly them. State parks are off limits in most states, any place where people gather of course is out, you can even be blocked from flying them on your property by many HOA and Condo associations (mentioned them before for similar reasons).
Locally to me, Cobb County Georgia has an association for model aircraft that may support drones. They have their own field put in with tax dollars but "maintained" by user fees. Don't even think of using it until you pony up to two different organizations and an initiation fee and such. Yet places which are set aside for the legal use of drones may end up being this way unless the industry adapts.
My father's recent DJI purchase did not automatically include the propeller guards, seems there is good profit in selling replacement blades. It definitely is noisy and I would expect research into blade technology can remedy some of that, surely the military has already done so.
you don't necessarily want prop guards most of the time. they make the props less efficient, which decreases aerodynamic performance and battery life.
that said, I got the combo bundle with rotor guards and I almost never use them because they make the drone so squirrelly in wind. I hand launch/land every time and I have yet to cut myself on the rotors. I was very happy to have them when I used the drone to check all my gutters for leaves, takes a lot of the stress out of flying so close to the roof.
They're not exactly quiet from the factory but people make them loud because thanks to the Doppler effect you need to be really loud for someone in a vehicle beside you to hear you (and they're unlikely to consciously see you if they want to move over because their brain isn't used to checking for objects that are motorcycle sized).
As a drone owner, it drives me bananas when I see people just flying them all over the place with no account for how irritating the noise is.
If drones could be made substantially quieter, everyone’s quality of life would go up and we could be saved from inconsiderate people with no regard for others.
Unfortunately, anecdotally I'd have to say that the majority are not considerate.
I’m legitimately too embarrassed to fly it around anyone because of how incredibly inconsiderate your average hobbyist is. Even though I actually have a reason to fly it (I get paid).
And the permit requirement to operate a small R/C toy is ridiculous: this information you don't want the government to have because it will be misused similarly to how social media was abused in the Gatwick Airport (non-)incident. The sensible thing would be classes (Class 1, 2, 3, etc.) of unmanned flying devices, as with model rockets.
https://www.nar.org/find-a-local-club/section-guidebook/laws...
It needs enforcement of what's already on
the books if there's a complaint.
helicopters with 4x the number of blades
Except a full scale helicopter blade is easily 100 times larger.
So they are helicopters, but 100 times smaller, but with four blades.
RC planes are less popular than quadcopters for hobby use, as it takes a lot more skill to avoid crashing them.
Also, dedicated drone corridors that are over roads or uninhabited areas, so at least only cars would be hit in case one of them drops out of the sky.
There are just three problems:
1) Landing space (not a hard problem to solve with durable designs that have very low stall speeds.)
2) For some photography purposes, hovering is the only way to get the shot.
3) They're just not as sexy. People like quads because they seem a lot more sci-fi.
NASA did a study and found that the noise drones make is perceived to be more annoying than those from cars [1]. They acknowledge noise-based pushback as an issue, even if they're no louder than cars.
[1] https://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/201700...
You can't escape the physics that moving air causes noise.
Translation: "You go inside if you want peace and quiet. The outside is only for the self-entitled now."
All of this annoys the hell out of me, but no one else seems to care. Certainly not enough to ban any of it.
a lawnmower, a string trimmer, or a leaf blower
For delivery, would using a (possibly guided) parachute be an option sometimes? For example if there is a landing target left in someone's yard.
Unless it's driven by one of those jerks who mod their exhaust, that is.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5DYre_EZKU - I've heard more annoying sounds, but this is probably in my top ten, or fifteen.
To my ears, drones are far more annoying than either the constant whoosh-whrrr of the road, or the occasional rumble of a heavy airliner (narrow bodies and GA planes make way less noise - it's the A380s and 747s that make enough noise to make me look up). The pitch of the quad rotors is higher, which to most people, is a more invasive sound.
That being said NIMBYism isn't always logical. Even if you presented a plan that proves their would be no increase in noise, I could see a lot of people not believing it.
