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FAA issuing new rules to allow drones to fly over people and at night

reuters.com

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Re: FAA issuing new rules to allow drones to fly over people and at night

#221

Post by LadyCailin »

bananabreakfast wrote: post #219
xvector wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was the dumbest thing I experienced with my Model 3. I was expecting my regen brakes to work after I pulled out and I had to brake super hard after. Why can’t Tesla just give us an option to keep it consistent? I guess adding video games is more important.

Because that's not how batteries work. Regen works because the batteries are being charged by the induction of the motors taking energy from the moving car. If the batteries are full they cannot take any more change and hence cannot draw power from the motion of the car. What do you expect them to do? Dump the current on a giant resistor and hope it doesn't melt?

Simulate the same braking curve with the physical brakes as when regen is functioning?

Re: FAA issuing new rules to allow drones to fly over people and at night

#222

Post by dodobirdlord »

bananabreakfast wrote: post #219
xvector wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was the dumbest thing I experienced with my Model 3. I was expecting my regen brakes to work after I pulled out and I had to brake super hard after. Why can’t Tesla just give us an option to keep it consistent? I guess adding video games is more important.

Because that's not how batteries work. Regen works because the batteries are being charged by the induction of the motors taking energy from the moving car. If the batteries are full they cannot take any more change and hence cannot draw power from the motion of the car. What do you expect them to do? Dump the current on a giant resistor and hope it doesn't melt?

I suppose that's one approach. Mechanical brakes work by converting the kinetic energy of the vehicle into heat via friction, it seems fitting that inductive brakes would dump energy to heat by running current over a resistor. Though under normal braking circumstances I don't know what percentage of the vehicle's energy is lost to the brakes themselves and what percentage is lost to the friction of the tire with the road.

Re: FAA issuing new rules to allow drones to fly over people and at night

#223

Post by jcrawfordor »

souprock wrote: post #131
chrisdalke wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's not why the FAA is regulating it, and these regulations won't stop that. They're regulating because people are flying recklessly above 400ft, above roadways, and in restricted airspace.

Flying above 400 feet is only a problem because aircraft can fly down at 500 feet. Do we really want aircraft at only 500 feet? I wouldn't want even a typical general aviation aircraft going over my house at that height. Make it an Airbus 380 and it might be entertaining. The solution is to raise the height for normal aircraft. That makes room for drones. We could give the drones from 500 to 1900 feet, putting normal…

For what it's worth, in any urban area, the 1000 feet above highest object within 2000 feet horizontally is much more likely to apply. While the actual regulations are somewhat loose on definitions, most pilots I know would describe the "500 feet from anything" fallback regulation as being applicable only when there are no structures or other populated places nearby.

In any case, raising floor altitude for non-RC/unmanned aircraft to 2k feet would pose fairly substantial challenges as, even ignoring the fact that airports require approaches below 2k feet and are often near populated areas, lots of commercial applications for light aircraft require low altitudes. Survey, photography, news gathering, law enforcement, sightseeing, etc. These are many of the same applications drones are posed for... there doesn't really seem to be any way to simply separate these types of traffic entirely.

Re: FAA issuing new rules to allow drones to fly over people and at night

#224

Post by joshdogden »

Here are two videos of our parachute recovery system in action. They are both for two popular commercial drones called the DJI M200 Series and DJI M300 RTK.

Video 1 - Third Party Testing - https://youtu.be/jtzT5sKxf3A

Video 2 - Promotional Video - https://youtu.be/Yp53H77hgA8

Feel free to ask questions about how they work, what testing is required, or about the new rule.

Here is another article that we wrote today: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/activity-6749416334729195520-...

Re: FAA issuing new rules to allow drones to fly over people and at night

#225

Post by celim307 »

raisedbyninjas wrote: post #220
datalus wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The free market didn't deliver seat belts. Regulation had to step in and Ralph Nader lobbied the US govt to get it passed.

Volvo sold the three point seatbelt for nine years before the US government required it.

