DJI loosens flight restrictions, decides to trust operators to follow FAA rules Drone maker DJI has decided to scale back its geofencing restrictions, meaning its software won't automatically stop operators from flying into areas flagged as no-fly zones. While the FBI searches for a drone operator responsible for a collision with a firefighting aircraft battling wildfires in California, mystery drone …
In the US its now required that all UAVs broadcast a unique identification tag, a tag that's registered with the FAA by the manufacturer. The drone ID is broadcast along with the device's position. The technology is imperfect but actually works, sort of. There are exceptions to this rule but they are for small -- less than 450gram weight -- devices and model aircraft flown at a "Federally Recognized Identification Area" (model aircraft flown outside of a FRIA require a tag). Regardless of electronics all UAVs -- models and drones -- need to carry a user FAA ID clearly marked on the frame or fuselage.
In order to get registered as a hobbyist you have to take a short "everyone passes" course. Its not as silly as it looks because its effectively a way of getting you to sign on the dotted line saying that you are aware of the regulations. This is entirely in keeping with the FAA's overall approach to regulation which could be summed up as "light touch / ton of bricks".
DJI don't need to police their drones any more because the FAA is doing it for them. They're also a Chinese company so in today's political environment they're not capable of normal or responsible behavior so I'd guess that they've just given up trying -- just flog the stuff to anyone who wants it and let them all fight over how its used and what constitutes yet another urgent threat to "National Security".
> In the US its now required that all UAVs broadcast a unique identification tag, a tag that's registered with the FAA by the manufacturer.
> The drone ID is broadcast along with the device's position. The technology is imperfect but actually works, sort of
Yeah, we see how well that worked in tracking down the owner of the drone in the collision with the firefighting aircraft.
The flaw with the 450 gram 'toy' exemption is that all of a sudden a lot of drones being sold weigh 449 grams. The bulk of their weight is their battery so users are expected to get a high capacity battery to replace the tiny starter one they ship with.
Like everything in life, if you think your exceptional condition (aka loophole) will never happen then its almost certainly going to. In this case the FAA was thinking 'usable payload' and wasn't thinking about changes in technology.
DJIs parochial attitude in imposing no-fly zones when they didn't actual exist and the complete silence over not including their apps in the official Google Play store are the two things that stopped me even considering their newer products, having over the years bought 3 different UAV models. While I am in the EU I was not aware of the change here, simple because I stopped reading the forums and related some time ago.
These changes go some way to making me look again for future business, but until they put the apps up for scrutiny in the relatively independent Google app store, I'll keep ignoring them.
Yes, Quebec, a province of Canada. Canadian water bombers like I said. Built in Canada. Owned by Canada. USA may make use of them in the winter. Please try not to damage them as we need them the rest of the year. You're welcome.
Idiots will be idiots, but removing geo-fencing restrictions imho is just a bad idea. Because it removes even more restrictions on idiots to allow them to do idiot things. As a (glider/sailplane)pilot, I find the unfettered growth of drones and their use a very worrying development. My interactions with their operators have always been... less than favourable shall we say on their knowledge about airspace and see and avoid rules. They always seem to assume that we should just see their tiny spec of a drone and fly around it when usually they shouldn't even be in my airspace.
As an ex-Free Flight model flier and glider pilot since 2000, I'm in favour of geo-fencing restrictions on drones. However, I might have been lucky because I've never seen drones or RC models near our club airfield, though I wouldn't object if drones and RC models were encouraged to carry FLARM-compatible beacons. Fortunately, the only common hazards around our field are small hawks (which never seem to keep a lookout when thermalling) and flocks of thermalling seagulls.
However, once when thermalling near our airfield, I was joined by a full-grown sea eagle, despite being over 50 miles from the nearest coastline. It was no problem: joined me at about 2500 ft, positioned itself on the far side of the thermal from me and left at 4000 ft. A really impressive sight: shame I didn't have a camera with me.
Large soaring birds seem to have the same thermalling etiquette that us monkeys do in our flying contraptions. Join opposite or equally divided, turn in the same direction, keep a good lookout, don't fly through a gaggle of thermalling birds/aircraft. Best experience I've had was 5 storks and what looked like a cormorant in a +3 m/s thermal starting at a few hundred meters all the way up to well over 2000 meters altitude. At my local we regularly share lift with buzzards, falcons and kestrels.
For operating a drone that is hit by an aircraft?
If they made it a felony punished by 10 years in prison, or up to life in prison if lives are lost, and drone vendors were required to put a warning label to that effect on every drone sold in the US, I suspect the collisions and near misses would dwindle pretty quickly. Make that warning required to appear every time you start up a drone control app also, to insure owners of drones purchased previous to the warning label are aware.
I think a lot of this is because people don't believe there would be any punishment other than maybe a small fine so they feel emboldened to do stupid stuff. Maybe the warning can list the number of people convicted and sentenced under this law once a few are put away so they know the drone operators can be found.
The publicity around the New Jersey drones where the FAA seems powerless to figure out who it is may be having the opposite effect - drone owners may feel emboldened that they can do anything they want without any way the they can be caught. But there's a difference between getting a video of "here's some unknown drone that was flying last night" and we can't figure out who was flying it, and getting pieces of a downed drone that you can take ID numbers off of - and be able to subpoena drone companies to figure out the owner if they are using the drone vendor's app to operate it.
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