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Comment by josefresco | Hacker News Reader

"I'm sure some FEMA director type looked at his operations book and didn't see any situations that would require or allow for drones so he told them to stop that activity. "

Really!? That's how you think it went down? Not that some thoughtful FEMA rep was concerned about coordination of all aircraft and chose to ground them out of caution? Or maybe temporarily until they determine whether this private party is helping?

I know it's fun to imagine government as a bunch of "by the book" stumbling idiots, but the reality is far less entertaining.

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Actually yes, I think that is exactly how it went down. And I think they were very thoughtful about it too. Remember that this data collection has been ongoing according to the article, it wasn't a proposal that was denied it was an ongoing activity which got shut down. Information available to the people on the ground included both results and the experience of running these mapping flights. So lets watch it play out and see where it goes.

My sadness is that I doubt the person on site, even if they think it is a good idea, has the authority to evaluate what the mapping drones were doing and re-authorize their use. And the process to change the SOP is going to take longer than this crisis, and a lot of useful data that first responders had been using won't be available.

Determining the safety of something flying around in the civil airspace is the role of the FAA, and they Do Not Fuck Around with it.

If the FAA says that the drone can fly in those conditions, they can fly in those conditions.

Although, recently, it looks like the FAA grounded the drone.

Regardless, it isn't the role of FEMA to tell airplanes that they can't fly. That's insane.

In an emergency I would hope that FEMA would have some say (or at least coordination with the FAA) over what aircraft is in the sky over the affected area.

In an emergency I would hope that FEMA would have NO say. They are not trained for it and have no authority granted by legislation to do it.

They may have authority to coordinate, which is their main function regardless - coordinate smaller groups toward an effective response.

Why? It's not their authority at all. FEMA does disaster response, not airspace management.

FEMA is supposed to coordinate to aid disaster preperation, response, and recovery. They have wide ranging powers to do so because there are a wide range of disasters out there.

Suppose you have 20,000+ stranded on a tiny island in the middle of a flood. Your air lifting in supplies but there are several news helicopters in the area slowing things down. You can't tell them to go pound sand directly but you can call the FAA and get the FAA to tell them to GTFO.

Exactly.

The smart manager delegates. Same in disaster response as in a dev shop.

I would rather the FAA, who do it day in and out and have response and contingency plans for every eventuality, be in control of the airspace than an agency with no regular practice.

Give unto agencies, that which is in the domain of those agencies. FEMA gives the directions for them to follow.

FEMA would ask the FAA, and the FAA would create a TFR* or similar as appropriate. Enforcement would be entirely up to the FAA, as it's their thing.

* Temporary Flight Restriction, a small area restricted for general flight in order to ensure clear airspace for disaster recovery, firefighting, or certain high-profile VIPs (e.g. Air Force One gets a TFR around it).

I was going to say, if there are search and rescue or other aircraft operating in the same area it's probably not a good idea right now to have UAVs operating too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvcN-0PikEU

Especially if weather is bad, visibility is poor, and the UAVs are hard to see. Even light UAVs (or RC planes as in that video) can cause damage to aircraft in a collision.

Yeah, this is what crosses my mind too. Any choppers in the air right now are already flying in compromised conditions.

But the article suggests that they were the only aircraft in the air above the town.

The UAV in question flies much closer to the ground than your CAP or GA aircraft are going to fly, and it is extremely light.

There was almost zero risk by having it in the air. Typical federal government overreaction.

A bird strike can take down a GA aircraft. AFAIK UAVs weigh more than birds. And yes it does fly very close to the ground, but so do rotorcraft. I disagree with the zero risk statement.

I'm a GA pilot who is instrument rated, with several hundred hours logged as pilot in command. I did not make my comment in an uninformed manner.

I never said you were uniformed. Would you like to hit a UAV while flying in IFR conditions? Do you really think that hitting a solid object at 100+ kts will have zero impact on your aircraft? What if it goes right up the engine nacelle? Or through the windscreen? Or hits the control wire on your elevator?

Do you see my point? Not everyone with concerns about UAVs flying in close quarters with manned aircraft are fools. I'm not saying they can't coexist, I know they can. But we don't know the situation here. This is a one-sided argument from the UAV manufacturer.

> I never said you were uniformed.

"Uninformed" and "uniformed" are (allegedly) different.

Oh man, another coffee out of nose moment. Touché sir.

Is the UAV flying in IFR conditions? (Serious question.) If the goal is photography, I don't imagine it would be very useful if so.

Looking at the craft in the pictures I doubt it. It looks like a fairly tiny UAV with visible spectrum imaging capabilities. But it may pass through IFR conditions in between the takeoff and target locations. It may also have sensors that can see through cloud layers, such as a small radar. Again, I doubt it based on the size but I might be wrong.

^ rotorcraft are the key units operating right now.

Only if these UAVs are submersibles. The article states rescue helicopters are or at least should be working to pick stranded people up. Getting lower than people swinging in harnesses below a rescue chopper sounds a bit unsafe, and sort of useless.

The choppers aren't rescuing hundreds of people by attaching them to a longline.

That doesn't change the fact that helicopters are in the area working ground pick up. The only flying lower than the helicopters on or near the ground is to be "flying" below ground, or below flood waters.

I'm not saying that I believe operating the UAVs around helis would be safe, just in reply to this:

Getting lower than people swinging in harnesses below a rescue chopper

Right, the reality is frankly often much worse. Do not pretend these government types are above the average enterprise company staffed with boomers.

I'm just guessing here, but you haven't spent much time working with government folks.

You're right though, the reality actually is far less entertaining. While "by the book" really is the way it's done in the government industry, it is definitely not an exciting way to go about the day. It does, however, have high CYA value and helps ensure public employees don't misuse taxpayer dollars.

That last bit is the interesting part I wish more people believed -- almost every government employee I've known has been genuinely concerned that they use their budgets with extreme care, and that they get a high return for what they do spend.

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