WEBVTT - Droning about Drone Regulations 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.240 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios, 0:00:07.320 --> 0:00:14.000 How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff. 0:00:14.040 --> 0:00:17.159 I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:19.440 How Stuff Works and I heart radio and I love 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:25.120 all things tech. And On April twenty third, two thousand nineteen, 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:29.440 Bloomberg reported that Wing Aviation l C, which is a 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:33.080 company under Alphabet that's the same parent company that Google 0:00:33.159 --> 0:00:37.320 belongs to, had received f A A approval for air 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:41.879 carrier certification. This was important news because Wing is in 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:45.480 the drone business with the goal of making drone deliveries 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:49.680 a reality. In other words, deliveries made by drone, not 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:53.800 deliveries of drones to people, and this is a goal 0:00:53.920 --> 0:00:55.960 to make it a reality in the United States. So 0:00:56.000 --> 0:00:58.960 today I thought I would talk about drones and the 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:02.040 laws and regular elations for drone operations in the United 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:04.920 States in particular, and a little bit about other places 0:01:04.959 --> 0:01:08.880 as well, and why this certification was a necessary step 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:13.200 for Wings plans to come to fruition. First, I think 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:16.039 it might be good to define some terms. See the 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:19.679 word drone is a bit vague. In the broad sense. 0:01:20.080 --> 0:01:23.759 We tend to think of drones as unmanned aircraft or 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:27.240 unmanned aerial vehicles u a v s. They can range 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:29.720 from something that can land on the palm of your 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:32.600 hand to something that if it landed on you would 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:35.600 give you the Wicked Witch of the East treatment because 0:01:35.680 --> 0:01:38.399 you'd get squished, because they can get real big. But 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:41.160 the technical definition for a drone, or at least a 0:01:41.160 --> 0:01:45.200 a modern definition for a drone is that it is 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:49.360 an unmanned, fixed wing or multi rotor aircraft and it 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:53.680 might draw power through fuel combustion engine or through batteries, 0:01:54.040 --> 0:01:57.240 and for consumer drones, the battery option is by far 0:01:57.360 --> 0:02:01.160 the most common, but typically when we use the word drone, 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:06.440 we're thinking of multi rotor unmanned aircraft, and frequently there 0:02:06.480 --> 0:02:09.959 are ones that we pilot using a remote control system. 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:12.000 The most common version you tend to see in the 0:02:12.040 --> 0:02:16.080 consumer market is the quad copter form factor, where you 0:02:16.560 --> 0:02:18.760 have a set of rotors at what would be the 0:02:18.760 --> 0:02:22.720 four corners of the drone, and it helps produce stability. 0:02:23.080 --> 0:02:27.359 These systems are are pretty phenomenal works of technology. Microchips 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:30.560 and sensors work to keep the drones nice and stable. 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:35.080 They can make fine tuned adjustments to operations and that 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:39.280 helps keep the drones in air. So some drone drones 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:41.720 will allow pilots to actually kind of tweak those settings 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:44.560 and give a little more control over to human operators. 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:46.960 But to make drones appealing to the masses, it was 0:02:47.000 --> 0:02:50.200 imperative to create hardware and software that would allow the 0:02:50.280 --> 0:02:53.360 average person to fly one around without having to monitor 0:02:53.480 --> 0:02:56.560 a dozen different variables at once. If you start seeing 0:02:56.600 --> 0:02:59.320 the back right corner and go down, then you're adjusting 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:01.720 for that. You might overcorrect and next thing you know, 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:04.280 your drones flipping out. So the technology got to the 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:07.320 point where that wasn't necessary, where that could be automated. Now. 0:03:07.320 --> 0:03:10.800 I've done episodes about drone technology in the past, including 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:14.240 talking about how DARPA was very much involved with drones, 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:17.000 particularly during the Vietnam War, but I'm not going to 0:03:17.120 --> 0:03:19.440 spend a whole lot of time doing that