Speaker 1: Technology with tex Stuff from staff stats. Pay there and
Speaker 1: welcome to tex Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. Then
Speaker 1: it's a solo show today and a bit of an
Speaker 1: up date. You see, back in two thousand thirteen, my
Speaker 1: old co host Chris Pallette and I recorded an episode
Speaker 1: about drones, and I thought it was about time to
Speaker 1: record a sequel to that episode, and that's what brings
Speaker 1: us here today. Now, there's gonna be some overlap with
Speaker 1: that first episode, but then it's been three years and
Speaker 1: I've bet a lot of you haven't even heard the
Speaker 1: original one. Uh, if you have and it's one of
Speaker 1: your favorites, I apologize for some of the overlap, but
Speaker 1: mostly we're gonna be looking at the law, and I'll
Speaker 1: use the first half of this episode to kind of
Speaker 1: cover the working operation of a drone. UM and by drones,
Speaker 1: I i'm talking about consumer and prosumer unmanned aerial V
Speaker 1: vehicles or small unmanned aerial systems. So you get U
Speaker 1: a v S or U A s IS, which more
Speaker 1: frequently than not fall into the quad copter or quad
Speaker 1: rotor category. Now there are other types as well, including
Speaker 1: fixed wing aircraft and Moldy rotor drones that have more
Speaker 1: than just the four but quad coptor is the form
Speaker 1: factor that seems to be the most popular. It provides
Speaker 1: a less stability and makes the whole whole industry more
Speaker 1: attractive to a larger audience. And um, I should also
Speaker 1: mention before I get into this too far, that the
Speaker 1: term drone is technically a misnomer. To be a true drone,
Speaker 1: at least in the you know, the traditional definition of drone,
Speaker 1: typically it needs to be at least semi autonomous, meaning
Speaker 1: it has to be able to operate on its own
Speaker 1: for a significant amount of its use. Um, they have
Speaker 1: to have a specific purpose or mission. So a drone
Speaker 1: has to be something that is got a specific reason
Speaker 1: for existing, like spying, for example, or in the case
Speaker 1: of things like predator drones, perhaps combat. They tend to
Speaker 1: be much larger than the consumer and prosumer RC aircraft
Speaker 1: on the market that I'll be talking about, and they
Speaker 1: can often fly for many many hours, whereas your typical
Speaker 1: consumer U a V is good for maybe half an
Speaker 1: hour of use, depends on the battery. Some of them
Speaker 1: are better than others, some of them have very limited
Speaker 1: flight times. But the term drone has been applied to
Speaker 1: these r C aircraft in general, and it's not only
Speaker 1: just stuck to them, it's grown in popularity. More and
Speaker 1: more people use the term drone to describe all of
Speaker 1: these things. So you could argue that the definition of
Speaker 1: drone has been expanded to include RC aircraft outside the
Speaker 1: model plane and helicopter and blimp stuff. Pretty much anything
Speaker 1: that isn't one of those traditional model aircraft now ends
Speaker 1: up being called drowne and whether we like it or not,
Speaker 1: that's the term. So I know there are a lot
Speaker 1: of r C enthusiasts out there, people who have been
Speaker 1: hobbyists and model aircraft for years, who don't like the
Speaker 1: use of the word drone to describe these vehicles. Uh.
Speaker 1: They feel that is to misleading. Honestly, at this point,
Speaker 1: I think that we could all agree that the definition
Speaker 1: of drone has changed, and that's the nature of language.
Speaker 1: Sometimes language changes to incorporate things that weren't possible to
Speaker 1: cover in previous uses of a word. It's a technology
Speaker 1: that's been developed since the word was coined, and now
Speaker 1: we just have to agree that this is one of
Speaker 1: those susceptible terms. So I'm gonna be using the word drone,
Speaker 1: or the abbreviations of U, A V or you know,
Speaker 1: acronyms whatever of you A V and UH and U
Speaker 1: A s quite a bit in this, but they all
Speaker 1: mean the same thing. I'll also be talking about quad
Speaker 1: opters and quad rotors a lot, mainly because that represents
Speaker 1: the vast majority of the market share for for these
Speaker 1: types of devices out on the Well, I guess on
Speaker 1: the air today. So, uh, now that I've got that
Speaker 1: all the way, Um, what prompted the decision to talk
Speaker 1: about drones again in the first place. Well, there's been
Speaker 1: a lot of news about drones over the last couple
Speaker 1: of years, and again we recorded the first episode, and
Speaker 1: particularly there's been a lot of news and debate about
Speaker 1: drones as they are being used to capture video and
Speaker 1: images and situations that raise some pretty tricky questions. For example,
Speaker 1: there's the story from two thousand fifteen of drones interfering
Speaker 1: with firefighting operations in the San Bernardino National Forest in California.
Speaker 1: Some people were using drones to get images and video
Speaker 1: of the fires, but that meant that firefighting helicopters were
Speaker 1: grounded because the potential collision dangers. So because these drones
Speaker 1: were hovering over the sites where fire was raging, the
Speaker 1: helicopters couldn't get clearance to take off and deliver uh,
Speaker 1: you know, water or sand or whatever it was they
Speaker 1: were going to use to put out the fires at
Speaker 1: those regions, which meant the fire continue to get bigger
Speaker 1: and bigger. And this raised a lot of questions for
Speaker 1: people saying, well, is that as should it be legal
Speaker 1: to operate a drone anywhere around there? If a drone
Speaker 1: is operating under there, what what course of action is
Speaker 1: law enforcement allowed to pursue? Could they shoot down a
Speaker 1: drone like that using whatever means they had at their disposal.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of brought into public consciousness this idea
Speaker 1: that the drones could potentially be dangerous and also not
Speaker 1: just dangerous to property or people, but also to our
Speaker 1: privacy because more and more drones are are equipped with
Speaker 1: these cameras, some of which can capt you're pretty high
Speaker 1: quality video, So that means that even if you're far away,
Speaker 1: if you've got a high enough resolution, you could digitally
Speaker 1: zoom in a couple of levels down and still get
Speaker 1: a closer look at something while you know, from an
Speaker 1: external point of view it may seem the drone is
Speaker 1: pretty far away. There are a lot of different questions
Speaker 1: that come up from that. Another recent story involves filmmaking.
Speaker 1: This was one that prompted me to do an episode
Speaker 1: of House Stop Works Now about this. The production crew
Speaker 1: of Star Wars Episode eight had a real issue with drones.
Speaker 1: They were shooting in the UK. They had a location
Speaker 1: scouted out and they were shooting at that location, and
Speaker 1: they had this issue where people who were operating drones
Speaker 1: were flying them close to the location in order to
Speaker 1: get pictures and video of what was going on. So
Speaker 1: when the crew moved to Croatia to do another stage
Speaker 1: of the production for the film, they actually hired News
Speaker 1: Security Team members to help bolster their numbers. And these
Speaker 1: new team members were drone pilots and their job was
Speaker 1: to intercept and stop any snooping drones from getting pictures
Speaker 1: of the filming, which presumably included colliding with them so
Speaker 1: that they would bring down the other drone um And
Speaker 1: that raises the question of well is that legal? Is
Speaker 1: it legal for some private company to use means to
Speaker 1: bring down someone else's drone if that person's drone and
Speaker 1: spying on what they're doing and um. And it's a
Speaker 1: tough question. It's it's one that does not have an
Speaker 1: immediate answer necessarily, particularly since we're talking about croatia UM.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of questions about legality, what, when, where,
Speaker 1: and how can you fly your drone? Is it ever
Speaker 1: legal to bring down someone else's drone? And once again
Speaker 1: we see that technology has outpaced the legal system. This
Speaker 1: is not a new thing. We've seen it a lot.
