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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

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Appeal to fear isn't an argument. Either the precision is right or it isn't. Precision requirements aren't unique to aviation and aviation doesn't even have the strictest requirements. The required precision of surveying equipment is much higher than what aviation needs.

I would have much more faith in an open source project with lots of people independently verifying the precision of calculations for known devices than closed source stuff from aviation companies that hide behind fear rather than real justifications for the price.

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

#152
post #98
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's still a simple thing to do with software. The cost of the device shouldn't go up because of that.

That makes no sense, unless your software guys work for free. The cost of software development has to be paid for out of the price of the devices. Aviation is a very limited market, so you don't have a lot of sales to amortize those costs.

The cost of these devices are much greater than the cost to implement the feature we are talking about though (alerting on bad precision). You can argue that the cost should be high because of intelligence about runway approaches, but just knowing that the precision is bad is not an excuse.

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

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Appeal to fear isn't an argument. Either the precision is right or it isn't. Precision requirements aren't unique to aviation and aviation doesn't even have the strictest requirements. The required precision of surveying equipment is much higher than what aviation needs. I would have much more faith in an open source project with lots of people independently verifying the precision of calculations for known devices t…

It's not an appeal to fear. It's an appeal to testing and verification.

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

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

License to initiate warfare under authority of Congress, yes. License to own and operate harmlessly one defensively, no. The philosophy of the Founding Fathers is extensively documented. Not the least of which is their carrying out revolt and secession against a superpower for the purpose of securing personal liberty and minimizing control & harassment by government. In light of that, the notion of them fearing cars…

I don't think it's absurd to imagine that something so completely beyond what they could have even imagined might have hit them on a deep, irrational, emotional level.

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

#155
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Only" 2x ? That's 250.000 people more. One human life is too much.

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

#156
post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"Only" 2x ? That's 250.000 people more. One human life is too much.

> That's 250.000 people more.

It's 10,000 people more (in a country of 90M people) not 250,000. And, like I said, it's not due to the lax traffic laws/enforcement, it's due to the average Vietnamese riding a motorcycle instead of a car while wearing a useless brain bucket -style helmet.

> One human life is too much.

We all die anyways, might as well enjoy ourselves instead of spending all our time and money on insurance and waiting for "stop signs" and "red lights".

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

#157
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can simply fine people who do not have the documents with them. Like a police officer would come up to a drone pilot and ask for documents. You can build a bicycle much more easily than a drone and many counties and some countries require people to register their bicycles.

Do the police usually have the capability to track down who is operating a drone though?

If you're doing something annoying or illegal they could always follow it and see where it lands. More likely they would ask when they drive by and see someone preparing to launch one.

There are lots of hunting, firearms, and vehicular regulations that get enforced by cops (and other peace officers) who see things while on patrol.

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

#158
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct and I don't think sitting in the pilot's seat but not having your hands on the controls qualifies as "unmanned." Again, UAVs are not computer-flown. They're remotely piloted. They are not completely autonomous (yet.)

> Again, UAVs are not computer-flown. They're remotely piloted. They are not completely autonomous (yet.) This is incorrect. Most popular consumer-level autopilot systems used by companies like DJI and 3D Robotics have complete autonomous functionality (except sense and avoid capability) which allows the user to input a flight path and then watch the drone take off, fly through the checkpoints and then land, complete…

I don't think we agree on what "autonomous" means. Preprogramming a flight path to follow doesn't meet the definition of autonomous nor does autopilot following waypoints.

Autonomous, at least to me, means the drone takes off, searches out a sight ("drone, fine me a bridge and take pictures of it") and then makes the decision to fly to it and perform some kind of action whether it be photographic/videographic/some kind of monitoring (commercial drones) or a kinetic action (military drones).

Basically, when drones get AI then I'd personally consider them to be autonomous. YMMV

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

#159
post #76
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Drone" covers all UAVs/RPVs whether small enough to fit on your palm or large enough to need a full size air strip to launch. All UAVs are drones and all drones are UAVs. Not all drones are quadcopters but all quadcopters are drones. Even in the strictest definition, what we commonly call "R/C Planes/Helicopters" actually qualify as "drones." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unmanned_aerial_vehicle

>...but all quadcopters are drones. Well, not all of them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_de_Bothezat http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9v0ADuoE1cY/VHsBwdH-YGI/AAAAAAAAAh...

Well played, sir.
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