here. I 0:03:19.480 --> 0:03:22.120 just want to touch on the fact that companies have 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:25.120 developed the technology to a point that allows anyone with 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:28.600 a little patients to operate a drone fairly easily. And 0:03:28.639 --> 0:03:32.200 doing so safely and responsibly is another matter, and that's 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:35.560 where regulations will come in. Now. To understand the evolution 0:03:35.560 --> 0:03:38.440 of regulations It's also important to have a quick overview 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.440 of drone history because this is another one of those 0:03:41.440 --> 0:03:47.520 examples where technology develops faster than governments can handle. Now, 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:51.400 technically the term drone has been used to describe any 0:03:51.560 --> 0:03:56.040 unmanned aerial vehicle in the past. The actual term would 0:03:56.120 --> 0:03:59.080 start to come up probably I think it's more or 0:03:59.200 --> 0:04:02.720 less like the World War One era, but we've used 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:05.640 the word to apply to things even older than that. 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:09.920 That includes balloons, which represent the earliest drones. Again, we 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:11.360 didn't call them that at the time, but that's what 0:04:11.400 --> 0:04:14.920 we'd call him now. As early as eighteen forty nine, 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:20.240 militaries were experimenting with unmanned balloons as explosive delivery systems 0:04:20.320 --> 0:04:24.280 or bombers, so they're using balloons to bomb targets. The 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:28.719 Austrian military use such bomb carrying balloons against the city 0:04:28.839 --> 0:04:32.200 of Venice. At the time, Austria was controlling much of 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:35.599 the surrounding area and they were laying siege to the city. 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:39.200 The bombs had timed fuses that were cut to a 0:04:39.279 --> 0:04:41.799 length that would give the balloon enough time to reach 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:46.760 its target before exploding, and it was mostly based off 0:04:47.120 --> 0:04:50.000 environmental conditions at the time. So you'd say, based on 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:53.440 the direction of the wind and its speed, we calculate 0:04:53.480 --> 0:04:56.200 that it will take x number of minutes to get 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:58.640 to where we want to go, so we'll cut the 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:01.960 fuse to this link. Now, some of the bombs did 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:05.480 have a pesky habit of blowing back toward the Austrians, 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:10.080 and that was not ideal. The Venetians would surrender to 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:12.919 the Austrians a couple of days after those attacks, but 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:15.520 the lack of control over the balloons and flight was 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.599 a big reason that other countries did not immediately jump 0:05:18.640 --> 0:05:22.120 on board and employ the same strategy. The first fixed 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:26.560 wing pilotless drone recorded in history was probably the Rustin 0:05:26.760 --> 0:05:31.839 Proctor aerial target, which was developed in nineteen sixteen. That's 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:34.719 just sixteen years after the Right Brothers had a successful 0:05:34.760 --> 0:05:39.080 demonstration of heavier than air fixed wing aircraft at Kittie Hawk. Now, 0:05:39.120 --> 0:05:41.200 there are a lot of sites that have information about 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:45.680 this particular automated aircraft, well not even automated, it's not automated, 0:05:45.720 --> 0:05:49.920 but remote controlled radio control aircraft. But they all used 0:05:49.960 --> 0:05:53.960 suspiciously similar wording in those articles. So in other words, 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:56.880 I think they're all either working from the exact same 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:01.240 source material which is being kind might just be copying 0:06:01.279 --> 0:06:03.920 each other. Suffice it to say, the aerial target relied 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:07.200 on simplistic radio controls. In fact, calling it a remote 0:06:07.200 --> 0:06:11.040 control is probably being way too generous. Uh. And it 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:14.279 was intended to be used like a flying bomb, but 0:06:14.360 --> 0:06:17.599 it was never actually used in combat. The realities of 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:21.080 World War One gave countries a lot of incentives to 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:24.839 develop drones. Being able to attack an opponent without putting 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:28.680 the lives of your own soldiers in danger was obviously 0:06:28.800 --> 0:06:31.960 a goal for everybody. The designs in World War One 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:35.240 really led more to the development of cruise missiles than 0:06:35.279 --> 0:06:39.600 the evolution of the end landed aerial vehicle or ua V. Now, 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:43.840 between the two World Wars, countries began to experiment with 0:06:44.600 --> 0:06:49.600 various unmanned aerial vehicles as targets, much as the aerial 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:53.120 target name had suggested. So you would have pilots in 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:58.279 manned aircraft practicing their their firing, practicing their their targeting 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:01.560 on these aerial target it's that were unmanned. There was 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:04.760 no fear of endangering another pilot because there's no pilot 0:07:04.800 --> 0:07:08.359 in the enemy aircraft, and it gave pilots a chance 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:11.560 to hone their skills without putting other people in danger, 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:15.160 so it became a training method. These aerial targets were 0:07:15.160 --> 0:07:20.679 typically made through converting full sized aircraft UH into radio 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:24.960 controlled aircraft, rather than building something specifically for the purposes 0:07:25.000 --> 0:07:28.160 of being an unmanned vehicle from the first place. Now, 0:07:28.160 --> 0:07:30.920 according to at least one story, this is where the 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:34.480 word drone actually came from. It was applied to a 0:07:34.600 --> 0:07:38.160 ua V called the d H point eight to B 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:43.040 also known as the Queen B. And UH they started 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:45.800 using the drone to describe this particular aircraft, and then 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:49.200 later they used it to describe any aerial target, and 0:07:49.320 --> 0:07:53.920 later still to refer to any remotely controlled unmanned aerial vehicle. 0:07:54.400 --> 0:07:56.400 And that's where we got the word drone, at least 0:07:56.400 --> 0:08:00.880 according to a lot of sites I found on the internet. UH, 0:08:00.920 --> 0:08:05.080 I am not confident that that is the correct answer, 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:07.680 but we're gonna go with it because it was the 0:08:07.680 --> 0:08:11.040 one one I found consensus on. Now I'm gonna switch 0:08:11.040 --> 0:08:13.760 gears a bit and talk about a dude called Reginald 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:17.440 Denny who was an English actor who immigrated to America 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:20.280 to seek fame and fortune in Hollywood. And he would 0:08:20.320 --> 0:08:24.560 do that He acted in dozens of roles, though I 0:08:24.600 --> 0:08:27.000 think I've only ever seen him in two movies. He 0:08:27.080 --> 0:08:30.880 was in the nineteen sixty six version of Batman Some 0:08:30.960 --> 0:08:32.880 Days you just can't get rid of a bomb. And 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:36.400 he was also a bad guy in the Western comedy 0:08:36.440 --> 0:08:39.800 film Cat Balou, which holds a near and dear place 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:44.000 to my heart. Anyway, he had another interest besides acting, 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:47.040 and that was of remote control airplanes. He had been 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:50.559 in the Royal Flying Corps the RFC in Britain during 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:52.920 World War One, and he had performed as a stunt 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:55.960 pilot after that. So when he came to America, he 0:08:56.080 --> 0:09:00.240 created a company called Reginald Denny Industries, and and he 0:09:00.280 --> 0:09:04.240 started to design and build remote controlled aircraft, and he 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:07.720 did some for the military, but he also did other 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:12.400 ones for hobbyists and amateur pilots. He's widely cited as 0:09:12.400 --> 0:09:15.520 the first person to create a model plane business, a 0:09:15.679 --> 0:09:19.160 radio control model plane business. I should add because there 0:09:19.160 --> 0:09:22.360 were other businesses that made model planes. It's just they 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:25.480 were either gliders, or they were just models that weren't 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:28.040 meant to fly at all, or they were tethered, so 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:30.880 they would you would tie them to an anchor point 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:33.000 and they would just fly in circles. Oh and one 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:36.320 other bit of trivia. Another famous person in Hollywood got 0:09:36.320 --> 0:09:41.000 her start as an assembler in one of Denny's manufacturing facilities. 