Speaker 1: The Internet really drove this home in more recent past,
Speaker 1: where you see the capability of doing things far outstrips
Speaker 1: what we were able to do before. And then we
Speaker 1: see the legal system try to react to this and
Speaker 1: and compensate for it. Sometimes it overreacts. You could argue
Speaker 1: that some of the in fact, I think you could
Speaker 1: argue successfully that several of the laws that have been
Speaker 1: passed to guard against copyright and piracy uh are overreactions
Speaker 1: to the ability to copy material much more easily in
Speaker 1: the Internet and computer age then you could in the past.
Speaker 1: Before you had computers, it was a real, you know, effort.
Speaker 1: It took a lot of effort to copy something and
Speaker 1: distribute it. So the laws were pretty you know, they covered,
Speaker 1: they protected copyright owners, but they were pretty simple. Now
Speaker 1: that it's a lot easier to make lots of copies,
Speaker 1: those laws have become increasingly restrictive and overreaching. In some cases.
Speaker 1: The fear is the same thing could happen with U
Speaker 1: A v. S. And in fact, some would argue it
Speaker 1: already has started to happen there. And just so you know,
Speaker 1: I need to get this out of the way. I'll
Speaker 1: be focusing primarily on the United States in this episode
Speaker 1: because that's where I live. But these issues are going
Speaker 1: on and questions are being asked and and actions are
Speaker 1: being taken all over the world. Uh, regarding drones. I mean,
Speaker 1: the UK in particular had the story of the the
Speaker 1: drone that was there was a story that a drone
Speaker 1: had collided with a British Airways flight that was taking off,
Speaker 1: I think, and that ended up bringing up a conversation
Speaker 1: over in the UK. But these are conversations happening all
Speaker 1: over the world. I'll mostly be focusing on the US because, uh,
Speaker 1: it's one of those It's the country that is trying
Speaker 1: to figure this out, and a lot of other countries
Speaker 1: are looking to the US as a model for what
Speaker 1: to do with their own laws. So that's why I'm
Speaker 1: going to be looking at it. But this is still
Speaker 1: tricky because there are different regions in the US that
Speaker 1: have their own local laws that may or may not
Speaker 1: come into conflict with any federal regulations once those are
Speaker 1: finally published. So we've got a lot of of ambiguity
Speaker 1: out there. Also, there are other places in the world
Speaker 1: that have much stricter privacy laws than the United States does.
Speaker 1: In the US, we're fairly fairly uh concerned about about privacy.
Speaker 1: A lot of people don't like the idea of um
Speaker 1: of cameras on every corner, for example, Whereas in the
Speaker 1: UK that's something that happens pretty frequently in in urban
Speaker 1: areas particularly, but in other parts of Europe it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of the opposite. The privacy laws are such that,
Speaker 1: uh that it may end up we may sing stricter
Speaker 1: regulations in those areas for drone use um as opposed
Speaker 1: to the U S. So, uh that all being said,
Speaker 1: I thought it would be also a good reminder to
Speaker 1: just kind of go over the way a drone flies
Speaker 1: to explain how it works. I mean, this this podcast
Speaker 1: is part of how stuff works. Big shock to all
Speaker 1: of you guys out there who weren't aware of that.
Speaker 1: Be Yes, How Stuff works is the is the company
Speaker 1: I work for, text Stuff being one of the mini
Speaker 1: podcasts we do, So I thought I would take this
Speaker 1: opportunity to explain how quad copters work. So this is
Speaker 1: specifically about the quad copter style of U A V
Speaker 1: S or drones um, knowing that you know there are
Speaker 1: other other methods out there. But a quad copter has
Speaker 1: four rotors, which you would probably imagined from the name quad,
Speaker 1: and it's arranged in a cross formation. So two of
Speaker 1: the rotors spend in a clockwise direction and the other
Speaker 1: two rote eight witter shans, which is an old way
Speaker 1: of saying counter clockwise. Uh. And it's an old way
Speaker 1: that I like because I'm a Shakespeare fan. But at
Speaker 1: any rate, you've probably heard me say it before. So
Speaker 1: to go clockwise, to go counterclockwise, the rotors are in
Speaker 1: a fixed pitch, meaning that the rotors themselves don't tilt.
Speaker 1: They are uh stuck in that position. Now, typically you
Speaker 1: would need to tilt the pitch of a rotor forward
Speaker 1: in order to get forward momentum and to do anything
Speaker 1: other than just hover in place. So with a helicopter
Speaker 1: you may have rotors that can pitch forward a little bit,
Speaker 1: and that will start to let the helicopter move forward.
Speaker 1: The quad copter does this by changing the rotational speed
Speaker 1: of the various rotors, so they might make certain rotors
Speaker 1: turn a little slower than other rotors. That will allow
Speaker 1: the the the quad copter to telt in the proper
Speaker 1: direction and thus move in that direction. And this is
Speaker 1: a very delicate thing. You have to be very careful.
Speaker 1: You want to generate enough lift to keep the quad
Speaker 1: copter in the air, but you also want to have
Speaker 1: a differential between the two um the two sets of
Speaker 1: rotors in order to make sure that it's tilting the
Speaker 1: right way to get your quad copter to go where
Speaker 1: you want it to go. And obviously it can also
Speaker 1: ascend or descend, so we can go higher or lower.
Speaker 1: The motors on a quad copter copter are actually pretty
Speaker 1: simple because they only need to turn the shaft of
Speaker 1: the respective propellers in one direction, so you don't need
Speaker 1: a motor that can reverse the direction of the propeller.
Speaker 1: That's not necessary. It just has to be able to
Speaker 1: turn either you know, oriented in such way so it
Speaker 1: turns either clockwise or counterclockwise. But that's it. That's all
Speaker 1: it has to do. And in fact, mechanically speaking, your
Speaker 1: typical quad copter is incredibly simple. It really just has
Speaker 1: two moving parts. Uh well, I guess technically eight, because
Speaker 1: quad copters have four motors and four propellers, but those
Speaker 1: are the only things that are moving on a quad copter.
Speaker 1: Everything else can be perfectly stationary. Um. So mechanically they
Speaker 1: are very simple, simple things. However, electronically they are incredibly
Speaker 1: sophisticated and complicated. That's because it would be next to
Speaker 1: impossible to fly a multi rotor vehicle using manual controls
Speaker 1: and manually adjusting the speed of each of these rotors.
Speaker 1: Quad Copters take advantage of sophisticated sensors and electronics to
Speaker 1: maintain their flight. If the rotors spin at the wrong speed,
Speaker 1: the quad copter would either crash or it would fly
Speaker 1: off in the wrong direction and then crash. For a
Speaker 1: quad copter to remain hovering, each of those propellers has
Speaker 1: to be spinning at the right speed so that they
Speaker 1: generate the same amount of force we're talking about, uh,
Speaker 1: the right amount of torque and thrust and compensating for
Speaker 1: the right amount of drag, which may not be equivalent
Speaker 1: across all four rotors, so you have to have sensors
Speaker 1: that can detect this sort of stuff and make tiny
Speaker 1: minute adjustments just so that you can have a quad
Speaker 1: copter hovering in in space, because if any of those
Speaker 1: conditions changed, then the quad copter would go out of control.
Speaker 1: So you typically have a quad copter with lots of
Speaker 1: microprocessors that are paired with sensors like accelerometers and gyroscopes
Speaker 1: to allow the little vehicle to make these adjustments for you,
Speaker 1: perhaps up to several thousand times per minute, just so
Speaker 1: you can cover in place. Um and early consumer quad
Speaker 1: copters were essentially limited in what they could do on purpose.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like it was a technological limitation at the time.
