Author Topic: For the Love of Radio Controlled Aircraft in the US, New Rules Possible.  (Read 14272 times)

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Offline Simon

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Sorted! anyone else want some time out?
 

Offline joeqsmith

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Had a few people correct me how RCs are not toys.  Some research, I saw where a child was killed when they were hit with a toy boat.   Of course, it was also kids piloting the boat.    If the RC group feels these are not toys and they really could be potentially lethal, maybe they should be better regulated.   Require a license to sell and operate.  Maybe something like a drivers test that you have to renew.  Other hobbies require licenses as well.  Guns, Amateur Radio, Drag Racing....

Offline Simon

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There was a case of a kid that got his head cut off by the rotor of a rather large RC helicopter he was flying. Indeed much like model steam engines that run on the real thing there comes a point where some models are actually getting closer to the real thing even if on a smaller scale.
 

Offline metrologist

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Perhaps people should be able to make their own RC aircraft, but it has to use approved transmitter and receiver modules, which enable the authorities to disable/track it?

There are already systems that can track and identify these devices through TDOA techniques, RF signatures, and communication protocols. DroneShield is one such example, and there are new technologies that will hit the market soon. There is no need to force this on consumers. The authorities have means of detecting unlawful driving, for example, without forcing transponders and other controls on vehicles. All they are doing is making this a government revenue source and commercial venture for private industry, and shifting all of the costs to consumers.  :--

RC is dangerous. You can loose an eye from a paper airplane. Life is dangerous. This endless pursuit of utopia where nobody gets sick, hurt, and everyone lives forever. What a great future.
 

Offline beanflying

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You can't regulate stupid or evil.

@Joe R/C Aircraft and Helis were never 'Toys' when I started. The building of them prior by the user gave you some background in a lot of cases and lead you invariably in most cases to a club of people with knowledge to learn how to use your several months of work. This is no longer the case and we have idiots with no skills, background and a wad of cash buying a 'toy' because they are cool.

@simon that one Helicopter is a case of Stupid. The Owner shouldn't have been flying it where they were and the kid shouldn't have been  in front of the pilot if it is the case I think you are referring to. I own a couple of similar sized helis and humans behind helis in front helps and in Oz as with most countries we already have a federal law which is part of the Air Navigation Order for a 30m exclusion rule.

In the UK somewhere over twenty years ago a Man as a Spectator was killed by a 1kg Balsa glider when he was struck in the temple by it. The spectator was in an 'appropriate' place but a wind gust if memory serves blew the glider on a ridge back into the spectator. While a complete accident things like this do happen 'occasionally' but overly harsh regulation won't magic them away.

Life has risks and like the current CoV outbreak the risks of Being Killed by a Red bus on a Sunday far outwiegh the 'threat' of death and dismemberment by R/C Aircraft or Helicopters. but the media loves a story. Since that Helicopter issue in the UK how many Roads deaths have there been and why don't the regulations on those stop the carnage?

Dicks with Drones are another matter as most of the issues happen because they don't get used in line with the existing ANO's and four or more dicing blades and humans in close proximity is bound to end up in tears or worse.
« Last Edit: March 03, 2020, 04:14:17 pm by beanflying »
Coffee, Food, R/C and electronics nerd in no particular order. Also CNC wannabe, 3D printer and Laser Cutter Junkie and just don't mention my TEA addiction....
 
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Offline chickadee

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Perhaps people should be able to make their own RC aircraft, but it has to use approved transmitter and receiver modules, which enable the authorities to disable/track it?

There are already systems that can track and identify these devices through TDOA techniques, RF signatures, and communication protocols. DroneShield is one such example, and there are new technologies that will hit the market soon. There is no need to force this on consumers. The authorities have means of detecting unlawful driving, for example, without forcing transponders and other controls on vehicles. All they are doing is making this a government revenue source and commercial venture for private industry, and shifting all of the costs to consumers.  :--

RC is dangerous. You can loose an eye from a paper airplane. Life is dangerous. This endless pursuit of utopia where nobody gets sick, hurt, and everyone lives forever. What a great future.

