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Comment by tinus_hn | Hacker News Reader

The only reason I see for drones not being compliant with that is that they lack the single seat.

One part commonly overlooked is "see and avoid". That is, under VFR, a pilot should look out the window and avoid hitting other things. Which, strange as it sounds, has been a sticking point for some drone flight approvals.

It’s not strange at all. Drone pilots have more limited visibility.

The bigger issue is that drone pilots have no skin in the game. If they cause an mid air collision resulting in fatalities: opsie daisy!

only the most psychopathic individuals say "oopsie daisy" after causing accidental death.

for everyone else the result is usually a lot of sobbing.

that doesn't mean they're not blase about taking risks ahead of time. but that's more because they misevaluate the risk, and can't clearly imagine the negative outcomes.

The commercial use aspect also came into play- if you were hired to use the drone to do something (like take pictures), or were a company using a drone as part of a product/service, it would arguably fall under a different set of rules. Which is another reason clarification was needed.

Does a person need to be sitting in the seat? Or could I just put some plastic Lego seat on my drone and qualify?

You'd fail 14 CFR § 103.1.a:

"Is used or intended to be used for manned operation in the air by a single occupant;"

Huh, so if I build a remote control system for an intended-to-be-manned ultralight, I could use it as a drone without a certificate, but not an actual purpose-built drone?

So long as you could successfully argue in front of an FAA Administrative Law Judge that you "used or intended to use it" as a manned aircraft.

Since it sounds like you're doing so with the specific intention to use it as an unmanned craft, the Part 103 rules would not apply (and would not permit it). (The law is “is” rather than “was originally built to be”.)

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