http://www.bbc.com/news/39114691

A commercial photographer lost control of his drone while recording the Seattle "Pride" parade. The drone injured a couple of people, including a woman who was knocked unconscious. 30 days in the can seems appropriate.

I wonder if the FAA will pull or suspend his commercial SUAS certificate for that one. They certainly would with a normal pilot. I am assuming he was operating under Part 107 since he owns a commercial aerial photography business, but it's also possible he was doing this under hobby rules I suppose.

A drone operator was running his drone with camera over top of the elk herd at the National Elk Refuge, which caused a stampede. He was fined for that little episode. One more example that most folks don't use much common sense.

MTV

I think they need to come up with a new expression to replace "common sense",
because it obviously isn't really all that common any more.

hotrod180 wrote:I think they need to come up with a new expression to replace "common sense",
because it obviously isn't really all that common any more.

Dunno. Seems like people pretty commonly manage to fly their drones without hurting anyone.

rw2 wrote:
Dunno. Seems like people pretty commonly manage to fly their drones without hurting anyone.

This is a crucially important point. Don't forget the bad rap GA gets by people blowing poorly covered accident reports way out proportion.

This is another similar accident: http://www.denverpost.com/2017/02/20/dr ... -accident/

So, yeah- people tend to do some stupid shit once in a while. But that stuff is a hell of a lot more entertaining to read about than all the mundane daily occurrences that are going on the other 99% of the time. I think there are an awful lot of both commercial and hobby drone operations going on daily with nothing dumb happening.

Crenshaw wrote:

rw2 wrote:
Dunno. Seems like people pretty commonly manage to fly their drones without hurting anyone.

... I think there are an awful lot of both commercial and hobby drone operations going on daily with nothing dumb happening.

Or, maybe like with stuff that results in most GA accidents, drone operators just 'luck out' and don't injure anyone (or get caught) when they do a dumb or high risk (of injury or damage to others) stunt.

Only 1 in five SE total loss of power events result in an NTSB accident. Partial power loss events it's more like 1 in 30 or so. There's probably a ratio of careless drone operations to accidents that someone will eventually discover.

I've been noticing the steadily increasing use of drone footage in national news coverage, and find it pretty cool. Shots previously done only by a helicopter (I hear they use lots of fuel per hour ) now done by a drone that was charged with a KWH or so of electricity, that seems like a huge leap in practicality, for someone in the news biz anyway.

I was riding the chairlift the other day and talking with a retired state trooper who recently got his commercial drone license, he will be stopping by my place at some point to give me a little stick time on his drone. I'm looking forward to it. He also mentioned he has been involved
in introducing drone use to the current state trooper organization, but didn't go into detail as to how they intend to use them. I need to remember to ask him that, and also tell him how I like to lay my plane's shadow on cars going down the interstate below my place, once a state trooper, and if that was OK

courierguy wrote:I've been noticing the steadily increasing use of drone footage in national news coverage, and find it pretty cool. Shots previously done only by a helicopter (I hear they use lots of fuel per hour ) now done by a drone that was charged with a KWH or so of electricity, that seems like a huge leap in practicality, for someone in the news biz anyway.

I'm starting to come around to them. I do think that (the collective) we need to be responsible with them. With all the talk of them being used to run small cargo, etc., I feel a Jetsons moment coming on where we see the sky littered with these little buzzy things. But I agree with your comment related to helicopters. A lot more economical! Imagine, too, if the helicopter fell on that woman's head...

I fear that it is just a matter of time that some hobby drone (or stupid commercially operated one) takes down a passenger plane on approach or take off.

I am sure the suits in D.C. will hold the inevitable investigations and convene committees where probably nothing will be accomplished. Couple that with the knee jerk, rushed, and ill conceived legislation that will be politically impossible to vote "No" on. In the end the people in the passenger plane will remain dead, the person that caused the accident may or may not go to jail for a long time, we will have another garbage law on the books, and the clock will be ticking towards the next accident.

Well considered laws and regulations need to be implemented a couple of years ago before Amazon started selling these things. Since we don't have time machines, the regulations need to be in place ASAP along with funding for their enforcement.

TD