I don't think those pushing this "new world order" BS regulatory garbage actually believe that they will get to that future.  It's really just that this has become a self feeding problem - The more regulations there are, the more taxpayer money is taken to pay more people to enforce said regulations.  This is why projectile weapon ownership in the USA has more than doubled in the past 10 years.  It's kind of scary to think about them all getting ready for a war, but at the same time, so exciting!  Anything is possible  :scared:
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Offline james_s

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Had a few people correct me how RCs are not toys.  Some research, I saw where a child was killed when they were hit with a toy boat.   Of course, it was also kids piloting the boat.    If the RC group feels these are not toys and they really could be potentially lethal, maybe they should be better regulated.   Require a license to sell and operate.  Maybe something like a drivers test that you have to renew.  Other hobbies require licenses as well.  Guns, Amateur Radio, Drag Racing....

Anything is dangerous under the right circumstances. People have been killed by baseballs, bicycles, sleds, all manner of sporting activities. Should we regulate bats and require a license to play baseball? What about archery? A bow and arrow can be a lethal weapon yet we did it at school in 7th grade physical education, there is no license needed and no rules I'm aware of on who can own or operate the equipment.

RC models have for the most part been exceptionally safe. Injuries and even a few deaths have happened but when you look at the big picture it's about as safe as any outdoor leisure activity gets. Surely we have bigger fish to fry.
 

Offline Simon

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regulating to the extreme does not help with injuries. When people have no way in which to gain the skills required to do things safely the day they are faced with a situation they will just injure themselves or someone else as they have never been exposed to making such decisions.
 

Offline chickadee

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Totally agree! In fact, I'll bet that regulating to the extreme can actually increase injuries - Such regulatory action can serve to prevent people from even understanding how injuries happen in the first place - Making them more susceptible to preventable accidents!
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Offline Simon

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i got a BB gun. The first thing i did was accidentally shoot and damage my laptop screen as it misfired. I did not injure anyone other than my pocket. Now i am more careful. Should I ever have to handle an actual firearm which i would never do willingly I would be more aware of what i am doing.

A work colleague told us of a trip to america in a previous job where they went to a shooting range and where pleased to find out that they could hire anything they wanted to play with. However one person soon had everyone throwing themselves to the floor when he started waving around his gun oblivious to the fact that he could accidentally shoot a colleague
 

Offline james_s

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i got a BB gun. The first thing i did was accidentally shoot and damage my laptop screen as it misfired. I did not injure anyone other than my pocket. Now i am more careful. Should I ever have to handle an actual firearm which i would never do willingly I would be more aware of what i am doing.

It's surprisingly fun, if you enjoy shooting a BB gun you'd probably enjoy shooting a real gun, you can accurately hit a target much further away. It can get a bit expensive though, but small caliber low power stuff isn't too bad.

Something I've always wanted to try is skeet shooting with a shotgun, my friend did it once and said it was great.
 

Offline metrologist

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Anything is dangerous under the right circumstances. People have been killed by baseballs, bicycles, sleds, all manner of sporting activities. Should we regulate bats and require a license to play baseball? What about archery? A bow and arrow can be a lethal weapon yet we did it at school in 7th grade physical education, there is no license needed and no rules I'm aware of on who can own or operate the equipment.

You must live in one of the free states. My local jurisdiction's laws on projectiles basically states that any projectile launched by means of combustion, compressed gas, spring, or elastic band is illegal. There is also a provision for gravity fed catapults. No blow darts, sling-shots, you cannot even fire a spit wad through a straw.

But we were about to talk about someone's bird fetish...
 

Offline chickadee

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i got a BB gun. The first thing i did was accidentally shoot and damage my laptop screen as it misfired. I did not injure anyone other than my pocket. Now i am more careful. Should I ever have to handle an actual firearm which i would never do willingly I would be more aware of what i am doing.

