U.S. Opening Up Airspace To Use Of Drones

[88FoxBodyFan]

Here is an article I found tucked into the corner of MSNBC news:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46499162/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.T0Z2MfFKRLc

Looks like there goes what was left of our privacy. I like how this isn't a main headline on the MSNBC site but what Sacha Baron Cohen is going to wear to the Oscars is. I guess that's how the government, in association with the big corporations, keeps the wool over their citizen's eyes. While feeding us BS stories that the average citizen can't seem to get enough of, our freedoms our being stripped away, one by one, without the people doing so much as raising a finger.

When will we wake up?

 

[Danoff]

Is it really different than having manned aircraft or helicopters? I understand the privacy issues here, but I don't really see how this is a big change. The government already owns, regulates, and polices airspace.

 

[sumbrownkid]

Yeah and it looks like they are still hammering out the legalities.

 

[Rykon Zero]

Doesn't bother me in the slightest. If anyone looks hard enough, they can figure out all I'm doing, and that's not a problem for me. Not doing anything illegal, and certainly not doing anything to warrant a drone being focused on me. If anything, I see this as good.

 

[LancerEvo7]

It's not like they can't already count the number of blades of grass in your yard if they wanted to bad enough...

 

[TankAss95]

When will we wake up?

When it's too late.

New world order people.

 

[Pupik]

Is it really different than having manned aircraft or helicopters? I understand the privacy issues here, but I don't really see how this is a big change. The government already owns, regulates, and polices airspace.

Yeah, but giving TMZ more access to the backyards of the famous, the semi-famous, and the "look who's drunk", isn't exactly forwarding human progress.

They cannot stop me from having a pool of sharks in my backyard with frickin' laser beams.

 

[Danoff]

Well there's nothing in the article to suggest that TMZ will be allowed to fly a drone over your city. The article says that this is for law enforcement and disaster recovery. They're opening up the airspace to government drones with as-yet-to-be-determined requirements on who within the government is authorized to fly them.

 

[Northstar]

I think some people are way too quick to jump to conclusions. They haven't even decided how they will run the program yet, just that they have opened the airspace for them to operate. Are there possibililites for rights to be violated? Yes. But thats no different than a helicoptor or a cop just abusing his authority. I for one think this is a great idea as it's more than likely insanely cheaper than a helicoptor which means smaller depts. can get a hold of them.

On a semi-related note, they should use them at rally's to follow the cars.💡

 

[Keef]

Is it really different than having manned aircraft or helicopters? I understand the privacy issues here, but I don't really see how this is a big change. The government already owns, regulates, and polices airspace.

We covered a bit of this topic in the American thread a few days ago...

Not quite sure how well this talk of thousands of drone aircraft flying over the US is going to go over with the masses. A few vengeful citizens recently shot one down for disrupting a hunting activity.

Oh drones? Those things the US Military uses to spy on Pakistan and Afghanistan? Seems legit.

Probably some of those, and police drones are a big worry. They still have to follow our airspace rules which means they can't come any lower than 1200 feet above my pool party, but still. I'm not sure the privacy issues hold water because it's not anything I couldn't do in a plane or helicopter. I could definitely warrant some nuisance complaints.

I don't think its a good idea. Drones are piloted via camera, and a camera can't watch out for traffic like my head can. TCAS, yada yada, but electronics tend to fail spectacularly and when they do things crash into each other. It would basically be human pilots dodging giant deadly pigeons who can't see anything around them.

TCAS & GPWS would certainly help, but I'm with you. It's not totally safe.

Would I be fully safe as a passanger in a fully automated aeroplane? No I wouldn't. Despite the human error factor, I'd still want an actual person there. In case the computer fails. I just would.

Any tin hat theories as to why there are 'thousands' of drones over US airspace?

They are going to have to explain the necessity of 20,000 drones flying over our own country. Honestly, if one went over my house I would likely demand all images taken of my property and a copy of the warrant that allows them to monitor my property.

TCAS & GPWS would certainly help, but I'm with you. It's not totally safe.

Would I be fully safe as a passanger in a fully automated aeroplane? No I wouldn't. Despite the human error factor, I'd still want an actual person there. In case the computer fails. I just would.

After the wheels are off the ground the whole operation until and through landing can be automated, and if the weather is bad enough at the destination the whole thing is automated. And yet the pilots are still sitting there, talking, planning, monitoring. Humans aren't perfect, but we can solve abstract problems which computer systems simply can't do yet. There have been cases where the pilots needed to shut down the electronics because the information the computer was using was erroneous and it didn't know it.

Any tin hat theories as to why there are 'thousands' of drones over US airspace?

There aren't yet, but methods for controlling drones in large numbers is being debated right now. Private and government drone development and operation is currently booming, and many more will be taking to the skies in the coming years. My community college recently set up a drone operations course of study with Wright-Patterson AFB, complete with basic PC simulators and RC vehicles for flight training purposes.

Like I mentioned before, a drone can't necessarily do anything a pilot couldn't do. Surveillance will probably be automated, but anybody could manage that also. As a pilot, my gripe isn't with privacy issues but more with general safety. I have an incentive to do everything right because I'm there, but the same incentive doesn't exist for drone pilots. Their life isn't on the line and therefore does not govern their decision making. That's a bad situation for everybody, in the air and on the ground.