Speaker 1: It was that the people the companies making the quad
Speaker 1: copters wanted to make something that anyone could use. And
Speaker 1: this is what differentiates quad copters from other types of
Speaker 1: model aircraft. Any hobbyist who has been in model aircraft
Speaker 1: for a long time will tell you it takes a
Speaker 1: lot of training and practice to get good at controlling
Speaker 1: model aircraft, whether it's a model plane or a model
Speaker 1: helicopter or whatever. In order to get really adept at it.
Speaker 1: You have to dedicate a lot of time to learning
Speaker 1: how to operate the device and then just practice. In fact,
Speaker 1: a lot of people will say it could take up
Speaker 1: to a year of regular practice to get to get
Speaker 1: competent at something like operating a model airplane or a
Speaker 1: model helicopter. So there's a pretty high barrier to entry.
Speaker 1: It's not just the price tag of these devices, which
Speaker 1: can be pretty hefty in some cases, but also it's
Speaker 1: the the barrier of the learning curve. It is not
Speaker 1: easy to do. It is, however, very rewarding for people
Speaker 1: who are you know, who enjoy recreational RC model aircraft flying.
Speaker 1: They find great joy a and there are a lot
Speaker 1: of really awesome organizations out there where people work together
Speaker 1: and share their knowledge and have events and reserve space
Speaker 1: where they can fly their aircraft and really enjoy their hobby.
Speaker 1: The quad copter, however, is so easy to use that
Speaker 1: it allows a much broader array of people the opportunity
Speaker 1: to play. Also, the price tag has come down significantly
Speaker 1: over the last few years, so now it's more affordable
Speaker 1: to a larger population. The flips that you know, the
Speaker 1: downside of that just means that there are way more
Speaker 1: people with way less training getting into model aircraft, in
Speaker 1: this case the the U A V S and U
Speaker 1: A S S drone area UM, and so that's starting
Speaker 1: to cause some problems. So the early quad copters were
Speaker 1: limited on purpose in what they could do so that
Speaker 1: it would make it very easy to operate the quad copter. UH.
Speaker 1: This meant that quad copters mostly had limits on how
Speaker 1: fast they could travel as well as how far they
Speaker 1: could tilt in any given direction. UH. And the purpose
Speaker 1: for that was to improve the stability of the quad copter.
Speaker 1: It was to create a a an experience that was
Speaker 1: easy to control for your beginner, your novice. UH. Now
Speaker 1: today there are quad copters on the market that don't
Speaker 1: have those those limitations and restrictions in place, so that
Speaker 1: if you are a skilled pilot, someone who has really
Speaker 1: kind of mastered the use of quad copters, you can
Speaker 1: do all sorts of maneuvers. You can go at really
Speaker 1: high speeds, and you can do stuff like flips and
Speaker 1: rolls if you're going at the right speed and you
Speaker 1: do you do the timing correctly. So those quad copters
Speaker 1: tend to be a little more difficult to control, particularly
Speaker 1: for a novice, but a lot of them also have
Speaker 1: a mode that put those old restrictions back in place
Speaker 1: and make them more user friendly, so you can go
Speaker 1: out there and look for a drone that's design so
Speaker 1: that advanced pilots can really do some cool stuff with them,
Speaker 1: but also still have this beginner mode where you can,
Speaker 1: you know, have the stabilizers put on, so essentially it's
Speaker 1: not gonna flip over or go too quickly, and you
Speaker 1: can learn the fine motor skills needed to operate it
Speaker 1: until you're ready to take the training wheels off, so
Speaker 1: to say. Now, consumer quad cover copts became available several
Speaker 1: years ago. I remember seeing the parrot A R drone UM,
Speaker 1: one of the earliest drones I ever saw in person
Speaker 1: at CS probably two thousand seven, No, two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, ces. Two thousand and eight, I believe was
Speaker 1: the first time I saw a drone UM, and that
Speaker 1: was the parrot A R drone. And they weren't um. Uh.
Speaker 1: They're pretty much lumped in with other types of model
Speaker 1: aircraft by by government organizations like the f a A.
Speaker 1: So essentially they said, hey, you know the rules that
Speaker 1: we have for operators of model airplanes or helicopters, those
Speaker 1: rules will also go ahead and apply to U A
Speaker 1: v s and that already caused some issues, and I'll
Speaker 1: talk more about that in a second. But another issue
Speaker 1: is that the U A v s have become more
Speaker 1: sophisticated over time, and they're not because they're not terribly expensive,
Speaker 1: and because you have more and more people buying them,
Speaker 1: and because you've got things like some semi autonomous features
Speaker 1: that make it even easier to use. We're talking about
Speaker 1: drones that have GPS devices incorporated into them, which allows
Speaker 1: them to pilot flight paths like you can you can
Speaker 1: program a flight path for your drone and it will
Speaker 1: follow it. Um. Some of them anyway, that have GPS
Speaker 1: devices or you might be able to specify a spot
Speaker 1: and say, if you lose r C contact with the controller,
Speaker 1: returned to this location, or if battery gets down below
Speaker 1: x per cent, come back to this location and UH.
Speaker 1: In that way, you know, you can retrieve the drone
Speaker 1: even if you somehow lose the ability to communicate with
Speaker 1: it with your remote control. Some of them also have
Speaker 1: UH the ability to follow a specific target, so you
Speaker 1: could say, hey, you know, follow this, follow whatever the
Speaker 1: controller is in like a vehicle or or identify this
Speaker 1: thing follow it. That also raises some questions. I mean,
Speaker 1: it could be really cool if you're doing something like
Speaker 1: capturing footage of yourself as you ride a bike through
Speaker 1: a neighborhood. That could be really neat, or it could
Speaker 1: be really a problem if you're having it follow someone
Speaker 1: who did not give you consent to do that thing.
Speaker 1: A lot of them have HD or even u h
Speaker 1: D Ultra high definition cameras mounted on them, which give
Speaker 1: them the capacity need to capture video footage. Um there's
Speaker 1: one d j I one that is like it has
Speaker 1: an ultra high definition camera mounted on it, and I
Speaker 1: think it costs about eight hundred bucks. Now, not that
Speaker 1: long ago U A V s of that size cost
Speaker 1: a couple of thousand dollars. And also not that long
Speaker 1: ago UHD cameras cost several thousand dollars, like thirty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars when they were first coming out back in the
Speaker 1: early two thousand's. So now we're at a point where
Speaker 1: you can get both of these technologies put together in
Speaker 1: one thing for less than a thousand dollars, which is
Speaker 1: pretty amazing, and it's opened up a lot of opportunities
Speaker 1: for filmmakers to use a new tool at their disposal,
Speaker 1: replace things like crane shots and helicopter shots with a
Speaker 1: drone shot, and uh, and that's pretty uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: pretty amazing to look at. But it's also a little
Speaker 1: worrisome because you have a potential tool for people to
Speaker 1: use to spy on one another, or to spy on
Speaker 1: other businesses or government facilities, that kind of thing. So
Speaker 1: it's raised some pretty tough questions. Some of these drones
Speaker 1: also have obstacle avoidance capabilities, which makes them even you
Speaker 1: easier to use, which that's a good thing, especially if
Speaker 1: you're flying your drone it's a pretty far distance from
Speaker 1: where you are and you've got an obstacle between you
Speaker 1: and where the drone is. It can be difficult sometimes
Speaker 1: to judge the depth of that kind of stuff. So
Speaker 1: if you're flying a drone and it otherwise would be
Speaker 1: bumping into, say, I don't know a radio antenna. I
Speaker 1: watched a drone nearly collide with one a few weeks ago.