0:09:41.559 --> 0:09:45.760 That actress's name was Norma Gene Mortenson, but she's better 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:50.000 known by her stage name Marilyn Monroe. While Denny was 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:54.280 catering to a small and fairly wealthy clientele of r 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:57.560 C pilots, it would take the development of the transistor 0:09:57.800 --> 0:10:01.640 and making the transistor cheap and to produce to really 0:10:01.720 --> 0:10:05.120 give the hobbyist community a big boost. And that happened 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:08.040 in the nineteen sixties, and it allowed manufacturers to make 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:13.200 much smaller radio controlled components for aircraft and also meant 0:10:13.200 --> 0:10:16.840 that the aircraft themselves could be smaller. So soon dozens 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:20.080 of companies were producing different types of aircraft, often in 0:10:20.240 --> 0:10:22.640 kit form, which means you would go out and buy 0:10:22.679 --> 0:10:25.240 the kit and you would assemble the aircraft at home. 0:10:25.880 --> 0:10:29.160 Now I should add that there had been model aeroplane 0:10:29.160 --> 0:10:34.760 associations and competitions since before Denny had even created his business, 0:10:34.800 --> 0:10:37.520 but those were essentially free form competitions in which the 0:10:37.559 --> 0:10:40.719 aircraft is not controlled during flight. So a glider is 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:45.520 an example. Or aircraft that uses a rubber band to 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:50.640 store and then unleash energy. Uh, that was another example. 0:10:50.960 --> 0:10:55.080 Or they were the tethered version before radio control really 0:10:55.240 --> 0:10:58.160 came on the scene in the nineteen sixties. As the 0:10:58.200 --> 0:11:01.800 transistor was taking shape, so was the concept of aircraft 0:11:01.840 --> 0:11:05.400 regulations in the US. And I'm talking about full sized 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:11.360 aircraft regulations UM and manned aircraft as well. In ninety eight, 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:15.360 the United States formed the Federal Aviation Administration. Originally it's 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:19.000 called the Federal Aviation Agency. Either way, it was called 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:21.040 the f a A still is to this day the 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:23.160 f a A. And the purpose of it was to 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:27.400 oversee the development and enforcement of regulations for aircraft. And 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:31.080 there had been several fatal accidents that involved aircraft over 0:11:31.120 --> 0:11:34.559 the previous decades, some of those involving high profile people, 0:11:34.880 --> 0:11:39.080 including a US senator in nineteen thirty five. Now, previously, 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:42.160 the Department of Commerce had been charged with administering and 0:11:42.200 --> 0:11:45.720 regulating the use of aircraft, but technology was progressing quickly, 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:49.920 and as air travel and cargo transportation became more accessible, 0:11:50.240 --> 0:11:53.120 the country began to rely rely upon air travel much 0:11:53.160 --> 0:11:56.040 more heavily, and that led to the need to create 0:11:56.120 --> 0:12:00.160 a new government agency to oversee everything. Senator A. S. 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:03.840 Mike Munroney from Oklahoma introduced a bill to create the 0:12:03.920 --> 0:12:07.480 f a A and it had the mission to provide 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:10.719 quote for the safe and Efficient use of National Airspace 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:13.560 end quote. Now would be a while before the f 0:12:13.679 --> 0:12:16.080 a A turned its attention to u a v s, 0:12:16.720 --> 0:12:19.319 largely because there just weren't that many u a v 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:23.240 s out there to worry about it. Plus, hobbyist organizations 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.240 were trying to be proactive, so they were creating their 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:30.320 own sets of rules and guidelines for operation, and part 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:32.480 of that was in an effort to stay ahead of 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:35.720 the need for regulations, which many thought would end up 0:12:36.040 --> 0:12:38.000 hurting the hobby as a whole. If you have to 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:41.760 start regulating things, you discourage people from getting involved in it. 0:12:41.920 --> 0:12:44.120 So they're kind of hoping to head that off at 0:12:44.160 --> 0:12:47.040 the pass and say, well, we're just going to make 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:50.120 sure that everyone is knows how to behave and operate 0:12:50.200 --> 0:12:53.920 these things so that we don't have the government get involved. 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:57.760 And because again it was a relatively small number of people, 0:12:58.520 --> 0:13:02.640 there wasn't much concern at least for a few decades. 0:13:03.160 --> 0:13:06.760 There was one other federal agency that hobbyists and companies 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:10.160 catering to hobbyists had to pay attention to, and that 0:13:10.240 --> 0:13:13.280 was the f c C, which is authorized to designate 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:17.680 radio frequencies for specific types of use. So radio controlled 0:13:17.760 --> 0:13:22.000 vehicles fall into the same category as amateur radio, and 0:13:22.040 --> 0:13:25.320 so all our C vehicles have to operate within the 0:13:25.360 --> 0:13:29.480 amateur radio bandwidths of radio frequencies. Other frequency bandwidths are 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:33.480 meant for different purposes, So for example, television broadcast is 0:13:33.520 --> 0:13:37.559 one of those where military use takes up several different bandwidths. 