DailyDirt: Playing Nice With Others, While Piloting Drones

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Wed, Sep 2nd 2015 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Drones are becoming more common and more useful all the time, and at the same time, these devices are also getting to be more of a nuisance/threat for air traffic and important (sometimes life-saving) activities. Firefighters in helicopters are grounded when drones could potentially interfere with their work because it's a safety hazard to the helicopter and its passengers. The FAA hasn't yet come up with a complete set of drone-specific regulations, so for now, there's a bit of legal limbo and some strange rules to follow that don't always make sense.

The quickest way to get a drone pilot license is to learn how to fly a hot air balloon first? A legal loophole for drone licensing allows aspiring commercial drone operators to satisfy the pilot license requirement with relatively cheap ($5000 or so) lessons for hot air ballooning for just a few weeks. The education isn't totally useless, but perhaps more drone-specific requirements would make more sense in the future. [url]
The PowerUp 3.0 paper airplane is the first FAA-approved powered paper airplane to fly commercially in US airspace This is a toy that you can buy now (in our deals store, to help us out), but if you want to use it for commercial purposes, maybe check out some hot air ballooning lessons, too. [url]
The Los Angeles Police Department was distracted by a hobbyist drone operator while searching for a suspect by helicopter. This hobbyist drone was flown within 50 feet of a LAPD helicopter, and this probably won't be the last time a drone will clash with police authorities. [url]

After you've finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: air traffic, drones, helicopters, hot air balloons, lapd, paper airplane, pilot, pilot license, powerup, regulations

4 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Dr evil, 2 Sep 2015 @ 7:00pm

Kinda stupid
Still, grounding planes and helos for the average tiny drone is ill advised and the threats of charging pilots of drones with murder, etc, seems petty and like grandstanding at the same time. Except for ingesting one in an engine - birds just as likely - any collision = broken drone.

Just MHO
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Scote, 2 Sep 2015 @ 7:51pm

"The education isn't totally useless, but perhaps more drone-specific requirements would make more sense in the future."

The license requirement for tiny R/C "drones" is ridiculous given that no license is needed for *manned* piloting of powered ultralights weighing *hundreds* of pounds.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 2 Sep 2015 @ 9:58pm

Can't help feeling drones are the new ufos
For all the supposed drones affecting firefighters and police, where is the footage showing how close drones were getting?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Charles Farley, 2 Sep 2015 @ 11:50pm

A remote control plane != drone
Wait a second. The PowerUp 3.0 is considered a drone? Why so? It's effectively a remote control plane - sure, the remote control is your cellphone, but it doesn't have a camera or, last time I flew mine, an autonomous flight mode.

Is the US sufficiently screwed up that you require a pilots license to fly a remote control toy? Oh, wait, I think the question provided the answer >.>
[ link to this | view in thread ]