Speaker 1: That's not too far from my house. Uh, And something
Speaker 1: like obstacle avoidance would allow the drone to navigate around
Speaker 1: the obstacle even if your controls were putting it on
Speaker 1: a collision course. So pretty useful stuff, but it also
Speaker 1: creates other opportunities for problems. So a few other facts
Speaker 1: I need to get to before I talk about specific
Speaker 1: rules and regulations. Uh, typically quad copters are sized in
Speaker 1: various categories like one, eight, one thousand, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: So what do those numbers mean. It's the distance in
Speaker 1: millimeters from one rotor to the rotor diagonally opposite it.
Speaker 1: So you take one rotor, you you stretch a measuring
Speaker 1: tape from that rotor to the one diagonally opposite, and
Speaker 1: you look at how many millimeters that is. It's kind
Speaker 1: of similar to measuring the size of a television screen.
Speaker 1: You do you do diagonal corner to diagonal corner, and
Speaker 1: those measurements become important in drone competitions, which are a
Speaker 1: real thing. By the way. There are races and battle
Speaker 1: competitions out there, so there are competitions where you're trying
Speaker 1: to have the fastest time through a course. There other
Speaker 1: competitions where it's kind of like a drone thunderdome or
Speaker 1: really more like a drone battle Royal, because you'll have
Speaker 1: a whole bunch of drones in sign arena at the
Speaker 1: same time. Usually it's netted off so that no one
Speaker 1: gets hurt if the drone when the drones collide with
Speaker 1: each other, and the goal is to be the last
Speaker 1: drone flying. Um. These are real things that are out there,
Speaker 1: their entire organizations dedicated to this kind of sporting event,
Speaker 1: and they're really cool. Um. Also, drone racing is super awesome.
Speaker 1: I love drone racing. I'm not piloting it. I would
Speaker 1: be total crap at that, but I love watching them. Uh,
Speaker 1: particularly the type of races that use FPV or first
Speaker 1: person view. Now, in those races, the pilots actually wear
Speaker 1: a headset. They're not keeping line of sight on their drones. Instead,
Speaker 1: they wear a headset that has a live video feed
Speaker 1: from a camera that's mounted on the drone coming in
Speaker 1: through little monitors in their headset. So it's kind of
Speaker 1: like flying in the cockpit of an aircraft as you
Speaker 1: zoom around its speeds of too, sometimes more than a
Speaker 1: hundred miles per hour, which is a d sixty one
Speaker 1: kilometers an hour. If you want to hear more about
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff, you should tune into the Forward
Speaker 1: Thinking Audio podcast titled off to the drone Races that
Speaker 1: actually published on May fourth, two thousand sixteen, on Star
Speaker 1: Wars Day, So go check that out. Joe and Lauren
Speaker 1: and I talk all about drones sporting events and what
Speaker 1: goes into them, because it's pretty cool stuff. Now, when
Speaker 1: it comes to terms of the law, at least in
Speaker 1: the United States, they aren't so much concerned with the
Speaker 1: size as much as the weight of the drone um
Speaker 1: largely because that's what you would have to take into
Speaker 1: consideration if something were to go wrong. The heavier the
Speaker 1: drone is, the more likely it would cause damage to
Speaker 1: a person or piece of property. And so the f
Speaker 1: a A that's the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States,
Speaker 1: is specifically concerned about drones that way. Between five five
Speaker 1: and fifty five pounds, which is in metric terms, between
Speaker 1: two and fifty grams tos or soft pounds is the
Speaker 1: maximum wait for standard registration. Anything heavier than fifty five
Speaker 1: pounds requires a more comprehensive registration with the f a A.
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to cover it because very few
Speaker 1: people out there are going to end up getting a
Speaker 1: drone that weighs more than fifty five pounds. And if
Speaker 1: you do, it will be really a challenge to make
Speaker 1: sure you can be allowed to fly it. Now, let's
Speaker 1: get to those laws. I know I've been talking about
Speaker 1: this for a while, so I just covered the first one.
Speaker 1: No drones over fifty pounds in weight for standard registration.
Speaker 1: The big concern is that potential for damage or injury
Speaker 1: should the drone fail or if the pilot excidentally steers
Speaker 1: it into a person or other type of property, that
Speaker 1: kind of thing. If your drone weighs more than point
Speaker 1: five five pounds two grams, you have to register it
Speaker 1: with the f a A before you fly it for
Speaker 1: the first time. This is a relatively new rule as
Speaker 1: of the recording of this podcast uh and it includes
Speaker 1: getting a compliant label for your aircraft to show that
Speaker 1: it has been registered, as well as a certificate and
Speaker 1: a flight I D Card to prove you have followed
Speaker 1: the rules. These rules also apply for other RC aircraft.
Speaker 1: It's not just U A v S. This is something
Speaker 1: that all model aircraft have to follow at this point,
Speaker 1: which has also gotten model aircraft enthusiasts a little riled up.
Speaker 1: For good reason. I don't I'm not downplaying there justification
Speaker 1: because I completely empathize with it. And I'll talk more
Speaker 1: about in just a second. So what happens if you
Speaker 1: don't register, Well, registration is required. And if you were
Speaker 1: to get caught operating a drone without this registration, if
Speaker 1: your aircraft did not have that label, if you did
Speaker 1: not have your certificate and i D card available for
Speaker 1: for someone asking you questions, and you are caught, particularly
Speaker 1: if you're caught doing something else that's also shady. The
Speaker 1: penalties are really stiff. Civil finds can go up to
Speaker 1: twenty seven thousand, five hundred dollars and criminal finds can
Speaker 1: go up to two fifty thousand dollars. Plus you might
Speaker 1: be liable to pay for any damages you cause, so
Speaker 1: that's a huge amount of money. So how much does
Speaker 1: registration cost? Five bucks? Five dollars to register? Um and
Speaker 1: once you register, you're good. You just have to register once.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter how many aircraft you own. If you
Speaker 1: own twenty drones, then you can register once and you
Speaker 1: will get a unique identification number, which then you can
Speaker 1: print on labels and you can put those labels on
Speaker 1: all the different aircra q on So that five dollars
Speaker 1: is good for everything, all the aircraft. Anything over that
Speaker 1: two gram limit or or bottom level, anything under two
Speaker 1: hundred fifty grams, you can fly without registering at all.
Speaker 1: You that's totally fine. So that covers all the little
Speaker 1: mini quad copters that are out there that you would
Speaker 1: pick up at like a toy store. Those you can
Speaker 1: fly without having to register them at all. But anything
Speaker 1: heavier than that you need to spend. The five dollar
Speaker 1: registration fee also doesn't matter if you're a US citizen
Speaker 1: or not. If you're visiting the United States and you
Speaker 1: have a drone, you have to apply for one of these.
Speaker 1: You have to register it, uh in order to operate
Speaker 1: that drone legally in the U S. So UM this
Speaker 1: rule came into effect on December and in fact, if
Speaker 1: you registered your aircraft within that first thirty day period
Speaker 1: after the rule that came into effect, the five dollars
Speaker 1: would be charged would be refunded. And that money, by
Speaker 1: the way, is meant to go to funding the actual
Speaker 1: registration program as well as the website maintenance, that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff. So it's really just minimum maintenance type of deal.
Speaker 1: So why was this program implement in the first place. Well,
Speaker 1: there were a few but frequent enough instances of people
Speaker 1: using drones to fly into restricted areas like near airports,
Speaker 1: or over private property, or over restricted nature reservations. Um.
