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U.S. Will Require Drones to Be Registered

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Re: U.S. Will Require Drones to Be Registered

#131

Post by aianus »

babuskov wrote: post #122
aianus wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nobody seems to object to the idea of both registering them and requiring a license to drive. I do. It feels so liberating not to have to do those things in countries with corrupt + ineffective policing.

Then you probably wouldn't mind if someone hit you while rushing through the city at 100MPH.

And yet that doesn't really happen. The death rate in Vietnam per inhabitant is only 2x higher than the U.S. which is pretty much all explained by the fact that they drive motorcycles instead of cars.

Re: U.S. Will Require Drones to Be Registered

#132

Post by baddox »

Malstrond wrote: post #36
baddox wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it's a waste of effort, and that the battle is lost even if you had a solid argument, but you don't. "Drone" has been used to refer to unmanned aircraft since at least as far back as World War 2. This article is a good summary: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014241278873241104045786258...

What about these: Historical argument: Model R/C aircraft have been around for longer (including a video downlink and limited autonomous flight like return-to-home) than the term drone has been applied to them, even if it existed before as you said. Since the capabilities of these R/C aircraft didn't change, it is logical that their name doesn't change either. Usefulness of the definition: Aircraft which are the size…

> Usefulness of the definition: Aircraft which are the size of a van and shooting rockets at brown people in the middle east are also called drone. Since capabilities, dangers and use case

And yet, in that very argument you used the word "aircraft" to refer to military UAVs. That word "aircraft" is also used to describe vehicles of vastly different designs, sizes, and capabilities, but I don't think there's much confusion caused by this term.

It's okay to have words that describe large groups of things, along with words which describe more specific subsets of groups of things.

Re: U.S. Will Require Drones to Be Registered

#133

Post by brazzledazzle »

wavefunction wrote: post #58
ctdonath wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Make driver education mandatory in public school. A vehicle tag should simply identify the vehicle out of a sea of mixed clones (a la: which blue Mustang?). I actually think the U.S. Founding Fathers would have enumerated a "right to vehicular travel" if they had conceived of license-as-a-privilege restriction on horseless carriages.

>>I actually think the U.S. Founding Fathers We'll never know though, which makes personal conjecture meaningless. And while the "Founding Fathers" may have had some singular ideas at the time, they were merely people. We could speculate what the authors of the Magna Carta might feel about drones, or the Athenian democrats as well...

The position the founding fathers held on freedom of movement is known based on their writings. I don't think it's too speculative to debate about which way they'd lean on the matter. That said it should be an exercise in futility since we do live in very different worlds but it isn't because the constitution's only flexibility is interpretation by federal judges.

Re: U.S. Will Require Drones to Be Registered

#134

Post by dsfyu404ed »

venomsnake wrote: post #104
swingbridge wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting idea although there are a lot of technical issues that would make what you describe more challenging. A simpler approach is positive enforcement. Force manufacturers to hard code drones to not fly near airports or other restricted areas and not fly above 200 ft. Model aircraft have existed for a long time and there's been a good relationship with the FAA and few incidents. The challenge is that technology…

> Force manufacturers to hard code drones to not fly near airports or other restricted areas and not fly above 200 ft. A drone is one of the few things that can be smuggled by themselves. Both US-Mexico and US-Canada borders are wide.

>A drone is one of the few things that can smuggle itself. Both US-Mexico and US-Canada borders are wide.

Fixed that for you.

Re: U.S. Will Require Drones to Be Registered

#135

Post by swingbridge »

tim333 wrote: post #125
nether wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The registration will probably only apply to drones of a certain gross weight. I'm guessing it'll be somewhere around 20 lb, given that's how much the frozen turkeys weigh that they use for birdstrike testing.

Probably a lot less. While an airliner will probably survive a 20lb object in the engines I don't think they would be very keen on having that happen.

A 20lbs object of metal packed with a highly energetic battery that turns into a powerful explosive when destructively smashed to bits. These things a far more dangerous than a typical bird or debris strike.

Re: U.S. Will Require Drones to Be Registered

#136

Post by swingbridge »

threeseed wrote: post #105
swingbridge wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting idea although there are a lot of technical issues that would make what you describe more challenging. A simpler approach is positive enforcement. Force manufacturers to hard code drones to not fly near airports or other restricted areas and not fly above 200 ft. Model aircraft have existed for a long time and there's been a good relationship with the FAA and few incidents. The challenge is that technology…

And if they add new airports or classified areas ? It also doesn't solve the problem of drones being active near emergency situations.

"Real" airplanes have the same issue. That's why all the charts and databases are updated frequently and pilots are responsible for ensuring the latest data is available and loaded into the onboard computers. On a typical small general aviation airplane that typically involves uodating the electronic flight bag app on your iPad and popping a new memory card into the on board navigation computer.

Other short term updates (like firefighting flight restrictions) are reviewed by the pilots on official FAA endorsed websites or by calling a flight service center (like customer support for pilots) before each flight. One of the most basic elements of the required preflight planning for any flight of a "real" airplane is to do all the above to make sure you have the latest data and know about any temporary restrictions.

There's no reason why drone pilots couldn't or shouldn't be required to perform a simplified version of the above before flight (if you want to do anything other than flying the thing under the treeline in your own backyard).

Re: U.S. Will Require Drones to Be Registered

#137

Post by ctdonath »

mikeash wrote: post #118
Hyperborian wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or maybe they would have been scared completely senseless seeing tons of steel being piloted by an idiot with no training at speeds they didn't even know were possible for humans to achieve. In light of the second amendment, that seems unlikely.

Automobiles are far more deadly than any 18th century firearm.

The Founding Fathers approved of personal ownership of battleships, hence the "letters of marque" clause in the constitution.

Re: U.S. Will Require Drones to Be Registered

#138

Post by mikeash »

ctdonath wrote: post #137
mikeash wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automobiles are far more deadly than any 18th century firearm.

The Founding Fathers approved of personal ownership of battleships, hence the "letters of marque" clause in the constitution.

Isn't a letter of marque basically a primitive license?

I think it's funny that both of these replies center on refuting my idea that they might be frightened, but ignore the more important idea that what they would or would not think is not important.

Re: U.S. Will Require Drones to Be Registered

#139

Post by mikeash »

JupiterMoon wrote: post #128
mikeash wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aviation stuff isn't necessarily an improvement for consumer units, though. For example, an aviation unit used for precision approaches or collision avoidance needs to detect when accuracy decreases below minimums, alert the pilot, and disable the functionality. For a consumer unit you just keep pumping out inaccurate, best-effort numbers.

Most GPS devices I've used provide a precision estimate already.

How accurate is that precision estimate, though? Is it built with enough care that you can put lives on the line?

Re: U.S. Will Require Drones to Be Registered

#140

Post by shoegumfoot »

plantain wrote: post #67
neurotech1 wrote: post #34

One thing about the RPV/Quadcopter debate that is rarely mentioned is the reason why they don't use ADS-B transponders. The FAA requires ADS-B trasponders to have high accuracy GPS, and that pushes the cost to over $2,000 per device. It would be logical for the FAA to relax the GPS requirement slightly, so a cheap GPS module is sufficient to alert nearby aircraft of RPV activity over a certain altitude (eg. 200ft AGL…

There is nothing about aviation GPS's that make them high accuracy. In fact they're mostly inferior to consumer GPS equipment. What drives up the cost is certification of the equipment.

Aviation GPS typically have a greater update rate, and support WAAS (wide area augmentation system) and RAIM (receiver autonomous integrity monitoring).
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