21–30 of 143 posts
Huh, so if Amazon really wants to start sending out those drones they no longer have any legal hurdles? I expect to hear stories of college kids capturing them before EOY.
It's less "Drones are free to operate commercially" and more "If the FAA wants to regulate (commercial) drones separately for any other model aircraft, they need to create explicit regulations that apply to them"
What seems explicitly ruled against, is selectively interpreting existing regs as applying to an imprecise (and shifting) definition of "drone" and trying to use a "Policy Statement" as de facto law (by claiming a request for voluntary compliance, but then suing for non-compliance), without following the appropriate procedure or meeting all of the requirements of new regulation.
Cheap plug: if you want to play with aerial photography but are more of a software guy than a hardware guy, check out my embarrassingly buggy side project at http://airboss.io. It's an app that lets you use an old Android phone mounted on a drone as a photography/video platform with real-time first person view streaming using WebRTC.
Okay, time to build drones full of atmosphere sensors! The weather forecast is about to get a lot better....this is excellent news for crowdsourcing remote data about the atmosphere. I've been pulling pressure measurements from smartphones for a while, but a core problem is that a lot of weather develops over areas of low smartphone density. Sending out drone fleets will be a most excellent solution; they're reusable…
Out of curiosity, how do you power them? I'm assuming solar isn't enough. Do they have to continually come down to re-charge?
[1] Matternet is awesome. http://matternet.us/
Huh, so if Amazon really wants to start sending out those drones they no longer have any legal hurdles? I expect to hear stories of college kids capturing them before EOY.
Capture, hell - I'd enjoy shooting them down with my Remington 877 Express (with gooseload), or maybe my .243 Ruger rifle....but only if they are hovering.
/sarcasm
Huh, so if Amazon really wants to start sending out those drones they no longer have any legal hurdles? I expect to hear stories of college kids capturing them before EOY.
Capture, hell - I'd enjoy shooting them down with my Remington 877 Express (with gooseload), or maybe my .243 Ruger rifle....but only if they are hovering.
> Pirker operated the aircraft within about 50 feet of numerous individuals, about 20 feet of a crowded street, and within approximately 100 feet of an active heliport at UVA, the FAA alleged. One person had to take "evasive measures" to avoid being struck by the aircraft, the agency said.
[0] http://m.kspr.com/nationalnews/Drone-pilot-wins-case-against...
From a different article[0], it sounds like the guy being sued in this case may have been operating the drone irresponsibly, which opens a window for legislators to put laws in place that will gives the FAA power to regulate drones: > Pirker operated the aircraft within about 50 feet of numerous individuals, about 20 feet of a crowded street, and within approximately 100 feet of an active heliport at UVA, the FAA all…