Speaker 1: There was also the issue of drones flying into areas
Speaker 1: where emergency response was trying to get in there. Um.
Speaker 1: In other words, there were enough instances of pilots being
Speaker 1: stupid or at least being thoughtless. Maybe stupid is too
Speaker 1: strong a word. They perhaps lacked some situational awareness, they
Speaker 1: lacked maybe some common sense. Some of them might have
Speaker 1: been up to some kind of shady dealings in the
Speaker 1: first place, like trying to capture footage of stuff that
Speaker 1: really they shouldn't be. At any rate, there were enough
Speaker 1: of those to cause the f a A to say,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to step in here, and that was
Speaker 1: a big problem. Plus there's the potential to outfit drones
Speaker 1: with other stuff that could be harmful or even deadly.
Speaker 1: Some of the examples I saw talked about outfitting drones
Speaker 1: with guns or with explosives and uh. And since the
Speaker 1: honor system wasn't preventing mischief and worse, the f a
Speaker 1: A stepped in. And this came as a huge disappointment
Speaker 1: for hobbyists who had been flying r C aircraft for
Speaker 1: years because they have already created organizations that are dedicated
Speaker 1: to the hobby and had established guidelines for how hobbyists
Speaker 1: were meant to operate their aircraft. So these were largely
Speaker 1: self governing, self policing organizations. They had created guidelines that
Speaker 1: set expectations and eliminated the need for or their regulation. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, the hobbyists had built up these communities
Speaker 1: that had created the guidelines everyone agreed to follow. And
Speaker 1: the reason they agreed to follow it was that as
Speaker 1: long as they followed those guidelines, organizations like the f
Speaker 1: a A will just stay out of it and they
Speaker 1: would be able to enjoy their hobby responsibly without these
Speaker 1: restrictions coming in. But again, once that bar was lowered
Speaker 1: for entry, once you've got to a point where it
Speaker 1: was easier to operate the vehicles and they became less expensive,
Speaker 1: you had a rush of new pilots, and not all
Speaker 1: of them had that same dedication to safety and promoting
Speaker 1: the hobby as the old timers did, because they actually
Speaker 1: had to go through a lot more effort in order
Speaker 1: to be able to engage their hobby than the new
Speaker 1: folks didn't. This isn't the say that one group is
Speaker 1: better than the other group, but rather just say that. Uh.
Speaker 1: When you open up a hobby from a narrow niche
Speaker 1: to a much broader niche, or even not a niche anymore,
Speaker 1: but just a broader audience, problems can can come up
Speaker 1: because you'll get more potential for people to misuse the technology.
Speaker 1: Even if they were misusing it unintentionally, it can happen.
Speaker 1: So the US government had to come in and start
Speaker 1: setting up some restrictions, which really was a tough pill
Speaker 1: to swallow if you had been active in the hobby
Speaker 1: and been responsible and accountable for that whole time. Uh.
Speaker 1: In fact, a lot of the organizations have much stricter
Speaker 1: rules than things that the FAA has proposed. And it
Speaker 1: was all in an attempt to promote a hobby. It's
Speaker 1: safely so that people didn't get in trouble and you
Speaker 1: didn't have these restrictions that affect everyone, both the people
Speaker 1: who are problems and the people who are good citizens.
Speaker 1: And it also created a negative image for people who
Speaker 1: are in the RC model aircraft community, and that was
Speaker 1: tough for people who had been part of this community
Speaker 1: for decades. Uh. You know, it was one of those
Speaker 1: things where they were largely not thought of at all.
Speaker 1: You might think, oh, well, that's kind of a nerdy
Speaker 1: hobby you have to fly on aircraft. Or you might think, oh, wow,
Speaker 1: that's really cool that you can do that. I bet
Speaker 1: it's really tricky to learn, UM. But people didn't tend
Speaker 1: to think, oh, you could potentially hurt me or spy
Speaker 1: on me. And so this negative uh perception of operators
Speaker 1: really was a tough thing for the old timers and
Speaker 1: the the dedicated hobbyists to to deal with. UM. So
Speaker 1: when you begin getting back into registering your your U
Speaker 1: a V or your drone or whatever, when you begin
Speaker 1: the registration process, you'll be asked if you need register
Speaker 1: as a model aircraft or a non model aircraft user. Now,
Speaker 1: that essentially boils down to whether you're using your device
Speaker 1: commercially or not, so whether you're going to be operating
Speaker 1: your U a V for profit or you're just doing
Speaker 1: it for fun. UM. Non commercial users or hobbyists register
Speaker 1: as model aircraft. Commercial users register as non model aircraft,
Speaker 1: and once you register, you're good to go, at least
Speaker 1: for the hobbyists. Anyway. I'll get into the consumer stuff
Speaker 1: in a little bit or the commercial stuff a little bit.
Speaker 1: You don't have to register every U a V you have.
Speaker 1: Like I said, once you register the first time, you
Speaker 1: are good to go. Unless you're a commercial user. Then
Speaker 1: you have to jump through a few more hoops. So
Speaker 1: i'll cover that in a bit after I go over
Speaker 1: the basic guidelines that you're supposed to follow if you're
Speaker 1: operating a drone. Now, the FAA has partnered with the
Speaker 1: Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International and the Academy of
Speaker 1: Model Aeronautics. Those are two organizations that have been working
Speaker 1: to establish safety guidelines for model aircraft operation for many years,
Speaker 1: and the guidelines they established aren't really law necessarily, but
Speaker 1: they're rather meant to help hobbyists enjoy their recreational flying
Speaker 1: responsibly and prevent the need for more restrictive laws to
Speaker 1: be put in place. So again, these guidelines were kind
Speaker 1: of common sense guidelines saying, if you follow these, you'll
Speaker 1: be able to enjoy what we do without causing harm
Speaker 1: or or being liable for some damage or injury. Just
Speaker 1: follow these rules and everything will be fine. Together, the
Speaker 1: three organizations, the f a A, the the Unmanned Vehicle
Speaker 1: Systems International and the Academy of Model Aeronautics created a
Speaker 1: site that is called no Before You fle I that's
Speaker 1: k n O W NO, and that site outlines the
Speaker 1: parameters for safe flying. So I'm gonna look at the
Speaker 1: recreational ones and cover some of the rules. These are
Speaker 1: rules that are both from that site and also from
Speaker 1: the f a A. Keeping in mind these rules mostly
Speaker 1: aren't law. They're essentially saying, just follow these guidelines and
Speaker 1: you'll not get into trouble. But it's not like it's
Speaker 1: a a you know, if you were to operate outside
Speaker 1: these guidelines, you would automatically be arrested. It would depend
Speaker 1: upon your region and the local laws. So first up
Speaker 1: is you shouldn't fly your U A V higher than
Speaker 1: four feet and remain below any surrounding obstacles. Um So
Speaker 1: going over four hundred if you would be a bad idea.
Speaker 1: Now that's a pretty that's pretty significant height. And if
Speaker 1: your U A V is of moderate to small size,
Speaker 1: any higher than that you would probably lose sight of it,
Speaker 1: which would be a problem because one of the other
Speaker 1: rules is to maintain a line of sight with your
Speaker 1: U A V at all times. So you're not supposed
Speaker 1: to fly beyond the line of sight, even if you're
Speaker 1: wearing an FPV headset, So even if you can see
Speaker 1: the point of view of the drone, the drone itself
Speaker 1: is supposed to remain within your personal line of sight
Speaker 1: if you were to remove the headset. If you're wearing
Speaker 1: a headset, typically you should have a second person there
Speaker 1: to kind of act as a spotter to make sure
Speaker 1: the drone is not flying too far away from your
Speaker 1: position so that you can continue that line of sight.
