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TO DRONE OR NOT TO DRONE - PART VI - WHY SHOULD THE HOBBIEST DRONE USE

Part 6:  Why should the hobbyist drone user care about regulations pertaining to “commercial” drone flyers? 

First, who knows when FAA will expand the definition of “commercial use” to include what you are currently doing? 

Second, the drone community is desperately in need of innovation.  We still have drones that don’t fly straight, fly away out of the control of the user, and just last weekend I personally witnessed another drone pilot have his $1,300 drone turn upside down and augur into the ground from 150’ or so feet, destroying the unit.


Wouldn’t it be nice to have Amazon.com, or Google, or Dominos Pizza pumping major money into R&D to give us all better drones?  Is this going to happen with FAA basically prohibiting all commercial use outside of the arctic?  Not in this country.  Where will the large companies that would afford a few million a year for R&D go?  Other countries.  If you were Amazon.com, would you try to develop new drone technology here in the US (where, my guess is that they could not even test their drones under the FAA rules), or in Hong Kong, where drone regulations take up a single page of paper and basically come down to “use common sense”?  The answers to these questions are obvious, and, if this is the future of drones in the US, will put us in a position where we are playing catch-up with foreign countries on technology.

TO DRONE OR NOT TO DRONE - Does Amazon Prime avoid the “commercial” classification?

PART  V - Does Amazon Prime avoid the “commercial” classification and why penalize US farmers?

Example 3:
You can use a drone to move a box from point to point without any kind of compensation, but you cannot use a drone to deliver packages to people for a fee.  Amazon.com is obviously the main issue here, as Amazon would like to use drones to deliver packages to people.  Here is a new angle, I’m a member of Amazon Prime, so I get my packages delivered for free.  If Amazon delivers my packages for free, with a drone, is it commercial?  I would argue it is not, as I would not be charged whether it arrives by UPS or drone, and I would much prefer drone as it would get here in 10 minutes rather than 2 days.

Example 4:
You can use a drone to survey a field of crops “grown for personal enjoyment”, but not as part of a commercial farming operation.  This is, in my opinion, ludicrous.  Precision agriculture is extremely important for our country (and those other countries that buy our exported agricultural products).  Why put us at a competitive disadvantage against those countries which regularly use drones to perform these functions?

TO DRONE OR NOT TO DRONE - REALTORS CAN'T USE DRONES! PART IV

Example 2:  Taking photographs with a drone for personal use is OK, but realtors can’t use their own drones to photograph a property they are selling, and a drone photographer can’t take pictures of a “property or event” and sell them to  someone else.  So, what if a home-owner takes some personal photos of a house, then later decides to sell the house, can the home-owner post the photos on a “sell-it-yourself” real estate website?  Can the home-owner give the photos to a realtor who will then use them to try to sell the house for the homeowner?  Should there be a distinction between photos taken before the home-owner lists the house or sale and those taken after the house has been listed for sale (at which point it could be said that the home-owner clearly intended to use the drone photos to sell the house)?

Over the past several months, I have seen a decided decrease in the number of drone operators who are clearly offering to shoot drone footage of real estate or other structures for a price.  I have been personally following about five of these operators and suddenly they no longer offer footage for dollars, but rather talk about providing all-encompassing “solutions” to problems.  So, is a “solution” that offers $10,000 of “consultation” with a free drone video thrown in “commercial”, or are they still “hobbyists”?

A category that the FAA didn’t directly address but which stands out in my mind is when people use drones for clearly “indirectly-commercial” purposes.  For example, a number of outfits that either sell drones or sell services related to drones have all sorts of cool YouTube videos showing one of more of a) their skills as drone pilots, b) their complete disregard for FAA and other drone-related guidelines in what I consider to be an entirely inappropriate attempt to be “the cool rebel”, or c) how well their drone-related products work.  None of these groups are actually taking cash for their flights, but all clearly are using drones to build an image they hope result in sales of their products or their services.  Are these “commercial flights”?

If you shot a cool YouTube video from your drone and you put an advertising message at the beginning, does this transform an otherwise “hobby” flight into a commercial one?

My wife and I just completed a project in Thailand where we flew our drone over the roof of a Buddhist temple, then edited the footage to show the monks where they had missing roof tiles, birds nesting in the rafters, and even plants growing out of the side of the temples.  We didn’t ask for any money from the monks, and the project was definitely one of the most fun and worthwhile things I have ever done, but if posting the video results a lot of people noticing the resort my wife and I own in Thailand, were they “commercial flights”?

TO DRONE OR NOT TO DRONE - Part III- So What Really Is "Commercial Use"?

So what really is “commercial use”?

 
Let’s begin with the FAA guidelines.  FAA recently released a document that included examples of what they considered “hobby” and “commercial” uses of drones.  Let’s look at these examples and see what light they may shed on the subject.