0:13:38.040 --> 0:13:40.880 We'll get back to the FCC a bit later, because 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:43.840 there's a complication that arises it if you want to 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.800 use a ua V for commercial purposes. Um that the 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:52.319 f c C overseas alright, So for years r C 0:13:52.559 --> 0:13:56.280 pilots didn't really have to worry about regulations as long 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:59.679 as they followed the guidelines that the various hobbyist organizations had. 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:04.000 A STAF published in the f a A issued an 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:08.600 advisory Circular on Model Aircraft Operating Standards, and these were 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:11.080 a list of safety standards that the f a A 0:14:11.080 --> 0:14:15.160 advised model aircraft operators to follow. They were pretty straightforward 0:14:15.240 --> 0:14:18.480 rules that broke down into the following. Don't operate a 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:22.800 model aircraft near populated and noise sensitive areas. Don't operate 0:14:22.800 --> 0:14:25.960 a model aircraft in front of spectators until you've established 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:28.920 that the aircraft is actually air worthy through some flight testing. 0:14:29.520 --> 0:14:32.840 Don't fly higher than four feet in altitude. If you 0:14:32.960 --> 0:14:35.960 do want to fly a model aircraft within three miles 0:14:35.960 --> 0:14:38.480 of an airport, you have to first notify the air 0:14:38.520 --> 0:14:42.600 traffic facility or air traffic control tower first. UM I 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:44.800 think I said first there twice, But that's how important 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:47.080 it was. You were to give right of way to 0:14:47.200 --> 0:14:50.560 any full scale aircraft and avoid flying in their proximity 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.440 whenever possible, and you were encouraged to talk with air 0:14:53.480 --> 0:14:56.000 traffic control to help in your planning to comply with 0:14:56.040 --> 0:14:58.600 those rules. And that was it, and it stayed that 0:14:58.640 --> 0:15:00.880 way for a couple of decades. I'll talk about what 0:15:00.960 --> 0:15:03.320 happened next in just a moment, but first let's take 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:15.720 a quick break. So as we know, technology continues to evolve, 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:19.240 and as tech evolves, it tends to become more accessible, 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.480 both because prices for that tech will drop and the 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:25.800 tech also gets easier to use. So what was once 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:29.280 a complicated task becomes more automated, and that means more 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:32.040 people can get involved in that activity without encountering a 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:35.080 very steep learning curve, and they don't have to develop 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:38.040 the same sort of skill that earlier hobbyists had to 0:15:38.080 --> 0:15:41.200 develop in order to be active in that hobby. Flying 0:15:41.240 --> 0:15:45.400 an RC plane before the development of automated technologies required 0:15:45.440 --> 0:15:49.120 a whole lot of skill and focus. It's much easier 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:53.120 to fly a quad copter with automatic leveling capabilities. In fact, 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:57.920 it's hard to describe the difference. I've operated an RC 0:15:58.240 --> 0:16:02.520 airplane before, and once it's in the air, it's not 0:16:04.120 --> 0:16:08.440 that hard to control it, but it's a little tricky 0:16:08.440 --> 0:16:10.520 if you want to bring it down safely. I always 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:12.400 had to hand the controls over to someone who is 0:16:12.440 --> 0:16:15.240 more capable than I to do that. I could do 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:19.280 basic maneuvers, I couldn't do anything fancy. UM quad copters 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:21.440 are very different because it automates a lot of the 0:16:21.480 --> 0:16:25.360 features that keeps the aircraft steady in the air as 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:27.960 you're giving it different commands, So you've given a lot 0:16:28.000 --> 0:16:31.040 more freedom to do wacky stuff and not have to 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.880 worry so much about the aircraft having a total crash. 