Speaker 1: You're supposed to stay away from any areas in which
Speaker 1: manned aircraft are operating, which is a pretty understandable restriction.
Speaker 1: If you're within five miles of an airport, you're supposed
Speaker 1: to notify the air traffic control personnel of that airport
Speaker 1: that you are going to be flying a drone and
Speaker 1: ask permission from them that you conduce. Oh. Um, five
Speaker 1: miles is a long way and there are a lot
Speaker 1: of airports out there, so uh, it's important to check that.
Speaker 1: If you live in an urban area, you may want
Speaker 1: to make certain that you are not within five miles
Speaker 1: of the closest airport to make to be sure that
Speaker 1: you don't have to request permission every time you fly
Speaker 1: your your U a V out in the yard, Otherwise
Speaker 1: you may have to drive a little distance in order
Speaker 1: to operate your U a V legally, UM, you're not
Speaker 1: supposed to fly over people and vehicles. You're supposed to
Speaker 1: keep at least twenty five ft of distance between the
Speaker 1: U a V and people or property. Uh. That of
Speaker 1: distance doesn't include being directly over someone like you know
Speaker 1: thirty I was thirty feet up, so I'm twenty ft
Speaker 1: away from them. No, that that's not what they meant,
Speaker 1: and that X Y access not the z. UM. You
Speaker 1: aren't supposed to operate your UA be in bad weather,
Speaker 1: so any weather conditions that would impact your visibility or
Speaker 1: the stability of the the U a V. So if
Speaker 1: it's high winds or anything like that, I'm not supposed
Speaker 1: to operate in those conditions. You are also not supposed
Speaker 1: to operate your U a V while intoxicated, while under
Speaker 1: the effects of alcohol or drugs. UM, you are supposed
Speaker 1: to take time to learn how to operate your U
Speaker 1: a V responsibly before doing anything complicated with it. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, you're supposed to actually take the time
Speaker 1: to train yourself on how to use your U a V.
Speaker 1: Before you start doing things like flying through obstacles or
Speaker 1: trying to do tricks like flips and rolls. You're supposed
Speaker 1: to make sure your u a V is in good
Speaker 1: working order before you fly it. You are not supposed
Speaker 1: to fly over any sort of sensitive infrastructure or buildings,
Speaker 1: so don't fly over hospitals or power stations, or water
Speaker 1: treatment facilities or government buildings that kind of thing. Also,
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to fly over sporting events or big
Speaker 1: public events UM or public safety emergencies. Those are areas
Speaker 1: that are either considered to be under a temporary or
Speaker 1: a permanent flight restriction. So permanent flight restriction could include
Speaker 1: a sports arena. Temporary flight restriction could be any area
Speaker 1: that is currently the site of a public emergency. UM.
Speaker 1: In either case, you're not supposed to fly a drone
Speaker 1: in those areas. UM You're supposed to follow all local
Speaker 1: laws before operating a u AV, so some regions could
Speaker 1: have some pretty restrictive laws. You're supposed to make yourself
Speaker 1: familiar with them and operate within them. Don't spy. Don't
Speaker 1: use your drone to spy on people or to take
Speaker 1: unauthorized photos of persons in areas where there's an expectation
Speaker 1: of privacy. So public park is one thing, because you're
Speaker 1: out in the public um. Although again, if you're like
Speaker 1: using the drone to stalk someone, then that would probably
Speaker 1: be considered stalking. You could likely be pulled up on
Speaker 1: charge of of that. But if you're just flying around
Speaker 1: the park and taking pictures because it's a pretty day
Speaker 1: and you want to get crowd shots and that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, that's perfectly reasonable. But if you're flying in
Speaker 1: a different area, like private property or any other area
Speaker 1: where you could reasonably expect to have some privacy, then
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to use your cameras to spy on
Speaker 1: people at all. UM. Again, these are guidelines set up
Speaker 1: by the various organizations and the f A a UH
Speaker 1: and likely will play into laws later on. UH. You're
Speaker 1: only supposed to operate one drone at a time, so
Speaker 1: one operator, one drone. There there are pieces of software
Speaker 1: out there that allow you to link drones together in
Speaker 1: a fleet, but you are not supposed to do that UM,
Speaker 1: at least not outside inside a controlled area where you're
Speaker 1: experimenting with fleet software is one thing because it may
Speaker 1: be part of your research for artificial intelligence, but once
Speaker 1: you take it outside and you are out in the
Speaker 1: public where you could potentially collide with people or property,
Speaker 1: then you can no longer do that legally or you're
Speaker 1: not supposed to do it at any rate. And the
Speaker 1: f A has a rule for all model aircraft you're
Speaker 1: supposed to only fly during daylight hours. So whatever local
Speaker 1: UH call for sunrise and sunset are, those are the
Speaker 1: hours within which you can operate a U a V.
Speaker 1: After or before that, it's not it's against the rules.
Speaker 1: So most of the stuff is not actual law. They
Speaker 1: are rules you are strongly encouraged to adhere to because
Speaker 1: if something goes wrong and you are outside of those rules,
Speaker 1: then you can be under some pretty serious trouble. But
Speaker 1: it's not like most For most of these, it's not
Speaker 1: like if you were to go outside of it, you
Speaker 1: would immediately have cops pull up and arrestue, unless the
Speaker 1: local laws say otherwise, in which case that could potentially happen. UH.
Speaker 1: And again, they're really there to prevent the the need
Speaker 1: for more formal restrictions and regulations so that people can
Speaker 1: enjoy their hobby without that kind of hassle. Um when
Speaker 1: the regulations become official, when when we actually get a
Speaker 1: new set of rules which the FAA is working on
Speaker 1: as I record this podcast. It is May of two
Speaker 1: thousand and sixteen when I record this. It's possible that
Speaker 1: new rules could be published before this episode goes live,
Speaker 1: but at any rate, there are going to be some
Speaker 1: new rules coming out by the f a A that
Speaker 1: will cover unmanned aerial systems but not model aircraft. In
Speaker 1: other words, the FAA is going to distinguish between model
Speaker 1: planes and helicopters that sort of stuff and U a
Speaker 1: v s or drones. So at that point there will
Speaker 1: be different sets of rules, and I think that will
Speaker 1: make folks who really like model aircraft and model helicopters
Speaker 1: the traditional type happy, because they will they will go
Speaker 1: back to kind of their their organization based communities. UM,
Speaker 1: those who want to pilot quad copters will have to
Speaker 1: follow the rules for the unmanned aerial systems. And some
Speaker 1: states do have those local laws regarding you A VS.
Speaker 1: But other states, like the one I live in, Georgia,
Speaker 1: they're waiting on the f a A to establish federal
Speaker 1: rules before passing any local laws. Recently, Georgia Governor Nathan
Speaker 1: deal vetoed legislation that would regulate U A v S
Speaker 1: in the state, and he said he wanted to wait
Speaker 1: until the federal rules were in place first. So things
Speaker 1: that could have established some precedent for U A v s.
Speaker 1: H Sometimes they don't make it because the local politicians
Speaker 1: want to make sure that the federal rules are are
Speaker 1: established before states make any um big decisions. This was
Speaker 1: not a big surprise here in Georgia that Governor Deal
Speaker 1: would veto the legislation. And I'll tell you why it's
Speaker 1: not a big surprise because Governor Deal is probably the
Speaker 1: most business oriented governor Georgia has had in a very
Speaker 1: long time. He has worked very hard to allow businesses
Speaker 1: to attract businesses to the state successfully. So this is
Speaker 1: not a criticism, by the way, this is just an observation. UM.
