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Meanwhile, in Russia a pizzeria recently launched unmanned delivery: http://rt.com/news/167936-russia-drones-pizza-delivery/
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In this case the appeal stays the decision: http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId... Definitely agree with your second point - according to most observers, the FAA's authority to regulate small (model-sized) UAVs is tenuous at best. They're generally not expected to win their appeal.
Even if they lose, won't the laws change to give them these powers ? I don't see something as potentially risky as drones running around unregulated.
Really? How about people hitting baseballs with bats unregulated? That's a heck of a lot more dangerous than most hobbyist drones, perhaps unless you're deliberately trying to do harm (in which case regulations don't matter).
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Even if they lose, won't the laws change to give them these powers ? I don't see something as potentially risky as drones running around unregulated.
The laws already changed to give them these powers - the 2012 FAA Modernization Act authorizes the FAA to make rules about UAS. However, the FAA's rulemaking abilities are limited by the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and they haven't made any yet. So, even if the FAA's appeal fails, there will be a very short window (probably a year or less) before drones are explicitly regulated on less shaky footing.
So claims the FAA. I can't make my way through the text of the law, nor can I find any legal summary or analysis other than the FAA's own claim that it gives them the authority to regulate UAS.
I'm curious, do the people who think that they should be allowed to fly their unmanned aircraft without restrictions also think that they should be allowed to fly their manned aircraft without restrictions, or should the rules be different because the pilot is on the ground rather than in the vehicle itself?
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418 U.S. military drones have crashed so far. http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/06/22/cr... Do you think commercial drones will be better-maintained or have more experienced pilots? I don't.
These are very very different types of aircraft. Sort of like saying a few submarines have sunk therefore we are outlawing all boats.
> > If an individual offers free shipping in association with a purchase or other offer, FAA would construe the shipping to be in furtherance of a business purpose, and thus, the operation would not fall within the statutory requirement of recreation or hobby purpose. > Surprising? No, but it is almost fun to see the government be so particular in its language Well couldn't amazon get around this by using negative sh…
It turns out that judges aren't stupid.
Huge win for Amazon, which never actually intended to use drones to deliver packages. The whole thing was a PR stunt designed to gain traffic on cyber Monday. Now they conviently can blame the government when they never actually invest the money to build the drones.
Amazon’s devices will be used for a single purpose they will be optimized in ways we have never seen in the multicopter industry. Their delivery scheme will be completely computer controlled, and will account for weather, airspeed, air density, and flight path, because they will have to.
Octocopters have demonstrated their amazing flight stability and capability in the hands of tinkerers and hobbyist, and there is some question of whether a billion dollar corporation can achieve this? As soon as Amazon mentioned this, FedEx, UPS, and USPS started forming their R&D for the exact same programs.
This is one of the largest, most high-tech, most optimized and automated companies in the world, and some of us are doubtful? Amazon will do this because humans are the problem. With robots, you eliminate the most irrational, chaotic, unreliable and expensive element from the equation.
I'm curious, do the people who think that they should be allowed to fly their unmanned aircraft without restrictions also think that they should be allowed to fly their manned aircraft without restrictions, or should the rules be different because the pilot is on the ground rather than in the vehicle itself?
Regulations for airplanes are strict primarily because the consequences of failure is loss of human life. Secondly to prevent damage to property due to crashes. Given that drones are unmanned, it would mean to me that the regulation on them should be less than what a manned aircraft requires. I would imagine it would be more similar to rocketry rather than airplanes.