0:16:35.320 --> 0:16:38.360 Now the technology advanced much faster than the law did, 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:41.000 which again it's pretty common in technology. We'd see it 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:44.560 in other areas, not just in things like transportation. We 0:16:44.600 --> 0:16:46.920 see it pretty much everywhere where. Innovators come up with 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:49.200 a new idea that the law it really hasn't accounted 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:51.560 for yet, and then we see the law try to 0:16:51.600 --> 0:16:54.280 catch up with the state of the art tech. But 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:57.120 that takes time, and it takes a while for regulators 0:16:57.200 --> 0:16:59.640 to kind of suss out the details to sort of 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:03.200 caught a by them into rules and regulations. Now, the 0:17:03.200 --> 0:17:07.119 popularity of drones inevitably led to several cases in which 0:17:07.160 --> 0:17:12.920 the unmanned vehicles caused concern, including several near miss scenarios 0:17:12.920 --> 0:17:16.679 with full scale aircraft near airports. So the f a 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:21.120 A recognized the situation was urgent that these drones were 0:17:21.160 --> 0:17:23.280 just going to keep getting more and more popular, which 0:17:23.280 --> 0:17:25.760 meant more of them in the air, which meant more 0:17:25.760 --> 0:17:29.720 opportunities for disaster to occur. So the agency needed to 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:33.200 jump in on this point. Now, at first, the f 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:37.400 a A tried to enforce rules for actual aircraft that 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:40.159 and have them applied to u a v s, and 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:43.800 they concluded that unmanned aerial systems or u A S s s, 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:45.800 which essentially the same thing as U A V S 0:17:45.920 --> 0:17:50.760 is just another name for it, are legally designated as aircraft, 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:52.840 and that would mean that all operators would have to 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:55.640 follow f a A rules and get certified to operate 0:17:55.680 --> 0:17:59.000 their vehicles. The f A wanted to classify U A 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:03.800 S devices as aircraft under the Code of Federal Regulations, 0:18:03.840 --> 0:18:07.679 specifically as defined in Part one oh three, which is 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:12.120 the section for ultra light vehicles. However, as defined, ultra 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.720 light vehicles are manned vehicles that either way less than 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:19.479 one fifty five pounds if they're unpowered, or two hundred 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:22.879 fifty four pounds if they are powered. That's around seventy 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:25.639 ms for unpowered and a little more than a hundred 0:18:25.720 --> 0:18:29.960 and ten kilograms for powered aircraft. So when the f 0:18:30.160 --> 0:18:34.919 a A attempted to prosecute cases centered on irresponsible and 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:39.240 dangerous operation of u AS vehicles using these rules as 0:18:39.280 --> 0:18:44.520 their basis, that's where they encountered some problems. The case 0:18:44.560 --> 0:18:48.000 went to the court system of the National Transportation Safety Board, 0:18:48.320 --> 0:18:51.639 but the NTSB rejected the f A A S case 0:18:52.040 --> 0:18:54.720 on the grounds that u AS vehicles do not meet 0:18:54.800 --> 0:18:57.919 the definition of an ultra light aircraft. They said, you 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:01.440 can't apply the rules for this thing for this other thing. 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:03.879 There are two different things. So a lot of the 0:19:03.960 --> 0:19:06.919 charges were dismissed, but there were a couple that did stick. 0:19:07.040 --> 0:19:10.560 The court held up a charge involving operating drones within 0:19:10.680 --> 0:19:14.040 controlled airspaces like a near an airport, so the f 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:17.919 a A had no legal justification to take operators to 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:22.520 court even if they were acting irresponsibly, so the agency 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:25.040 had limited authority. It was pretty clear that the f 0:19:25.160 --> 0:19:28.520 a A could have the right to regulate operations within 0:19:28.600 --> 0:19:32.600 controlled airspace, and that the f a A could establish 0:19:32.680 --> 0:19:37.800 the right to regulate pilots and drone airworthiness. But some operations, 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:40.520 such as the indoor operation of drones, were deemed to 0:19:40.560 --> 0:19:43.760 be completely outside the f a AS authority. They couldn't 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:47.760 say anything about how you operate a drone indoors. Now, 0:19:47.760 --> 0:19:50.200 the f a A would go and draft a new 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:53.920 set of rules under Part one zero seven. This would 0:19:53.920 --> 0:19:58.879 be small unmanned aircraft systems, so they drafted specific rules 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:02.320 to cover these devices since they did not fit on 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:05.399 the ultra light category. This would set the actual rules 0:20:05.400 --> 0:20:08.199 that the f a A could actively enforce, and the 0:20:08.280 --> 0:20:11.520 rules not only created the safe parameters for drone operation. 