Speaker 1: In many ways this has been very helpful. He has
Speaker 1: struck down legislation that was discriminatory uh and and at
Speaker 1: least part of the reason he did so was because
Speaker 1: it would have discouraged businesses from locating inside Georgia. And
Speaker 1: he's also been a big proponent for stuff like the
Speaker 1: film industry here in the States. So I imagine that
Speaker 1: he didn't want to pass laws regulating drones, but us
Speaker 1: he didn't want to um to uh to interfere with
Speaker 1: businesses establishing themselves in the state. So that's just an observation. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not judging anything here. Um Personally, I
Speaker 1: think uh that attracting businesses to a state is a
Speaker 1: good thing, So I don't have a problem with that necessarily,
Speaker 1: even though I also think that we need to establish
Speaker 1: what the guidelines are for drones before before an event happens.
Speaker 1: That makes it worse. Right, you don't want to see
Speaker 1: someone use a drone in such a way that causes
Speaker 1: a public catastrophe and thus necessitates a very draconian set
Speaker 1: of laws. Okay, Uh, Now that we've got that all
Speaker 1: the way, let's talk about commercial U a v s
Speaker 1: because these are a little different. Again. This is where
Speaker 1: you're using a U a V as some sort of
Speaker 1: business use. Now, this could include capturing video or images
Speaker 1: that you plan to sell. Um. If you're using a
Speaker 1: U a V and you're taking pictures and you're just
Speaker 1: doing it for fun, that's that's still a hobbyist use.
Speaker 1: If you are using a U a V for fun
Speaker 1: and you later sell a picture because someone was interested
Speaker 1: in buying it, that's still a hobbyist use because you
Speaker 1: were you were using your U a V for pleasure,
Speaker 1: you weren't setting out to make money. But if you
Speaker 1: plan on operating a U a V so that you
Speaker 1: can get footage of stuff and sell it to an outlet. UH.
Speaker 1: Let's say that you are in a in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: and you're using U a V s to get footage
Speaker 1: of celebrities so you can sell it to TMZ. That
Speaker 1: is a commercial use of a U a v UM.
Speaker 1: At that point, you are no longer a hobbyist. Also,
Speaker 1: if you use a drone just to do stuff, like
Speaker 1: let's say you own a business and you've got a
Speaker 1: tall building and you're using a drone to fly up
Speaker 1: to the top of the building to check on your roof,
Speaker 1: that's technically using it in a business sense. So that
Speaker 1: is a commercial use for U a V. If you're
Speaker 1: using it to UH check like the security of your
Speaker 1: perimeter UH in your business, that is also a commercial
Speaker 1: use of a U a V. It falls under the
Speaker 1: commercial use UH purview, So then you have to follow
Speaker 1: the rules for commercial use, not for hobbyists. The rules
Speaker 1: for hobbyists are largely loose, they aren't nearly as restrictive
Speaker 1: as the commercial uses, because once you go into commercial uses,
Speaker 1: you're talking about commercial aviation. Even though we're talking low
Speaker 1: altitudes generally speaking with unmanned systems, it's still commercial aviation
Speaker 1: in the view of the f a A. That's where
Speaker 1: a ton of different regulations and restrictions come into play.
Speaker 1: So you are someone pursuing a career in aviation if
Speaker 1: you want to use it in a business sense, and
Speaker 1: just because you aren't sitting in a cockpit doesn't mean
Speaker 1: your exempt from the rules of pilots. And as the
Speaker 1: recording of this podcast right now, you would have to
Speaker 1: contact the f a A if you planned on being
Speaker 1: a commercial operator of U A v s and you'd
Speaker 1: have to request a section three thirty three exemption. Now
Speaker 1: this is specifically an exception to section three thirty three
Speaker 1: of Public Law one twelve Dash nine. Really catchy name, right,
Speaker 1: that particular laws what gives the f a A various
Speaker 1: authorizations for the fiscal years between, like I think it's
Speaker 1: two thousand eleven through two thousand fourteen, so technically those
Speaker 1: are are past, but that's the that's still the section
Speaker 1: you would request the exemption from you would also need
Speaker 1: a certificate of waiver or a certificate of authorization, and
Speaker 1: you would have to have a pilot with an f
Speaker 1: a A Airman certificate in order to do this legally.
Speaker 1: Now this could change once the f a A A publishes
Speaker 1: the rules for small U a S operations, but as
Speaker 1: of the recording of this podcast is required. The exemption
Speaker 1: includes a basic certificate of authorization, So one of those
Speaker 1: elements you will get just by getting that exception to
Speaker 1: section three thirty three, and that certificate of authorization allows
Speaker 1: you to operate a commercial u a V below four
Speaker 1: feet altitude, and you would still have to obey the
Speaker 1: restrictions around airports and other restricted airspace. Essentially, you have
Speaker 1: to follow the same rules as hobbyists. Anyone who wants
Speaker 1: to operate outside of those limitations would have to apply
Speaker 1: for a more broad certificate of authorization, which means contacting
Speaker 1: the f a A explaining exactly what you want to
Speaker 1: use the U A V for, how it would be used,
Speaker 1: you know what, what context, what scenario, and then you
Speaker 1: would have to wait upon a decision by the f
Speaker 1: a A to either grant you that certificate of authorization
Speaker 1: or deny it now. Commercial operators must also have a
Speaker 1: pilot certificate. That's because the f a A cannot by
Speaker 1: law authorize aircraft operation in the national airspace without a
Speaker 1: certificated a certificated pilot in command according to Title forty
Speaker 1: nine of the United States Code, section four four seven
Speaker 1: one one. So as a matter of law, you have
Speaker 1: to have a pilot certificate to operate this UV commercially,
Speaker 1: to actually be the person behind the controls. All right,
Speaker 1: but what about the rules about people affected by U
Speaker 1: A v S. And we talked about the hobbyists, we
Speaker 1: talked about the commercial uses. What about everybody else? If
Speaker 1: the U I V Flies over my private property? What
Speaker 1: are my rights? And that is a super tough question
Speaker 1: here in the United States because of lots of different issues.
Speaker 1: First of all, you've got the rights to airspace, and
Speaker 1: this is a big one. So once upon a time,
Speaker 1: property law stated that if you owned a parcel of land,
Speaker 1: you essentially owned everything below it and everything above it.
Speaker 1: So from your home all the way down or the
Speaker 1: property you own all the way down to the center
Speaker 1: of the earth, all of that's your property, and everything
Speaker 1: above your home up to the heavens that's your property too.
Speaker 1: That has changed. That's not the case anymore, largely because
Speaker 1: we have commercial aircraft and they have to fly over places,
Speaker 1: and they obviously could not request permission over every homeowner,
Speaker 1: and so the laws have changed. It is no longer
Speaker 1: the case that you own the property above your land
Speaker 1: all the way up to space. Instead, technically you still
Speaker 1: own the land all the way down to the center
Speaker 1: of the earth. So that's good. But the airspace you
Speaker 1: own above your property, it only extends as far as
Speaker 1: you can reasonably use in connection with the surface. That
Speaker 1: is a matter of law here in the US, so
Speaker 1: reasonably is a matter of judgment. It's not incorrect. It's
Speaker 1: not a clear cut case of below four hundred feet
Speaker 1: you own everything above your land, for example. However, that
Speaker 1: being said, ownership rights do not extend into navigable airspace,
Speaker 1: which in the United States is defined as anything above
Speaker 1: five hundred feet in uncongested areas. So while there's not
Speaker 1: a specific cutoff for where your property ends, it definitely
Speaker 1: cannot extend to five feet. At that point as navigable airspace,
Speaker 1: it is off limits for your ownership. The question is
Speaker 1: how far below navigable airspace to your property rights extent
Speaker 1: at what point is the air above your land still
Speaker 1: your property. Local laws are more likely to come into
Speaker 1: play for airspace ownership than federal ones, so things like
Speaker 1: zoning requirements might limit how tall a building can be
Speaker 1: in a specific area, or how tall structure is allowed
Speaker 1: to be. So let's say that you gut zoning laws
Speaker 1: that limit you and it says nothing over fifty feet.