Drones emit a high pitch whine that is annoying and irritating, and ruins plenty of quite natural viewpoints with assholes trying to get that pullback shot for their vlog.
This isn't NIMBYism or Ludditeness - I'm pro drones for practical uses. I'm anti Drones X Instagram Influencer culture that permeates hikes, and stresses out my dog (who is even more sensitive to high pitched noises than I am)
If independent, amateur, volunteer drone operators begin to observe nearly every outdoor police encounter in the United States, without the police being physically able to stop it, that alone will be a big enough victory to justify many of the side effects.
Let's ensure that observation of government agents, whether at a traffic stop or a huge gathering, becomes a regular, legal, celebrated practice.
Nobody stands to benefit more from this than honest, integral police officers who live in fear of reporting their less savory colleagues.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jun/02/fbi-surveill...
The price they pay for the privilege of enforcing the state's monopoly on violence should be some lack of an expectation of privacy due to public scrutiny, that only seems fair.
So does being shot by police.
I think that taking the reporting part of police abuse out of the hands of police (ie, by ensuring that bodycams are a secondary viewport, while overhead observation by ordinary, independent persons is primary) will make the job less stressful, not more.
This is a simple and reasonable step in the right direction. Open up legal operations for the smallest category and begin collecting data. It can help pave the way towards larger operations in a safe way.
The privacy issues will also be interesting. Do you think these companies won't be attaching cameras to them as well to capture as much data as they possibly can why flying around? Then multiply that times as many drones as will be flying around. It will be great for tracking too, since you can theoretically have almost have 24/7 coverage, especially cities where everything is more compact. Just patch all the feeds together, like they do with cell phone cameras in Argus: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13BahrdkMU8
Privacy is also important, but it's a separate issue. Is there anything that can be done via drone that can't be done with a cell phone or a go pro? It doesn't make sense to outlaw hammers just because they can be used for murder.
edit: allow to outlaw
Not necessarily if you're talking about just one, but there is when you have tens of thousands of them compiling the data. Remember, these are companies like amazon, who are deploying Rekognition face recognition systems to law enforcement in cities (as well as Ring doorbell cameras). This will additionally give them that capability from the air now, on a movable platform.
We have created quieter drones. Do we want private companies with flying cameras recording us at all times?
Why or why not?
That's not necessarily meant to be flippant; it's a real question: what unknowns have dissuaded us from doing this until now? Are they resolved now? Would they be resolved in the future given some kind of delay until this (inevitably) happens?
That's ageism, plain and simple. I hope you don't ever have to hire people, or you'll get your company fined.
Huh? What would be a legitimate reason for that?
Imagine someone operating out in the bush in Alaska where there are no people. There's no need for the same safety precautions out there. Or operations in mountainous terrain where it's not possible that a manned aircraft would fly -- no need for anti-collision lighting there.
The FAA is quite strict and is very unlikely to hand out waivers unless the operator can clearly show an equivalent level of safety.
> For drones weighing more than 0.55 pounds, however, a manufacturer would need to demonstrate that if an “unmanned aircraft crashed into a person, the resulting injury would be below a certain severity threshold.”
I assume this also includes the weight of the package. I'm pretty sure most of my Prime boxes weight more than half a pound.
I wonder what the severity threshold is. Like, are propeller guards enough or is there still innovation that needs to happen?
A bullet does damage because it holds a lot more energy from being accelerated - a 9mm bullet will go around a mile up before falling down (source: MythBusters). Two 500g boxes dropped from a likely much lower height will have a similar effect (concussion?) when dropped on a pedestrian regardless of the contents, except for a few outliers. Even for small, heavy objects (like a 1kg camera lens) the load would be spread by its enclosure unless it separates mid-fall.
That, and P=MV, momentum/energy increases proportionally to mass. A 'safe weight' can be defined if the altitude is known.
[1] https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/03/can-falling-bull...
0.55 pounds doesn't really make sense, such a light drone can barely fly in modest wind and won't have enough battery life to go very far.