A work colleague told us of a trip to america in a previous job where they went to a shooting range and where pleased to find out that they could hire anything they wanted to play with. However one person soon had everyone throwing themselves to the floor when he started waving around his gun oblivious to the fact that he could accidentally shoot a colleague

Most states have banned this practice for that very reason!  You now need to demonstrate some competency and even a single mistake gets you banned!  I almost got banned simply for not putting my safety glasses on *as* I was walking through the door into the range instead of before!!!  They pulled me out and read me the riot act!
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Offline Simon

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Well these guys were practically tourists, never handled weapons before. It was a few years ago.
 

Offline chickadee

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I feel like the "paranoid about liability" curve has been exponential the past few decades.  Drones and RC aircraft will be victims, regardless of what this legislation does or does not mandate.  Personal injury lawsuits seem to be initiated from a scratch, or less nowadays  :(
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Offline joeqsmith

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regulating to the extreme does not help with injuries. When people have no way in which to gain the skills required to do things safely the day they are faced with a situation they will just injure themselves or someone else as they have never been exposed to making such decisions.

Maybe an outright ban is needed to curb the RC death rate.  Think of the children!     

Online tautech

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Something I've always wanted to try is skeet shooting with a shotgun, my friend did it once and said it was great.
Come visit, skeet and DTL range here.

Can be addictive as I found in my teens but it's one of those hobbies you can still remain competitive well into later life.
Avid Rabid Hobbyist.
Some stuff seen @ Siglent HQ cannot be shared.
 

Offline LaserSteveTopic starter

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This gets real interesting, real fast.  DJI published an analysis of who was on the 75 member invited  "Industry Advisory Committee". Mostly telecom  providers in the form of big cellular  companies  and law enforcement. Users and manufacturers were woefully under-represented.

      So the published pipe dream is that some service provider would 1. Charge public  users only 5 USD per month, 2. Feed all this flight data down a pipeline (or two) to FAA and probably other agencies for free, 3. Retain the
data for six months, and yet have the level of customer service to make the drone delivery companies happy.

  So either some one is planning to spend in the government's black budget for what I'm going to call "Total Drone Awareness" or this was a pipedream of totally privatized art traffic control via the existing cell service, or I'm believing some one's preplanned  spin on the project.

    And yet all nine or so "invited" service providers would also have to co-operate and share the data, while hopefully providing a "freemium" service to some minor users, which means there would have to be advertising or something to users, or selling the data which was supposed to be open source.   

  Turns out, according to DJI, there is no budget for FAA to spend on establishing this system. FAA excluded ADS-B from the drone side of things which means either they don't want to overload ADS-B (Which is contractor operated) or clutter it with non safety of life traffic.  But as I think of it, even at low level, it IS safety of life traffic.

I've never known a Telecoms company to NOT turn a profit, even the government owned monopolies,  so think what you may.

Ouch... Again,  Allegedly ….   When I get time I'll publish the links to the docs I'm basing this post on.

   Which really raises the question, of "Where is the real time collision avoidance and flight guidance Hardware" going to set? Is the reason why government and apparently part of the industry   wants totally open source everything data  so that the flight planning is done at each operator's headquarters?  A version of what the airline industry wants to go to with no airways routes, so all flights are direct for shortest distance?  Who/ What/ When/ Where negotiates what UAS  has the right of way?

   An even bigger question is how does a General Aviation aircraft or crop duster, or Ultralight or Medical Helo pilot "pop up" into the drone traffic from an uncontrolled airport? Right now in most  uncontrolled  airspace they just call blind on CTAF, a open traffic advisory frequency.

