US Army calls for ban on DJI equipment over security concerns

[Drestin Black]

I can't address each of your points so long as one equates the responsibility and risks (all the trappings included) of operating while being on-board an aircraft with that of flying a remote controlled aircraft.

There's a magnitude of difference.

I'd have to hear to give reply but I suspect that the APPLICABLE (not total) differences are not so great.

But, also, consider the relative potential for harm an "incident" each brings.

Massive burning crash with up to hundreds of deaths and possibly bad or even worse damage and toll on the ground. Damage in $millions plus many human lives.
Vs
Someone gets clunked on the head, some plastic hits and dents something. Damage in the, what, maybe couple thousand. Maybe maybe maybe a signal human casualty (none to date).
Not being sarcastic or silly in my above examples and figures.
Yet the aircraft with potential for far less harm is far greater restricted than the truly scary one.

 

[N017RW]

What if the aircraft 'of' your last sentence is involved in an 'incident' resulting in your third paragraph?

 

[UAS0750]

Effective Drone insurance is now commercially available. The larger question should be, do we totally throw away the astounding advantages of aircraft or other vehicles just because incidents happen? When we had only horses, incidents still happened often!

 

[With The Birds]

Ask yourself why such a system isn't installed in big aircraft?

Likewise, consider: on some planes the onboard computer can tell if the plane is heading nose down and towards the ground and going to impact the ground. It will sound alarms, flash warnings, "Pull Up! pull Up!" And yet, you can override the alarm as the plane plunges into the ground. The computer won't take over control of the plane and "pull up" and save all aboard, the plane and any potential disaster below. It will dutifully notify, unless told to shut up, about impending doom - but never, ever, ever take away control from the actual pilot even to the point of certain destruction.

All because, over decades and decades of use pilots have never ever decided to give up this type of control to a autonomous process.

Also, airplanes have fps aboard and apps and systems that will warn them: You are in a NFZ or within a TFR and you are NOT under any circumstances legal,y permitted to take off. And the pilot can just ignore it and take off and fly any direction he wants.

-----

So, Geo should work like the big boys. Warn the pilot. In clear terms say, I detect you are in such and such zone(s) and here is the rule.
Checkbox Here then click Ok if you accept responsibility and wish to continue, otherwise click Cancel.

That's how it should work. The action is logged, the flight records are logged. And he pilot remains the responsible party for their actions and DJI is indemnified.

The required certifications and licensing for pilots provide a certain level of knowledge and competence is demonstrated by a pilot of a manned AC, any donkey with a grand in his pocket can get a UAV in the air. I’m not missing your point and personally am not comfortable that DJI’s NFZ settings will allow me to flyin some circumstances where I would be in compliance with local regs and it is safe to do so. Unfortunately the potential antics of some have imposed these restrictions on all- clearly DJI sees the current restrictions as one means to prevent restrictive legislation on UAV sales hurting their business.

 

[Drestin Black]

What if the aircraft 'of' your last sentence is involved in an 'incident' resulting in your third paragraph?

What are the odds? No one can predict to exactness or we wouldn't be debating. So we go with odds. And the FAA has to consider the odds, not just worse case always.

If they did: we would never put airplane in the air or car on road.

 

[anotherlab]

TL;DR The analogy doesn't apply and the rules are going to better

What are the odds? No one can predict to exactness or we wouldn't be debating. So we go with odds. And the FAA has to consider the odds, not just worse case always.

I'm sorry, but that comparison is a false analogy. The rules are different for manned aircraft than unmanned multirotor craft because they are fundamentally different types of vehicles being with wildly different use cases. A drone flying over a crowd at 300 ft (to pick a number) has less time to recover from a failure in flight than a manned craft cruising at 10,000 ft. It's like saying that I should be able ride a tricycle on the Interstate because I know how to pedal a tricycle correctly.

Lets take the NFZ restrictions. A Cessna doesn't have a NFZ defined in it's firmware to prevent the plane from approaching a runway. It does have a pilot in real-time communication with the control tower and probably a transponder to identify the craft. It's going to come into the runway as directed by the controller. Should the aircraft have a problem and need to make an emergency landing, the pilot will be in contact with the controller to find the safest way down. None of that can apply to the drones that we are flying now. If someone is flying their drone near an airport, the controller is not going to know where that drone is.

If a Cessna could hover 100 ft with a camera over someone's backyard swimming pool while the teenage daughter is trying to avoid tan lines, there would be laws banning that. But we don't have those laws because that's how a Cessna works or is used. But people are concerned over the privacy and noise concerns. And because we have people through ignorance or deliberate action flying to low over private and public property, we are seeing drone restriction laws being passed all over the place. It doesn't matter if you believe the laws are valid, it's happening and it's getting harder to find places to fly. It doesn't help that the drones are loud and have a sound that that most people describe as more irritating than any other vehicle.

I have lost track of how many times that I have seen someone post on here about flying where no one can see or bother you. We shouldn't have to be in that situation. We should be able to fly in acceptable locations without having to worry about bothering someone or having someone bother us. The only to turn this around is work with the system. When an overly restrictive law is proposed in your neck of the woods, speak up at meetings explain why the drones are safe, why privacy is still protected. This approach does work. Last year in Nags Head, NC, a very restrictive drone ordinance was proposed that would have essentially banned all drone use with the town. Local citizens spoke up and described how this would impact their commercial usage and tourism. The result was a much less restrictive law that banned the drones from the beaches from 9am to 7pm during peak season.

...If they did: we would never put airplane in the air or car on road.

When cars first started to become popular in the first years of the last century, they were banned or had strict speed restrictions. They would often be limited to the speed of horses, or 5 mph. This caused all sorts of problems. It took some time for traffic laws and signs to be implemented. There's a nice article about the early history of cars in the city of Detroit. While the situation then is not the same as what we are facing with drones, some parallels can be drawn.