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:15.000 It also gave commercial U a S operators the legal 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:18.520 foundation upon which they could pursue their careers. Because commercial 0:20:18.560 --> 0:20:22.080 U a S operators UH have to follow rules as well, 0:20:22.600 --> 0:20:27.320 and they're different rules than recreational drone users. You might 0:20:27.359 --> 0:20:30.160 wonder what a professional u a S operator is doing. 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:33.000 A lot of them are camera operators because a lot 0:20:33.040 --> 0:20:37.040 of film projects end up meeting drone shots. They can 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:40.000 replace helicopter shots or crane shots, so you can see 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:43.560 them a lot in the entertainment and information industries, and 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:46.399 this was a way for people to actually make that 0:20:46.480 --> 0:20:50.159 a living. Now, the rules states the drone operators have 0:20:50.320 --> 0:20:53.040 to maintain a line of sight with their vehicles while 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:56.600 they're operating them outdoors. So you could not use a 0:20:56.720 --> 0:20:59.960 camera and monitor system to pilot your your drone out 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:03.920 of sight. So you couldn't just go beyond line of sight. 0:21:04.280 --> 0:21:07.480 With these these rules in place, the pilot has to 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:11.879 be able to lay eyes on the drone at all times. UH. Also, 0:21:11.880 --> 0:21:15.080 the operators are to fly the drones at an altitude 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:17.639 ceiling of four hundred feet or a hundred twenty two. 0:21:18.040 --> 0:21:20.679 That's the same as for the model airplanes, so that 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:23.840 didn't change. Another restriction states that you can't fly your 0:21:23.920 --> 0:21:28.040 drone over human beings unless those people are undercover, So 0:21:28.160 --> 0:21:31.360 if the drone were to follow the sky, wouldn't hurt anybody. Uh. 0:21:31.400 --> 0:21:33.399 The only exception to this is if you are the 0:21:33.400 --> 0:21:36.720 actual pilot of the drone, you can fly it over yourself, 0:21:37.080 --> 0:21:39.119 but you're not allowed to fly it over anyone else. 0:21:39.520 --> 0:21:42.280 That would become a big restriction for commercial drones, as 0:21:42.280 --> 0:21:45.000 we'll talk about a bit later. The vehicles also can't 0:21:45.000 --> 0:21:47.639 be carrying hazardous material, so you can't have you know, 0:21:47.760 --> 0:21:50.240 like biological agents or chemical agents or things like that 0:21:50.280 --> 0:21:53.639 are explosives on a drone that's illegal, and pilots are 0:21:53.680 --> 0:21:57.359 limited to operating only a single aircraft at any given time. 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:00.720 There are also other rules that are involved with this, 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:04.440 but that's those are the general ones for recreational drone use. 0:22:05.040 --> 0:22:08.359 In addition, if a ua V weighs more than point 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:11.960 to five kgrams or about point five five pounds, the 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:15.880 operator is required to register the drone. In the United States, 0:22:16.600 --> 0:22:19.280 operators have to be at least thirteen years old in 0:22:19.400 --> 0:22:22.440 order to register a drone. If they are younger than that, 0:22:22.480 --> 0:22:25.639 they can have a quote unquote responsible adult do it 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:27.680 in their place. So you don't have to be thirteen 0:22:27.720 --> 0:22:29.119 to operate a drone, but you have to be at 0:22:29.200 --> 0:22:32.480 least thirteen to register a drone. The registration fee is 0:22:32.520 --> 0:22:34.639 five dollars. It's good for three years, so it's not 0:22:35.480 --> 0:22:39.199 prohibitively expensive. You know, drones are already pretty expensive, so 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:41.840 that's the limiting factor. I would argue more than the 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:45.840 registration fee. These rules are again just for recreational use. 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:48.520 They don't apply to people who are piloting drones for profit. 0:22:49.080 --> 0:22:51.760 And starting in two thousand and six, the f a 0:22:51.880 --> 0:22:55.600 A began to issue commercial drone permits. This gets complicated 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:59.960 because operating a drone commercially is in violation of those 0:23:00.119 --> 0:23:03.440 f c C regulations I talked about, because the f 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:07.200 c C regulations state that you can only use those 0:23:07.280 --> 0:23:12.560 amateur radio bands for amateur use. You cannot use it 0:23:12.600 --> 0:23:15.640 to make a profit. That's you know, there are different 0:23:15.640 --> 0:23:22.120 frequencies that are reserved for commercial use. So technically, if 0:23:22.119 --> 0:23:25.560 you're making a living operating a drone, you can get 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:27.879 permission from the f a A to do it, but 0:23:28.040 --> 0:23:31.000 the actual radio frequencies you're using to control the drone 0:23:31.359 --> 0:23:35.480 have to be over amateur radio frequencies and that technically 0:23:35.560 --> 0:23:39.000