On Thu, 06 Mar 2014 08:50:51 -0500, "Mr. Luddite" wrote:

On 3/6/2014 8:16 AM, Poco Loco wrote:
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.


My point was that many hobbyist are avoiding AMA sanctioned flying
fields *because* of their rules to maintain visual sight.

I was looking at many on-line advertisements for helicopters,
quadcopters, etc., last night. Virtually all of them advertise, "Spy on
your neighbors" or similar types of sales lures. If people start using
them for that purpose there are going to be some major neighborhood
confrontations. Here are a couple of examples:

"Spying on your friends and neighbors was never so easy or fun as with
the advent of Remote Control Drones with Real Working Spy Cameras."

"Spy Hawk RC Let You Spy On Your Neighborhood From Eagle View"

The AMA (airplanes) is much like the AMA (motorcycles). Both provide insurance at sponsored events,
both have lots of rules for their events, both have membership fees, etc. Here is the AMA (airplane)
event safety code.

http://www.modelaircraft.org/files/105.PDF

Note '9.b.' The pilot of an RC model aircraft shall: (b) Fly using the assistance of a camera or
First-Person View (FPV) only in accordance with the procedures outlined in AMA Document #550.

Thinking this might alleviate the visual line of sight, I went to Document #550, and found, among
other things, this line:

4. RANGE – ALTITUDE – WEIGHT – SPEED:
a) One of the requirements in Federal Law (Public Law 112-95 Sec 336 (c) (2) February
14, 2012) for model aircraft to be excluded from FAA regulations is that model aircraft
must be flown within VLOS of the operator.

http://www.modelaircraft.org/files/550.pdf

So it would appear that the VLOS rules are more than just AMA rules, unless the operator abides by
FAA regulations for other than model airplanes.