I am so fed up with yahoos flying their personal drones in the path of actual aircraft, up around people’s condo windows, in people’s back yards and all other places where they just don’t belong. I am just dumbfounded that between the safety issues and privacy issues this is still OK to do. I get that it’s cool to have your own “flyover” movie of things but I guess I’m a wet blanket and don’t think “it would be cool” is a good enough reason to justify it. Thoughts?
Personally, I think it’d be pretty cool but believe it should come with a ton of regulations. A lot of people could use drones for illegal intentions. Just like the people who fly their miniature, functioning airplanes in open fields, drone owners should do the same and be punished for any problems caused by their toy.
The terrorism potential really worries me. Drones make all security fences a Maginot Line.
And in Southern California, the CalFire planes fighting a major wildfire were all grounded because a newsDrone was flying too close and endangering the pilots. They couldn’t see it and were afraid of collisions. Nice going drone-bozo.
grrrrrrrrr
Knocked unconscious! That’s horrible! I am not a fan of these things either. On Sunday, when I saw a couple of young men trying to free their drone out of a large Douglas fir, I enjoyed watching their desperation…
Stugace, the FAA has some regulations (and is even having a talk with the Dalllas Cowboys about their unregulated drone use), but there has not been much happening in courts yet, because it is still a new territory. The genie is definitely is out, and it needs to be defined more clearly what kinds of drone aerobatics should be considered “trespass.”
http://gizmodo.com/this-guys-neighbor-will-pay-for-shooting-down-his-drone-1714496464
For anyone interested, the above-linked Gizmodo article links to this summary of WI air trespass laws (written after the infamous Amazon’s announcement of its drone deliveries):
http://www.stroudlaw.com/hey-thats-my-air-trespass-by-delivery-drone/
I don’t own a gun and don’t know how to shoot but this may be a reason for me to own a gun; to shhot down a drone over my property.
Lol, Igloo. I’m sure many people feel this way! A few years ago a friend asked me if I wanted to join a biathlon team. I like to ski but just did not want to deal with rifles… maybe the time has come. 
Either a gun, or find a way to jam the radio frequencies the drones use to operate. The only problem with that is a)there will be other legitimate users on that band (depending on what they use) and B in doing so, the drone might crash and hurt someone.
What really bothers me is the FAA has pretty strict rules about model aircraft and model rockets about where and how you can fly them, why should drones be allowed free access to airspace? These aren’t kids toys that can fly maybe 50 feet in the air, these can fly at altitudes of several thousand feet and can endanger air traffic as well as people if they crash…and since there is no liability insurance required, good luck trying to sue someone who crashes a drone into your house or something.
This is a good start:
http://mashable.com/2015/06/30/nfl-faa-drones/
The FAA model aircraft rules apparently apply to drones (but not all think they do). It is just too easy to get the damn thing out of the box and flip the switch on. Plus, the pro-drone coalition (think big $$$!) is already gearing up for a fight with the FAA.
The model rocket users often have memberships in National Association of Rocketry, which comes with $1M in liability coverage. I assume the model aircraft operators have something similar. There will be lawsuits against the drone operators and manufacturers, and then the regulation and better controls will follow. Right now there are commercially available products that any yahoo can use, and many yahoos will.
…And GoPro just hinted that they will be coming out with a personal drone cam… to replace selfie sticks. (?)
What the heck?! Maybe we can use the selfie sticks to knock them out of the sky. ~X(
Not a bad idea, saintfan! Drone swatters, anyone?
There we go, a flying GoPro:
http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2015/06/gopro-hero-lcd-drone.html
As with everything else, the regulations will come after a preventable tragedy or two. There’s no constitutional amendment on drones either.