I can't help but to have a little fun with this:
"Press one for Espanol, Press two for English, Press three if your drone can't get permission to take off, Press four if a unwanted delivery drone is setting in your yard, Press five if your at the scene of a mid air collision or drone crash,  Press Six to pay your Airspace Bill, your estimated wait time is Thirty Two Minutes"   ATC support from an overseas call center is going to be a hoot, too...
 
Steve

« Last Edit: March 05, 2020, 01:56:39 pm by LaserSteve »
"When in doubt, check the Byte order of the Communications Protocol, By Hand, On an Oscilloscope"

Quote from a co-inventor of the PLC, whom i had the honor of working with recently.
 

Offline LaserSteveTopic starter

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So after posting that, I went to get ready for work, and  the naughty child in me thought, "I should patent the new children's games, Block the Delivery Drone, Crash the Drone, Ride your bike into the landing drone, Brooms and sticks into props/thrusters, set your little sister under the drone, throw gravel at the drone, blind the drone camera with flashlights,  swap delivery boxes when two drones land at once, etc."

Juvenile court just might become very interesting.. " All rise for the case of Timmy S. age 7,  vs Amazon"

Then I thought, how will the drone avoid my car coming into the driveway?
How will the astronomers get drone free zones for telescopes.

Then it dawned on me, wait till the Home Owner's Associations get wind of this phenomena.

A painful thought is advertising drones flying down my street loaded with LEDs.

Is it really worth having drones screaming down with audible warnings going off at 2 AM?

I'm really wondering how well thought out this idea really is.

Steve

« Last Edit: March 05, 2020, 02:29:20 pm by LaserSteve »
"When in doubt, check the Byte order of the Communications Protocol, By Hand, On an Oscilloscope"

Quote from a co-inventor of the PLC, whom i had the honor of working with recently.
 

Offline angrybird

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No better thought out than the massively increasing numbers of satellites ruining the view of the stars...

"Well, grandson, when I was younger, there were more stars visible than satellites! Oh how I miss those days" (as a coca cola advertisement flashes from space, right next to the big dipper)
THE CAKE IS A LIE AND THESE NUTHATCH ARE WAY TOO DISTRACTING
 
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Offline SiliconWizard

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No better thought out than the massively increasing numbers of satellites ruining the view of the stars...

Well, that's when you can actually see anything at night in the sky. In many areas these days, pollution (atmospheric and light pollution) kinda prevents from seeing anything much, even satellites. :popcorn:
But you will see herds of flashing and beeping drones. How cool is that?

Yup. Economic growth über alles.
« Last Edit: March 05, 2020, 03:49:08 pm by SiliconWizard »
 

Offline james_s

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I don't know that I've ever seen a satellite before. Doesn't seem like there could possibly be enough of them to interfere with seeing stars, the sky is pretty big. I think you'd need literally millions if not billions of satellites to form a fog of them.
 

Offline LaserSteveTopic starter

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I used to track big sats by eye at Boy Scout Camp. Now Scouts will soon be mostly girls and the light pollution is atrocious in the valley. But we can still see high magnitude stars where I live.
"When in doubt, check the Byte order of the Communications Protocol, By Hand, On an Oscilloscope"

Quote from a co-inventor of the PLC, whom i had the honor of working with recently.
 

Offline hendorog

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I don't know that I've ever seen a satellite before. Doesn't seem like there could possibly be enough of them to interfere with seeing stars, the sky is pretty big. I think you'd need literally millions if not billions of satellites to form a fog of them.

Wow that's really surprising. I have seen the starlink chain buzz past in the middle of the city. If you get a chance with timing and weather where you are it is well worth the effort.

 

Offline angrybird

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I used to track big sats by eye at Boy Scout Camp. Now Scouts will soon be mostly girls and the light pollution is atrocious in the valley. But we can still see high magnitude stars where I live.

It's hard thing to do but have you ever considered moving out of the country of commiefornia and into one of the many states in America?  ;)
THE CAKE IS A LIE AND THESE NUTHATCH ARE WAY TOO DISTRACTING
 


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