Hacker News Reader

Comment by gamble | Hacker News Reader

Don't try operating this commercially in the US or Canada. Drones aren't exempt from FAA rules just because they resemble RC aircraft. (In fact, the rules are more stringent since drones are still new and have failure modes that traditional aircraft don't) Pretty much the only cases where the regs don't essentially ban UAVs are small-scale hobbyist projects and academic research.

See:

http://cryptome.org/faa021307.htm

http://www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/standards/general-reca...

View on HN

I suspect that there will be a war on unlicensed UAV in the near future.

yes and that will be the Last War. the one that Skynet wins. :)

There might also be a war on licensed onces as well. UAVs currently are used mostly in combat zones, but I think it won't be long before they are zooming above restricted govt. areas, large cities, are used to track and chase fugitives, and even by small town cops to patrol and issue traffic tickets remotely.

As this happens there will be some who will take it as a challenge to destroy, capture, and most of all, to take over these drone. That does not entail injuring or harming an officer or a human so those who would never try to mess with a real helicopter or police cruiser might not have a problem messing with flying remote robots.

I've always envisioned a near-apocalyptic, autonomous flying drone, resembling a large flying mosquito, about the size of a large pit-bull, that randomly targets parked cars, and siphons several gallons of gas from their tanks, in order for it to 'survive'.

I think that was a car commercial actually...

There could be a cat/mouse game going on between law enforcement and criminals running UAVs (eg. to run drugs). Miniature dogfights?

How about making these smaller and smaller until they are just resemble swarms of insects ?

I wonder if there are any projects that are starting the process from the other side : take a mosquito and bio-engineer it somehow to use as a micro surveillance platform. I wouldn't be surprised if DoD already has such projects underway.

As the size gets smaller, FAA radars won't be able to detect these anymore. They might have to scan the control frequencies perhaps and triangulate to the base station.

It would become harder to get caught, but could remain illegal nonetheless; which prevents from building a legit economic activity around them.

As for radar signature, the smaller drones are already barely bigger than a large bird, so I guess they aren't spotted by radars, or at least not recognized as UAVs.

OK... I'm really confused. So an RC Airplane is OK but one of these is not OK? How big are these things? What is the fundamental difference between this and an RC air plane with a camera attached? I see that UAVs aren't allowed except with special licenses but it's not clear to me what separates a UAV from the recreational RC Airplane? It isn't clear from the links provided. Is it a height limitation? Perhaps it's a line of sight limitation?

RC aircraft are distinguished by weight restriction, direct line-of-sight operation, and purpose. The latter is what kills commercial drones. If you offer a commercial service, it isn't hobbyist RC.

It's like ham radio in the sense that you have very limited and specific rights to use a shared medium so long as you don't interfere with the professional users.

So, spying on people from the air can't be my hobby?

The fundamental difference, according to the FAA, is being in control of the aircraft at all times.

You can do drones in the US, but you have to have line of sight to it at all times, and you have to be able to take control of it at any time.

How does the government find/enforce that?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com