Edit: maybe 0.55 pounds is correct. Because that threshold is also used in other FAA UAV regulations. (e.g. UAV less than 0.55 pounds doesn't need to be registered)
Edit2: maybe not, see https://www.apnews.com/1c50bdd96d6244198df93d84c86bf156
Maybe the requirement is trying to encourage (or allow) the development of drones that are spatially extended/soft, e.g. drones that contain inflated components.
I'm not an expert, but if an company wants to use drones to monitor its industrial site, that's fine. It's private property. Just like construction companies use drones to monitor construction.
But you don't have the right to fly your drone over someone else's property, even if it's for something as seemingly good as monitoring chemical emissions. What happens when there's a malfunction and your machine plummets into a stack, or hits a person?
Again, I'm not an expert on this. I suspect nobody really is since it's all a new realm, and what few laws there are haven't been tested very much.
But if the government has the right and duty to regulate emissions into the atmosphere, they should be able to measure the air over a refinery. This is why I mentioned some kind of accreditation. Maybe the company could hire an independent 3rd party, whose work and devices can be inspected by all parties?
A long time ago, property rights were 'Cuius est solum, eius est usque ad coelum et ad inferos' -- from hell below to heaven above. (now referred to as the 'ad coelum doctrine') But that law was changed a long time ago. Just because you own the land, doesn't mean you own all of the airspace above it.
It has been tested in court that a property owner owns some height above the surface of their land. 300ft over the tallest structure is definitely in the public domain. However, the minimum altitude that one is allowed to fly over private land without permission has not been established in court.
A drone at 10ft could definitely be pursued for trespassing. A drone at 400ft definitely could not be pursued for trespassing. A drone at 150ft? That still needs to be tested in court. Then general rule is that a property owner is entitled to the enjoyment of their property.
You'll be able to fly your drone at whatever altitude they tell you you're allowed to fly at.
If they didn't get to decide by fiat you could just make up your own rules and seek to sort them out in court. E.g. "no I don't feel like following the FAA rules on airline safety, I'll just make my own airliner & airline and make my own rules".
Because the law is not clear as it is currently written. On one hand, the minimum safe altitude to operate an aircraft is 500ft. So it's pretty clear that anything above 500ft is considered a public thoroughfare.
The FAA claims to own and regulate all US airspace down to ground level. The FAA also says that drones must be operated below 400ft (clearly an effort to keep drones and manned aircraft safely separated). If we embrace this version of the law, then drones can operate from 0ft to 400ft with impunity over private land without any legal repercussions.
On the other hand, it is established law that a property owner is entitled to the full enjoyment of their property. In a famous case, United States vs Causby, military bombers were flying at an altitude of 83ft over Causby's house and chicken farm. The courts sided with Causby and established a precedent that a landowner does own some portion of the airspace over their land. However, it did not establish a specific altitude.
A bomber at 83ft was deemed to infringe on private property rights, but should a small drone at 83ft be judged in the same way? It's not clearly defined in law right now, that's why it needs to be tested in court. Or alternatively, the legislature needs to adjust the laws to make it clear.
> "if the landowner is to have full enjoyment of the land, he must have exclusive control of the immediate reaches of the enveloping atmosphere. Otherwise, buildings could not be erected, trees could not be planted, and even fences could not be run" …“The fact that he does not occupy [space] in a physical sense -- by the erection of buildings and the like -- is not material. As we have said, the flight of airplanes, which skim the surface but do not touch it, is as much an appropriation of the use of the land as a more conventional entry upon it."
But it's not clear to me that this would apply to drones for a couple of reasons:
1. The question of whether something is considered an easement or not doesn't apply for the drone question. I.e. in the 1946 case bombers were flying by at 83 ft so "buildings could not be erected". Whereas today if if drones were flying past your house at 83 ft and you built a 100 ft building they'd just need to fly over or around it.
2. In the 1946 case the overflights themselves caused enough of a disruption to farming from noise etc. that the farmer went out of business, so the takings clause was invoked. It's unlikely that'll ever become an issue with drones, general noise regulation will handle those sorts of cases.