Speaker 1: While someone might be able to argue that your property
Speaker 1: rights only extend to fifty feet above the ground and
Speaker 1: anything above that is not your property because it cannot
Speaker 1: be reasonably used in connection with the land around it. Um.
Speaker 1: That is of a potential argument someone could make, but
Speaker 1: no one has established this. There's no law that says,
Speaker 1: at X number of feet, your rights as a property
Speaker 1: owner are no longer at play. Um. So it's a
Speaker 1: real mess. And another problem with this is that there's
Speaker 1: already been cases of people shooting down drones or otherwise
Speaker 1: disabling them that have gone in different directions. So there's
Speaker 1: one that came out in the summer of two thousand
Speaker 1: fifteen in the United States in Kentucky, in which a
Speaker 1: man shut down a drone using a shotgun. Took three
Speaker 1: shots at it. The drone is lying over his property,
Speaker 1: and that man was William Meredith, and the pilot's owner,
Speaker 1: David Boggs, called police after Meredith essentially said if you
Speaker 1: cross that sidewalk, I'll shoot you too, uh, because Boggs
Speaker 1: came up and said, hey man, why don't you shoot
Speaker 1: down my drone. I was just showing it off to
Speaker 1: people and showing how it works. Um. So the police
Speaker 1: arrested Meredith for wanton endangerment and criminal mischief. Alright, So,
Speaker 1: according to Boggs, he was flying the drone at around
Speaker 1: two hundred feet and there's data on the device that
Speaker 1: backs him up. Says two hundred feet was the limit
Speaker 1: of how low he flew. Uh. Meredith challenged that. He
Speaker 1: said it was closer to one feet, that it was
Speaker 1: below the tree line, and a couple of witnesses testified
Speaker 1: to this as well. Meredith also maintained that he thought
Speaker 1: that the drone was spying on his teenage daughter who
Speaker 1: was sunbathing in the yard. So Meredith was saying, this
Speaker 1: was an invasion of my privacy and the privacy laws
Speaker 1: of Kentucky either way. At that point, the court said,
Speaker 1: and still really the courts had never decided what height
Speaker 1: a person's property rights in, so the question of whether
Speaker 1: the drone was actually trespassing is still an open question.
Speaker 1: It may not have been trespassing because it may not
Speaker 1: have been on the property since it was above a
Speaker 1: certain height. But the judge presiding over meredith hearing dismissed
Speaker 1: the charges against him. So the judge said these charges
Speaker 1: UH don't have merit and dismissed the case. Bog said
Speaker 1: he wanted to push the case to the grand jury
Speaker 1: and try and and see if he could have any
Speaker 1: success there. He also brought a federal lawsuit against Meredith
Speaker 1: in an attempt to establish once and for all what
Speaker 1: the rules are for you a v operation and property rights.
Speaker 1: So that's still going on right now. I haven't seen
Speaker 1: any recent development about that. Last I saw, UH, there
Speaker 1: was still a wait to see if this was actually
Speaker 1: gonna end up going to trial. So there's some astident
Speaker 1: for bringing down drones, but the question is far from
Speaker 1: settled because there are other cases where someone brought down
Speaker 1: a drone and then got punished for it, um they
Speaker 1: were charged with acting recklessly. There's still debates on whether
Speaker 1: it's legal for law enforcement to destroy someone's property, you know,
Speaker 1: by taking down a drone or at least damaging someone's property,
Speaker 1: let alone private individuals or companies. So movie production companies
Speaker 1: have been exploring ways to bring down drones for a while.
Speaker 1: One of my co workers tell stories about how a
Speaker 1: friend of his has been UM and talks with a
Speaker 1: production company about ways to bring down drones and ranging
Speaker 1: from beanbag guns to nets to two jammers that would
Speaker 1: interfere with the signal between the control and the drone.
Speaker 1: UM all sorts of different ways to bring a drone
Speaker 1: down and whether or not that's legal is still an
Speaker 1: open question. It's a bit like the wild West, and
Speaker 1: it will probably continue to be that way until there
Speaker 1: are some firm f A A guidelines in place. An
Speaker 1: individual cases will likely go to court, and that's where
Speaker 1: we'll start to see precedents set by actual court cases.
Speaker 1: Or states will end up passing local laws governing the
Speaker 1: legal use of U A v s and that will
Speaker 1: end up settling the question one way or the other,
Speaker 1: and it will rely heavily on regional laws governing property
Speaker 1: rights and privacy UM so like in in some cases
Speaker 1: courts have decided against people who have used force to
Speaker 1: down the drone, saying it constituted an unreasonable action since
Speaker 1: property wasn't in danger. In other words, there's there was
Speaker 1: at least one case where a guy shut down a
Speaker 1: drone and he had said that he did so because
Speaker 1: he thought it was a c I A surveillance drone
Speaker 1: illegally spying on him, and so he brought it down
Speaker 1: and was brought up on charges of property destruction. And
Speaker 1: the judge ruled in that case that the guy was
Speaker 1: in the wrong, that the guy bringing the drone down
Speaker 1: was in the wrong, that that it did the drone
Speaker 1: did not constitute a threat to anyone's property or person,
Speaker 1: and as such, the actions the guy took were too extreme.
Speaker 1: So again it depends upon the local region. Um in Kentucky,
Speaker 1: the privacy laws and property rights are pretty hefty. That
Speaker 1: might not be the case in some other places in
Speaker 1: the United States, let alone in the world. So the
Speaker 1: reason why I wanted to kind of bring all this
Speaker 1: up was just to talk about how complicated is and
Speaker 1: and show how yet again we have a piece of
Speaker 1: technology that has uh developed and evolved far faster than
Speaker 1: the legal system can compensate for. And we're likely to
Speaker 1: see this happen over and over again with robots and
Speaker 1: autonomous cars and all sorts of stuff in the future.
Speaker 1: This is a great way of kind of taking like
Speaker 1: a test case and saying, here's an example, yet another
Speaker 1: example of how technology can get to a point where
Speaker 1: it hits the market. It's available for us to buy,
Speaker 1: but the laws aren't there yet too, say when, where,
Speaker 1: and how can we use this stuff in a way
Speaker 1: that is legal, where we're not infringing on anyone else's
Speaker 1: rights or putting anyone else in danger. It's a complicated thing,
Speaker 1: and it's also kind of cool, and I'll probably do
Speaker 1: another update to this once the f a A publishes
Speaker 1: their rules if there are any rules that are particularly interesting, troublesome,
Speaker 1: you know, worthy of conversation. If they are essentially codifying
Speaker 1: the rules that have already been set, I probably won't
Speaker 1: do another episode about this, but if they end up
Speaker 1: coming up with other rules or or or other restrictions
Speaker 1: that are particularly interesting, then I'll look into it again.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you guys have any suggestions for
Speaker 1: future episodes, please let me know. Write me an email.
Speaker 1: The address is tech Stuff, How Stuff Works dot com,
Speaker 1: or you can drop me a line on social media.
Speaker 1: On Facebook and Twitter, I use the handle text stuff
Speaker 1: h s W and I'll talk to you guys again
Speaker 1: really soon. For more on this and thousands of other topics,
Speaker 1: is it how stuff works dot com