Pmcdn said:
Their hangup with commercial use, IMO is little more than the federal government trying to decide on the best way to collect (confiscate) money from the interested businesses in the forms of fees, fines, and/or taxes. They are still scrambling around trying to decide the best way (how to maximize) to go about this. I imagine that there will eventually be some type of "permit" (code for confiscation of money) and some other form of restrictions in operation, creating a structure to impose fines by.
Again (IMO), this has much more to do with the confiscation of money and a lot less to do with safety, HOWEVER it will be imposed on us in the guise of safety. Mark my words.
No. It has nothing to do with money. Regulatory agencies are permitted to collect reasonable fees to partially compensate the cost of administering their responsibilities. But the fees charged by the agencies I have dealt with in no way comes close to full reimbursement for the services received.
Pmcdn said:
This is why we are hearing mostly about how they might handle commercial usage of “drones” way more than we are hearing about overall use, including recreational use.
The fact that they are almost exclusively focusing on commercial use right now isn’t a reason for all of the recreational pilots to celebrate. I’m holding my breath, because I fear (and predict) that once they get the commercial side sorted out, they’ll hit the rec users next. We are already seeing some states begin to propose restricted use of ALL “drones”.
This is why it is critical for everyone to be very sensible while flying their quads, because stupid behavior is being spotlighted by the media to paint quads in a very negative light. Mark my words, if/when a quad falls out of the sky or crashes and hits a person causing death or very serious injury due to negligence, the media (and lawmakers) will come down on all “drone” use like white on rice!
Let’s not make it easier for them to pass hasty, knee-jerk overblown legislation for ALL “drone” users, like only flying under 50’ and no closer than 30 miles from any city limit, or something to that effect.
Wow, so many things wrong here... The FAA has only one purpose - safety of flight. Primarily passenger flight. The emphasis on commercial use is, as msinger said, 49 USC§ 44711 requires an airman certificate for commercial flights. [Hey, there's a solution, get Congress to change 49 USC§ 44711 giving the FAA permission to allow exceptions if aviation safety is not compromised. But that would require Congress to
do something.] Also, Congress has specifically told the FAA that they may not regulate hobby flight.
Next, on safety - the odds of a falling quad like the Phantom causing serious injury to someone on the ground are so low, that to entertain that idea is laughable. At the most, it would cause some bruises and maybe a Band Aid. With the tens of thousands of Phantoms flying, where is the carnage? Can
anyone find a verifiable report of a small quadcopter causing serious injury to any person not involved in the flight? No! The public paranoia, supported by hysteric statements like yours, is so keen to Drone news that if there had been a serious injury, there would be news reports.
Unfortunately, there are some on this forum who would be perfectly OK with ALL drone users flying under 50’ and no closer than 30 miles from any city limit.