Also, surely there's lots of post-1946 cases on this matter due to the build-outs of airports and growing class B airspace, or has that been handled entirely by buying out property and zoning regulations?
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Causby#Holdin...
The way I see it is that the property owner should be entitled to exclusive use from 0ft to Xft. (Of course, the land owner can always give permission for lower flights if they so choose.) And drones should be able to legally traverse from Xft to 400ft.
It would be great if a law would establish what X is. Unfortunately, I think it's more likely that someone will fly a drone over private land at 150ft, the land owner will shoot it down, and the ensuing lawsuit will set a precedent.
The weather was super hot. I was directly underneath at times, and the breeze from the drone was a very welcome relief. I wasn't scared about it falling on me, and the noise didn't disturb the music (although that says something about my taste for punk rock).
That may be different for large delivery drones, but I think that small recreational drones (e.g. DJI) should be allowed all the time, including at night over a crowd.
Like another commenter said, "You go inside if you want peace and quiet. The outside is only for the self-entitled now."
1. the drone is carrying cargo
2. the cargo isn't sufficiently secure to the drone
3. the cargo contains rechargeable batteries / some other component that can explode as result of high speed impact with a sufficiently hard surface
4. the cargo lacks sufficient packaging material
5. the cargo happens to fall from the drone's flight altitude
then isn't there a risk of an explosion?
Update: Is this question inappropriate? I made it in good faith.
drones can also record entry passcodes, snap pictures of keys and license plates, spoof gps, carry guns, spray toxic gas, drill through buildings and sniff EM fields to see who is where and when. perfect legal data to resell to unsavories.
this would be a security nightmare.
Also, what if the drone flies into someone's window or a car? How do you identify the owner?
Does anyone know why this isn't standard?
I Googled this question: "why don't quadcopters have safety cages" https://www.google.com/search?q=why+don't+quadcopters+have+s... ...
... and even saw cages that go around the whole quadcopter (not just the propellers as I was expecting). If those were a bit squishy they could seriously reduce any chance of concussion/property damage if landing on someone or something!
The YouTube video below is pretty amazing, it shows someone demonstrating such a cage.
"Spherical Cage Incased Quadcopter" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B3X6EvZ2XM
I've submitted it as a separate submission. (It's only 2 minutes.) He says it flies great, and he even seems to purposefully drop it several times from as high as the height of a building.
Also for anyone who hasn't been around drones much, in the middle of the video you can hear the annoying whirring noise people mention throughout this thread.
Because cages weigh more. Minimizing weight is critical for anything that flies. If it weighs more, then it takes more energy to make it fly. If it weighs more, then that's less payload that it can carry.
Maybe there is an informative comparison of border policy to airspace policy, but it has yet to be written here. Otherwise it seems the two aren't very related
Engaging your argument... domestic terrorism / mass murder of citizens by citizens is quite real.
The FAA requires airline doors to be secured. Why would you assume that does nothing to stop a domestic terrorist? I can't imagine why you'd even say such a thing.
The fear around borders is different, as with borders, even when everything is working as intended, there is still a constant threat of people who want to cross the border illegally. With a secured border they will try and fail to cross (ideally), without border security, they will cross.
With drones, regulations like these only better outline how law-abiding citizens should act. The threat of terrorism isn't dealt with with regulation like this, it already is very illegal to do anything terrorizing on purpose with a drone, so a regulation about flying at night doesn't protect from that. With the border I mentioned how its an ever present threat, well, with drones it isn't. It can become a major threat if society was less stable perhaps, but as is, not enough people want to commit terrorism via drones for it to be a threat in the public mind.
All this said, it absolutely can become a fear campaign with drones. I can't remember specifics, but I know I've witnessed a handful of incidents where someone was injured at a park or similar location and subsequently got regulation to ban/limit drone use at the park or similar location. Incidents like that would only need to be a bit more numerous and a nationwide anti-drone campaign could work. Even already if it was made a partisan issue, many would pick a side with strong confidence.