And I think this simple ignorance illustrates the looming problem for the UAV community. As a commercial pilot and experimental aircraft owner, I can tell you that if the UAV community does not start to self-police these types of excursions, either by education or with software solutions (like the GPS-limiter mentioned in the article), then the regulating bodies will do it for them.
Most HN readers would agree that there is huge potential for UAV technology, but one needs only to look at the glacial progress of certified aviation technology in both the US and Europe to see that over-regulation can and does stifle innovation.
For readers familiar with the differing regulations in the US for experimental category amateur-built aircraft vs. certified light aircraft, you've seen the wide gap between what is possible to do with technology and what is legal to certify. In most cases, an aircraft built in your garage is far superior in display and sensor technology than your average certified airplane. This trend has only recently started to self-correct.
The point is, US organizations such as the EAA and AOPA do a tremendous amount of work to educate their members and to lobby Congress to ensure that what limited freedoms we have are maintained. I think the UAV community needs something similar or their industry will get regulated to death -- especially after the first drone gets ingested into a jet engine.
there's no such thing as "UAV community" in this case. the vast majority of stupid flights are made by the general public getting a "drone" in some shop and flying it in "funny locations" such as airports.
These have no idea what they're doing and do not participate to forums/communities/etc thus are difficult to regulate.
Blaming it on the UAV community is actually also being ignorant. The actual community is literally spammed by posts about flying safe/where to fly/etc.
I think that a decent analogy to these drone pilots are laser-pointer owners pointing at airplanes. That's totally retarded, doesn't achieve anything exciting - it only risk other ppl's life with low chance of getting caught. Just like drones attempting to "film" 747's landing and the like.
I agree completely with the laser-pointer analogy, and I think UAV operators who make "stupid flights" will eventually suffer similar federal penalties to the laser operators.
I wouldn't say I "blame" the UAV community at all, because, as you say, there are always outliers who can't/won't be educated.
But since I imagine the UAV forum-readers and would-be professional operators are interested in keeping government oversight out of their industry as much as possible, I'd say it's their responsibility to take action on this matter, much like the EAA and AOPA do with personal aircraft.
> I agree completely with the laser-pointer analogy, and I think UAV operators who make "stupid flights" will eventually suffer similar federal penalties to the laser operators.
Much easier to find the source of a laser pointer than the person flying a drone though. I'm not sure how you can deal with that.
And I think this simple ignorance illustrates the looming problem for the UAV community. As a commercial pilot and experimental aircraft owner, I can tell you that if the UAV community does not start to self-police these types of excursions, either by education or with software solutions (like the GPS-limiter mentioned in the article), then the regulating bodies will do it for them.
Most HN readers would agree that there is huge potential for UAV technology, but one needs only to look at the glacial progress of certified aviation technology in both the US and Europe to see that over-regulation can and does stifle innovation.
For readers familiar with the differing regulations in the US for experimental category amateur-built aircraft vs. certified light aircraft, you've seen the wide gap between what is possible to do with technology and what is legal to certify. In most cases, an aircraft built in your garage is far superior in display and sensor technology than your average certified airplane. This trend has only recently started to self-correct.
The point is, US organizations such as the EAA and AOPA do a tremendous amount of work to educate their members and to lobby Congress to ensure that what limited freedoms we have are maintained. I think the UAV community needs something similar or their industry will get regulated to death -- especially after the first drone gets ingested into a jet engine.