That’s a little different, seatbelts save the lives of your customers

Re: FAA issuing new rules to allow drones to fly over people and at night

#226

Post by leetcrew »

schoen wrote: post #216
bigbubba wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a Tesla would use rheostatic braking, I think it would require more cooling capacity than the cars are currently designed for. If the resistor couldn't be kept cool, then the car would have to revert back to friction brakes anyway. More cooling probably means bigger air intakes, which I think would run contrary to their aesthetic goals.

Shouldn't the resistor having to end up dissipating exactly as much heat as the friction brakes do, by conservation of energy? Is there a reason that it's inherently mechanically harder for the resistor to dissipate that heat?

not really, but you have to have the friction brakes anyway, so why add more parts?

Re: FAA issuing new rules to allow drones to fly over people and at night

#227

Post by jcrawfordor »

frisco wrote: post #51
coder543 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, when you put it that way, it makes more sense. I still hope they’ll make the rules more permissive at some point, especially as drones are integrating more and more flight automation and collision avoidance technology. Maybe certify certain drones with specific features and restrictions as being suitable for commercial usage without a license? Accidents can still happen, but... accidents can also happen with an…

My impression is that it's pretty easy to get a Part 107 Remote Pilot license; I think it's essentially just a knowledge test. Even if all you learn getting it is how the airspace system works and how to coordinate your use of it, that's a significant base of knowledge that is essential to flying responsibly in the US. There are serious civil and criminal penalties in the Federal Aviation Regulations for lots of comp…

I asked a flight school instructor about a part 107 license a while back and his response was "you want one? say the word and you'll have it by lunch." The only requirement is passing a written exam which he said was very easy compared to the private pilot exam.

The hardest thing about getting the part 107 license might actually be getting the identification form signed, since it needs to be done by an official. If you take the exam at a flight school they'll probably offer to have a CFI do it for you (for a fee I'm sure), but if you take the exam at a non-flight-specific testing center you might have to make a trip to a FSDO or call a CFI and see if they'll do it. It would help with the accessibility of the 107 license if they got rid of the somewhat arcane proof of identity rules inherited from other pilot's licenses.

Re: FAA issuing new rules to allow drones to fly over people and at night

#228

Post by dannyw »

rkagerer wrote: post #78

Even though I don't fly over people, I retrofitted a parachute onto my DJI drone just in case. It automatically deploys if the drone loses power or control. It doesn't impact flight characteristics or battery life by much. I feel like a basic safety like this would be a prudent and more effective measure for overhead flights than self-transmitting "license plates" (which I agree are at least better than the silly int…

Self transmitting license plates are a totally reasonable requirement.

In the future where drones are popular, if you get a drone with a high def camera flying over your backyard, you want to be able to identify who is flying it.

Re: FAA issuing new rules to allow drones to fly over people and at night

#229

Post by dannyw »

coder543 wrote: post #6

What about changing the rules around commercial use of drone photography / videography? I don't understand why it's fine to use drones to take photos and videos for personal use, and why it's perfectly fine to use the smartphone in your hand for commercially-usable photos and videos, but combine the two and you suddenly have to get an FAA license? That requirement feels very arbitrary, and it feels like a requirement…

Why not get a license? It’s really easy and will take you half a day.

Re: FAA issuing new rules to allow drones to fly over people and at night

#230

Post by dannyw »

pc86 wrote: post #17
coder543 wrote: post #6

What about changing the rules around commercial use of drone photography / videography? I don't understand why it's fine to use drones to take photos and videos for personal use, and why it's perfectly fine to use the smartphone in your hand for commercially-usable photos and videos, but combine the two and you suddenly have to get an FAA license? That requirement feels very arbitrary, and it feels like a requirement…

Like NW says, the FAA heavily regulates commercial activity. You can get a private license in as little as 40-ish hours. But you need an absolute minimum of 250 total hours to even qualify for a commercial license (and there are a bunch of hour requirements in subcategories such that if you're not explicitly working toward it, you're unlikely to meet minimums), and there's another written and practical exam. And not…

You can get a part 107 license in a day. It’s proportionate. If you’re making money from drones, I think a written exam is a reasonable pre-qualification.
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