On Wed, 05 Mar 2014 21:53:11 -0500, "Mr. Luddite" wrote:

On 3/5/2014 9:10 PM, Mr. Luddite wrote:
On 3/5/2014 8:55 PM, Wayne.B wrote:
I am just amazed at how far, and how fast, this technology has come in
such a short period of time. I try to keep up with technology but
this one has caught me totally flat footed. Absolutely astounding.

I think the general public is still way behind the curve on this but
will probably start becoming aware very soon. That is not a good
thing for hobbyists in my opinion. Much like when the general
population discovered the internet back in the late 90's, there will
be a lot of anguished cries about how awful this all is, and why
aren't there any laws, regulations, etc. My advice is to buy what you
want as soon as possible because within a year or two we will see
groups called "Mothers Against Remote Video Cameras", "Mothers Against
Quadcopters", etc., plus a lot of calls for legislative action.
Meanwhile law enforcement agencies will start using them in droves and
people will start getting arrested for taking a whizz against a tree
in a wilderness area. These things will probably end up as highly
regulated as handguns.



Or target practice.

No problem with the hobbyist who go to locations authorized and used for
flying them or even using them in their own yards. But to fly them over
other people's property taking pictures or videos is going to cause
problems. I think the current FAA regulations that apply to aircraft
is a minimum of 500 feet altitude and I think that applies to
helicopters. Fixed wing is higher, IIRC.

I wouldn't be surprised to see laws passed that are even more
restrictive for the growing RC type aircraft.




Knowing nothing about the RC craze, I was just reading that there are
currently no regulations in the US covering their use other than
frequency and transmitter power allocations. There's an association
known as the Academy of Model Aeronautics' (AMA) that governs rules
that apply to their sponsored or affiliated flight areas, one of which
states that the ground based "pilot" must always have the RC aircraft
within visual view. Apparently that's a problem for many because one
of the features that people like is the ability to view areas out of
sight of where they stand, using the camera in the aircraft. As a
result an increasing number of people are flying them outside of areas
affiliated with the Academy of Model Aeronautics that are subject to
the visual view rule.

I see some black market half watt broadband and "dirty" transmitters
used as jammers becoming popular. :-)

There is no requirement to join the AMA. And from what I've read, the 'license' requirements apply
to things like TV transmitters which use different frequencies than the aircraft. As I'm not
interested in a camera, I've not spent any time researching the matter.