FAA moves to regulate and thus destroy drone use
We’re here to help you: The FAA is considering a new rule to require a pilot’s license in order to operate a private drone, even drones more akin to model airplanes.
The proposed rules would require that a drone owner would have to get certified as a pilot, “certification that can cost $10,000 and demand many hours flying aircraft that control nothing like a little drone.”
“Knowing the proper flap setting on a short runway approach for a Cessna 172 doesn’t do any good for a DJI Phantom [an inexpensive and popular commercial drone],” said Matt Waite, a University of Nebraska professor and founder of the Drone Journalism Lab. “A lot of people out there already running businesses in conflict with FAA policy, who don’t have pilot licenses, are probably looking at this like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.'”
Gee, here we have a new industry that is growing and prosperous, with many people coming up with creative ideas for using drones that none of its inventors ever dreamed of, and the government wants to step in and control it, regulating it to a point where it can’t even exist legally. Isn’t that nice of them?
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We’re here to help you: The FAA is considering a new rule to require a pilot’s license in order to operate a private drone, even drones more akin to model airplanes.
The proposed rules would require that a drone owner would have to get certified as a pilot, “certification that can cost $10,000 and demand many hours flying aircraft that control nothing like a little drone.”
“Knowing the proper flap setting on a short runway approach for a Cessna 172 doesn’t do any good for a DJI Phantom [an inexpensive and popular commercial drone],” said Matt Waite, a University of Nebraska professor and founder of the Drone Journalism Lab. “A lot of people out there already running businesses in conflict with FAA policy, who don’t have pilot licenses, are probably looking at this like, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me.'”
Gee, here we have a new industry that is growing and prosperous, with many people coming up with creative ideas for using drones that none of its inventors ever dreamed of, and the government wants to step in and control it, regulating it to a point where it can’t even exist legally. Isn’t that nice of them?
Readers!
Every February I run a fund-raising drive during my birthday month. This year I celebrate my 72nd birthday, and hope and plan to continue writing and posting on Behind the Black for as long as I am able.
I hope my readers will support this effort. As I did in my November fund-raising drive, I am offering autographed copies of my books for large donations. Donate $250 and you can have a choice of the hardback of either Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8 or Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space. Donate $200 and you can get an autographed paperback copy of either.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
This seems to be an issue of preemption. The FAA hierarchs sense, quite correctly, that the massive use of drone delivery and observation tech in civilian hands will explode into a situation where the FAA *cannot* control who gets to fly with any effectiveness. They are twitchy enough about the military being outside their control.
Once enough people are profiting from civilian use of drones, they will constantly be pushed to expand the legal envelope, especially payload weight, at a rate that pushes the tech to passenger weights far sooner than otherwise. Drone crashes from flights below 500 feet at a mass of 10 kilos can be survived by the present hierarchy. Drones crashing with a mass of 200 kilos cannot, and would cause a huge transformation/obliteration of the FAA, probably including “early retirement” for many upper level hierarchs.
Thus, preemption. Drone issues merge with “aircar” issues above 200 kilos mass, because once a 100 kilo payload is possible, you can bet people will find a way to ride them. That concept has been a bete noir for 50 years at the FAA. I look for hierarchs tweaking the obsessing about “corporate drone spying” higher to gain a political advantage here.
FAA probably feeling pressured to react to the drone hysteria already out there.
“Drones spotted by pilots at JFK”, “”Drone flying near tennis match”, “Drone flying outside girl’s bathroom”.
To the press and public everything is a “drone”, from a Global Hawk to the toy quadcopter at the mall kiosk.
And we know drones kill – look at what we’re doing in Yemen…
In reality most of these “drones” are no bigger than the model airplanes and helicopters that have been around for decades. The same rules should apply.
Idiots and jerks have already amply demonstrated thatsome kind of regulation is needed. But there’s plenty of room to prohibit conduct that presents an undue hazard without getting in the way of reasonable business.
Though some of us suspect an objective to regime actions beyond preventing flight dangerous to the public.