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Comment by thepasswordis | Hacker News Reader

Is it possible to buy a piece of land and just get a rule that says "I can pretty much fly anything 100 feet up in the air above my property"?

It's kindof frustrating that this isn't the case.

If you're a company developing drones, for instance, how do you even test them?

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Just do whatever you want no one patrols for this. Someone would have to call it in then a cop would have to show and do something about it in a timely manner. Fat chance IMO. I see either hobbyist or real estate photography drones overhead my property all the time, no way any of that has a permit. How would I even report the tresspass? They are gone in a few minutes. Cops aren’t showing up that fast without a body.

People are getting away with using drones as you mentioned, but the FAA's rules have had a real chilling effect on the hobby, which is a problem. Where drone piloting is a now a necessary skill for soldiers to have, and we're not encouraging the hobby, I think the next few decades aren't going to play out as well as they could.

The sort of drones the military are going to pilot in the next few decades are going to be nothing like what you can pilot as a consumer. Either way the youth is trained pretty well for electronic warfare. Just mate the drone to a video game controller or a mouse and keyboard and people will be elite immediately just like they are the first day a new video game is released to the world.

That's not true. First, many operations the US military engages in are with partner nations who only have access to commercial drones. The US military is behind them in effectively utilizing these drones (commonly DJI, which the US military can't even practice with due to the ban). Second, there's a huge push to shorten the drone procurement process, and reduce the cost of drones. This allows them to be used in harsh EW environments as one-offs, and allows the operator to be safer (the more expensive the drone, the more likely a unit will be sent to recover it if it's downed). It also allows for faster adaptation to EW and changing circumstances. The US military drones of tomorrow will look a lot like Skydio drones today, if the US can get it together and update their procurement process to the 21st century.

Interesting listen to on the topic: https://irregularwarfare.org/podcasts/drones-automation-and-...

The military doesn't rely heavily on skills developed by hobbyists. In the vast majority of cases, you learn to shoot a rifle or drive a tracked vehicle or weld a nuclear reactor at the military's expense, after enlisting, even though you could have learnt those skills as a hobbyist. This isn't 15th century England where every man was required to keep a longbow and cricket was banned because it distracted from archery.

Just because you can learn to fly a drone at 18 after enlisting doesn't mean you wouldn't have more skilled populace to draw from if kids started flying drones at 12, every high school had a drone racing team, and there was a competitive sport at the level of the Superbowl. It's not the 15th century, it's 2024. Even if you don't want to call it world war III just yet, there's hot conflict in two regions and cold conflict elsewhere.

Conflict in two regions? You live in a dream world.

More like 100: https://geneva-academy.ch/galleries/today-s-armed-conflicts

I'd recommend not to rely on media for the topic "war" but to educate yourself. Otherwise you end up quickly in a war yourself:

> Naturally the common people don't want war . . . but after all it is the leaders of a country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or parliament or a communist dictatorship

H. Göring

The Civilian Marksmanship Program begs to differ. Congress specifically established that program because too many military recruits were showing up without knowing even the basics of safe and accurate shooting.

https://www.usar.army.mil/News/News-Display/Article/1028255/...

...in 1903.

While the world has changed since 1903, the point remains that having a more educated population is desirable for a country to have.

You can fly indoors, where the FAA has no jurisdiction (probably, ask a lawyer). You can get all kinds of waivers as well, but I don't know if there's one for that - they tend to be more one-off exemptions from a single regulation, type of thing. There are some dedicated test sites as well where the FAA might be more relaxed with the regulations: https://www.faa.gov/uas/programs_partnerships/test_sites/loc...

Most companies though probably have a part 107 pilot on staff, or have had some of their employees in other roles certified as such.

Is above your property in a controlled airspace?

You'd probably get a license to fly drones to test the drones. Wouldn't you expect a test driver to have a driver's license?

In most (many?) US jurisdictions, you don't need a driver's license to drive on private property.

I would go so far as to claim ALL jurisdictions in the US. Does anyone have a counterexample?

I had thought that as well, but California provided a counter-example, at least for "privately owned roads which are shown as private roads on maps filed in the County Recorder’s office":

"9.24.020 Driving unlawful without license. No person shall drive a motor vehicle upon a private road unless they hold a driver’s license issued under the provisions of the California Vehicle Code, except such persons as are expressly exempted under the California Vehicle Code."

https://www.codepublishing.com/CA/SantaCruzCounty/html/Santa....

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