Plus, when an airplane lands anywhere within a police force's jurisdiction, the pilot is at the mercy of those local police until the FAA bails him out (in an emergency situation). But...if there's no pilot...then what the heck are you supposed to do? It would be a like a cop pulling over a car with no driver. License and registration...please?

There's a bit of a fiasco going on in Wilmington concerning Airborne Express's airport. The FAA is floating the idea of making its class D airspace or a portion of it into a restricted area, possibly an on-demand type of thing for which a TFR would be issued. Arguments for and against drones sharing the skies with manned places are flying all over the place, most of them safety concerns. They work just fine in the desert of Afghanistan where traffic is not a concern, but it can be a rather heavy concern in my area, and Dayton isn't even a big city.

 

[arora]

Of course I don't like this but I told myself not to rant

I guess there will always be bad guys we want to chase around, problem being are the chasers good guys? Sure we use drones for survalence but have we forgotten their other purpose? ......... some U.S. citizen somewhere comes to mind.

Oh big brother.

 

[terminator363]

Unmanned drones are used for dangerous areas so they don't have to send in troops. Why would they need this for the US? It isn't a hazardous area, is it? They could just use conventional aircraft, then again they might want to use predator missiles against pedestrians. Who knows.

 

[Exorcet]

Unmanned drones are used for dangerous areas so they don't have to send in troops. Why would they need this for the US?

Pilot fatigue, cost, size, etc.

then again they might want to use predator missiles against pedestrians. Who knows.

At least we wouldn't have the manned aircraft firing Mavericks at us.

 

[Northstar]

I don't see where the missles would go.

 

[arora]

Because that is the only model they will ever fly over us? Sure.

 

[Sam48]

I live less than a mile away from a black hawk helicopter test facility. Therefore, I've practically forfeited my privacy already given the fact that they seem fly over my house every eight hours or so (And at a worrying low altitude I might add).

 

[Starfirebird]

When it's too late.

New world order people.

December 21st,2012. True Story. 👍

 

[Northstar]

Because that is the only model they will ever fly over us? Sure.

Nope and I never said anything like that. The way it sounds is that they want these droids to fit in the trunk of squad cars, so while there will probably be other models they will likely follow the same basic design principles(basically a camera attached to some propellors). I doubt high explosives are part of those principles.

 

[Villain]

I don't have a problem with this. Helicopters, planes, and sattelites are already up there as it is now. What's the big deal if drones go up too?

 

[Sach]

So what is the fear, that they can now monitor your every move? I know people who work in the field, and they can already find out whatever they want. Tracking your activities is quite easy in this day an age.

 

[arora]

So what is the fear, that they can now monitor your every move? I know people who work in the field, and they can already find out whatever they want. Tracking your activities is quite easy in this day an age.

This is the very same argument you made in the Pres thread, paraphrase "we are already socialists so why not go the rest of the way?" or something. Surprised to see Villian say the same thing tbh, of course we are flying around in airplanes and helicopters violating privacy, guess we might as well get a little more efficient at it. To put it in GT terms, "everyone else cuts the concrete areas at DF, I might as well do it too, problem?

As for fear, I don't see any, what I see is people getting fed up with a ridiculous government over stepping it's bounds. The biggest irony being we fork over the dough to pay for the damn things.

Why? Just like with the tsa, I feel safer already 👍

EDIT: Oh crap, I almost forgot the whole reason I posted in the first place. Some years back, maybe 5 or 6, where I live the local law enforcement owned 1 or at most 2 helicopters, the marines iirc gave them a few more, long story short someone shot one down over a suburb named Rio Rancho N.M.(could google for details as I'm a bit hazy), the hunter story jogged it.

 

[Pupik]

If the Notorious B.I.G. were still alive, now he'd have a music video with black drones chasing him.

 

[Sach]

This is the very same argument you made in the Pres thread, paraphrase "we are already socialists so why not go the rest of the way?" or something.

I'm just saying, I know a guy who works for the Army in 'surveillance'/intelligence, and just because there are laws saying you have some level of privacy doesn't mean anything really.

 

[arora]

Yeah, I know

It's the general public's complacency that gnaws at me.

 

[Northstar]

Probably doesn't help that most of them are used to it by now with google maps, facebook, twitter etc... pretty much always tracking them.

I'm not exactly 100% for the drones, I just think we should wait until we hear how it will be ran before forming a lynch mob.

 

[Keef]

If the Notorious B.I.G. were still alive, now he'd have a music video with black drones chasing him.

I don't know, man. Drones are meant to be cheaper than real helicopters.

 

[Villain]

It's the general public's complacency that gnaws at me.

What are you so worried about?

 

[BobK]

Meh, I've been flying UAV's for 25 years or so.

 

[Robin]

Sorry for the bump but this was the best place to put this.

Well it finally happened, today a British Airways plane hit a drone on approach to Heathrow Airport. I can imagine the law is going to come down hard on drones and probably make them illegal to buy without a license on severely restrict their use.

 

[TRGTspecialist]

Sorry for the bump but this was the best place to put this.



Well it finally happened, today a British Airways plane hit a drone on approach to Heathrow Airport. I can imagine the law is going to come down hard on drones and probably make them illegal to buy without a license on severely restrict their use.

Probably a fake video that - doesn't appear with the story on any reputable news site I can see.

Edit: see you've edited it out so nevermind