1.) competing against the economics of standard delivery vehicles
2.) Ref: law/liability. At scale you're possibly violating airspace of people's property and, while I don't expect people in non-rural areas to start using them for skeet practice in general, I would expect lots of complaints to the government if they become annoying.
There is no such thing in the United States. All airspace is under federal jurisdiction, and the only agency with rule making authority is the FAA.
https://aerocorner.com/blog/drone-over-private-property/
I probably won't shoot down a delivery drone though I may file a complaint. But if a drone starts poking around at low altitude over my property, it will definitely be skeet shooting practice time (on a rural property).
> Clearly people have some rights to the space over their property.
According to the federal government, they do not.
> Case law isn't well established but, outside of airport landing rights, the consensus seems to be something like 400 feet which is in general uncontrolled airspace
Incidentally, 400’ is the maximum height a UAS may fly under 14 USC 107 without special authorization.
> But if a drone starts poking around at low altitude over my property, it will definitely be skeet shooting practice time (on a rural property)
As “drones” are considered aircraft under federal law, shooting at them is a federal crime:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johngoglia/2016/04/13/faa-confi...
I was told that I own my land and everything up to “the sky”. Granted, for practical purposes this means that if a neighbors tree over hangs my plat I have the right to trim it up across my property line.
Any legal beagles able to chime in?
To make matters confusing, there are "air rights," but those have to do with zoning and how tall a building can be made. Nothing to do with flying.
As long as you pay property tax your property is really owned by Uncle Sam.
It's the kind of living only the most dedicated can afford to do. Everyone else simply pays city/county taxes and assume the problem is going to get sorted.
I read the first one too. The problem with these anecdotes is that none of them rule out that the injuries were caused by a bullet on a shallow trajectory, with velocity much greater than terminal velocity. The only evidence is that no one heard a shot, but this is not convincing.
Nevertheless, there is a potential for serious injury and nobody should be shooting into the air for fun.
https://www.budk.com/12-Gauge-Skynet-Drone-Defense--3-Pack-3...
Anyways, after talking to a lawyer and learning about FAA regulation I decided it was too much work.
The short version is a drone with line of sight can fly under x' (think it was 600). Over that it must have first person cameras, and is technically an aircraft so it must be flown by a licensed pilot and get FAA clearance... but you can't drop a taco from 600', and you can't go below 600' without the operator having line of sight.
- Have a licensed pilot fly the tacos remotely above 600’ to the delivery address.
- Fly in a holding pattern at 600’ until the user indicates in your app they’re available to receive delivery.
- Pass off control so the user (who has LOS) becomes the operator and uses your app to maneuver the drone down to drop the taco and then back up to 600’ where it returns to the remote pilot’s control.
It would probably be a really expensive taco delivery but I think I’d pay a premium for a taco if I got to pilot a drone for a minute?
The biggest problem is that drones are effectively flying lawnmowers.