Example 1:  Flying a model aircraft at the local model aircraft club is “hobby”, but receiving money for demonstrating aerobatics with a model aircraft is “commercial”.  OK, but what about a “drone competition”, where everyone who enters has to pay a $20 entry fee and the winner gets a grand prize of $200.  Is the winner doing is “commercially”?  Is the group putting on the event “commercial” because they are taking money to have other people fly drones?  Is the result different if the winner gets a free drone as a prize?  What about a free weekend at a local resort?  Is this “commercial”?  What if a major resort sponsored the event and gave away a free weekend at their resort for the grand champion drone flyer, but made all contestants agree that the resort could use their footage they shot during the event.  Does that make the resort fall under “commercial use”?  

I just attended a drone conference in Las Vegas where each day the organizers drew names from a hat and the winner won a free drone.  The organizers didn’t fly any drones but clearly used the lure of a free drone to get attendees there.  What if the organizers had hosted a drone-flying exhibition as part of the conference, and gave away a free drone as part of a raffle, would the “drone-flying” part of the conference make it “commercial”?

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TO DRONE OR NOT TO DRONE? THAT IS THE QUESTION (PART ii)

Part 2:  FAA position:  I quote from the FAA’s website, entitled “Busting Myths about the FAA and Unmanned Aircraft”.  

A few choice excerpts:

“Myth #2: Commercial UAS flights are OK if I'm over private property and stay below 400 feet.

You may not fly a UAS for commercial purposes by claiming that you’re operating according to the Model Aircraft guidelines (below 400 feet, 3 miles from an airport, away from populated areas.)  Commercial operations are only authorized on a case-by-case basis. A commercial flight requires a certified aircraft, a licensed pilot and operating approval.   To date, only one operation has met these criteria, using Insitu's ScanEagle, and authorization was limited to the Arctic.”

So, to fly commercially you need a certified aircraft, a licensed pilot, and operating approval.  Oh, and FAA has only approved one operation and that was limited to flying in the Arctic.  Yep, glad I didn’t sell my patent law firm to become a commercial drone pilot!

“Myth #3: Commercial UAS operations are a “gray area” in FAA regulations.
Fact—There are no shades of gray in FAA regulations. Anyone who wants to fly an aircraft—manned or unmanned—in U.S. airspace needs some level of FAA approval.”
OK,  let’s see how the appeal in Trappy v. FAA goes.  FAA lost the first round, but will be putting in their best efforts on the appeal.

OK, now for the best one:

“Myth #4: There are too many commercial UAS operations for the FAA to stop.

Fact—The FAA has to prioritize its safety responsibilities, but the agency is monitoring UAS operations closely. Many times, the FAA learns about suspected commercial UAS operations via a complaint from the public or other businesses. The agency occasionally discovers such operations through the news media or postings on internet sites.  When the FAA discovers apparent unauthorized UAS operations, the agency has a number of enforcement tools available to address these operations, including a verbal warning, a warning letter, and an order to stop the operation.”

I have heard through the grapevine that FAA has at least one full time employee scouring YouTube videos looking for commercial use of drones.  I understand they also have employees looking on YouTube for “dridiots” (drone flyers who are idiots).  A Dridiot can usually be spotted through a YouTube video that shows a shaky flight up over an airport runway, followed by a jerky flight over a national monument, with a closing shot from the inside of the Pentagon or some other highly restricted place.  The Dridiot usually titles his (almost all Dridiots are male) video something like “Stunning aerial footage of the White House”, and he usually turns the drone back towards himself for part of the video and says something like:

“Yeah, I just got this drone out of the box, and didn’t understand the directions, particular that junk about compass companion, or compass fixing, or calibration, or something, so I just flew it and look at the cool footage!  I just fired this sucker up, pulled back on the left toggle, and pretty soon I was up 1,500 feet, over the Statue of Liberty.  Look at all the park police down there, I think they are waving at me!  Here, let me pull the toggle sideways.  Look, I can see planes from JFK airport coming right by me!  Cool!  Then I went to Washington D.C. and tried to see what the Obamas were having for dinner.  Look, my drone is only 10’ from their window.  Aren’t I cool?  Then I went to Dulles Airport and flew in front of a Korean Airlines A-380 as it was taking off.  Look at the middle-finger sign the pilots gave me, must mean “cool flying” in Korean or something like that.  Must be an Asian thing because the China Airlines 747 pilots did the same thing when I buzzed their cockpit while they were  landing.  Yeah, I want to be a YouTube star and sell a million dollars in advertising.  What?  (background noise of pounding on the door)  Must be some of my fans (background noise “FBI, open the door”) Yeah, I guess the FBI wants to hire me to shoot some videos or something . . . (angry voices shouting ”down on the ground Dridiot”, sound of handcuffs clicking . . .)