New FAA drone rule is a giant middle finger to aviation hobbyists | Hacker News Reader

New FAA drone rule is a giant middle finger to aviation hobbyists

arstechnica.com

39 pointsNikolaeVarius20 comments

Brought to you by FAA, the same people who let Boeing self certify their shitbox and killed 600+ people!

Threadly reminder that there has been no deaths caused by drones, and no confirmed drone incidents.

There was this one case where some pilots saw some trash bags as drones and freaked out. Fucking fantastic.

> Brought to you by FAA, the same people who let Boeing self certify their shitbox and killed 600+ people!

This illustrates a deep misunderstanding. Manufacturers are the only organizations with current aerospace engineers. They will always be the ones to write the certification documents and submit them to the FAA. However, the FAA should punish them when they falsify those documents, as in the 737 MAX.

Also, the two 737 MAX crashes killed about 350 people total.

> there has been no deaths caused by drones, and no confirmed drone incidents.

There have been people killed by the blades of drones already.

Waiting until a drone kills somebody in an airplane accident doesn't make any sense.

From the FAA standpoint, they're trying to figure out a way to separate airspace with trained pilots from untrained drone operators. Historically, separation was done by regulating altitudes, but drone operators are not obeying, so there's no "positive airspace control."

So far the FAA doesn't know how to do that, and I'm in 100% agreement with them. About the only constructive thing I can suggest is to add a terrain map to each drone that prevents flight above 400', and outside of airport and restricted areas.

It's been amusing following the drone saga in the USA. The FAA has acted in a very predictable manner that everybody in the aviation industry knew. It's the hobbyists that had unrealistic expectations from Day One. Also, one bad package delivery drone flight and it's the final curtain for those, too. If you work on one of those projects, transfer out now!

source: commercially-rated airplane pilot.

> There have been people killed by the blades of drones already.

You'll need to provide a source for this. I haven't managed to find any stories that match this.

I have found a half-dozen stories where a drone has crashed near or into a person with minimal injury, which could be a concern, and doesn't agree with the OP. ([0], [1], [2])

I have not managed to find a single death.

Whilst extensive testing does show serious injury is possible in extreme circumstances [3], the risk is negligible. Death wasn't something this FAA-funded research found was likely even in extreme circumstances.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/drone-crashes-into-virg...

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-26921504

[2] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/09/germa...

[3] https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2017/01/ictas-droneinjuryrese...

The "drone blades" you mention wouldn't happen to be very large diameter model helicopter rotors, per chance? Because those are usually made of carbon fibre or lightweight metals, and attain blade tip speeds orders of magnitude higher than a typical consumer multirotor.

I have snatched my drone out of the air, right through the path of the props with my bare hands and sustained only very minor injuries (a few specks of blood, akin to a paper cut). I'd be extremely surprised if those kinds of blades (<15cm diameter) have ever killed someone.

It’s pure brilliance. Meanwhile, any genius with a few thousand dollars can go build a manned aircraft and as long as it’s under 254 lbs can fly it around essentially without rules. FAR Part 103 Ultralight.

Small drones and RC aircraft just simply do not pose the insane threat that everyone makes them out to be. There are certainly reckless people and they do pose some threat but small DJI drones like a Mavic or Phantom are not going to be taking down airliners full of children. In addition the knowledge and parts exist now for nearly anyone to build something like this without the required tracking. A bad actor is not being shut out by this insane rule. It’s stifling hobbyists and innovators who were operating safely 99% of the time.

The fact that you're on the ultralight would go a long way toward making sure you're careful not to do anything dangerous.

That does play a factor to be sure but it doesn’t change the fact that nearly anyone can operate one with absolutely no training. I think we can all agree that operating an aircraft SAFELY requires some prior domain knowledge, which is obviously applicable to drones and RC as well. You don’t know what you don’t know.

> I think we can all agree that operating an aircraft SAFELY requires some prior domain knowledge, which is obviously applicable to drones and RC as well.

So you're saying drone operators should be even more strictly regulated with some form of licensing akin to pilot's licenses? I have no objection to that, I was just arguing that regulating drones more strictly than ultralight manned aircraft is reasonable because self-preservation will motivate pilots of manned aircraft to fly more safely than operators of remotely piloted unmanned aircraft.

Self-preservation certainly goes a long way in preventing an amateur from crashing an ultralight. However, self-preservation likely isn’t going to necessarily prevent an amateur pilot from flying his aircraft in a manner that is not hazardous to others. A self-taught ultralight pilot is not going to have any more knowledge of airspace, traffic, and right of way rules than any amateur drone operator. These are most of the issues that have come up with drones thus far. They’re being operated in a way that interferes with other traffic and the way to stop that is through education and perhaps even sensible geofencing.

I think the current licensing requirements are about the right touch. The only thing I could see changing is adding some knowledge/licensing requirements for recreational operators so the regulatory body can at least certify a person has been told where they are and are not allowed to operate and how to safely avoid being an impediment to manned traffic. Simply throwing absurd tracking requirements on them is not going to stop them from being operated in the wrong space.

It was really beautiful to see the ingenuity and innovation in small drones the last ten years. That innovation is what made possible the commercial opportunities that now want regulatory stability. Those corporate interests can afford the costs, and are typically flying large enough aircraft such that the added weight isn’t an issue either. I am disappointed in the compromise dji and their lobbyist Mr. Schulman made with the FAA, we can now live in a world where yes corporations can now develop SUAS for cargo or whatever have regulatory stability, and consumers can take great aerial photography with their dji products, but I feel that the loss of inspired homemade innovation will be misrepresented in the influence calculations the FAA will make.

It sounds like DJI is now opposing the rules because their AeroScope won't be enough to comply with them. Like they were trying to perform regulatory capture and it backfired...

I hadn’t thought about how the proposals from dji aren’t really being followed. Though they did maintain the whole under .55lb no regulation thing.

So, if I'm reading this correctly, it becomes illegal to operate a drone of more than 249gm in an area with no signal connectivity, unless you have a satellite uplink on the device to broadcast its location over the internet... Instead of any of the other myriad of standards that could be used to broadcast a location over local radio.

yes, and the transponder signal must identify the air-frame, you so you may need hardware for each of the drones.

Of course, this transponder could easily be disabled or omitted by someone with nefarious intent.

I mean... is there any real reason they can't just broadcast ADS-B or some new, similar equivalent? A hobbyist drone's position is really only relevant to people within radio-reception distance anyways.

I’m surprised they didn’t go for licensing requirements instead. It seems to work for amateur radio.

What happened to the idea of connecting to the Internet through the controller (e.g. a phone)?

Apparently more dangerous than the 737 MAX!

Another reason to never update drone firmware.

It amazes me that they are proposing doing this with drones, but gun registration? naaaaah. Maybe define a drone as a new kind of assault-style gun.

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