From ABC News in Denver:
DENVER - The Federal Aviation Administration announced Tuesday that it is launching an official investigation around the drone that was seen flying over the 4/20 rally in Denver on Sunday.
"Anyone who wants to fly an aircraft -- manned or unmanned -- in U.S. airspace needs some level of authorization from the FAA," Allen Kenitzer from the FAA wrote in an email.
Authorization can be for either the private sector for purposes such as research or training, or for public use, which requires a Certificate of Waiver or Authorization (COA) for public aircraft.
But drones are sometimes considered model aircraft, which only have to follow FAA guidelines. Those guidelines say hobby aircraft-flyers must keep their aircrafts below 400 feet above ground level and away from airports and air traffic. Besides this, the guidelines specifically exclude the flying of model aircraft for business purposes.
The FAA website says that "routine operation" of Unmanned Aircraft Systems over densely-populated areas is not allowed.
Comments
Unfortunately in our time, largely through media sensationalism, safety has become the overwhelming central issue to the unfortunate demise of liberty.
Liberty was what made our country great and now we are throwing it all away so that we can be safe, led on by a corporate / government and media (1%) self serving campaign to that effect.
Unfortunately, once the liberty is gone you are most certainly NOT safe from the ones who produced that condition in the first place.
And this has already progressed to a point where, in the end, the only solution is utter global collapse or an equally unpleasant and destructive revolution (Both most likely!).
But that is just my personal view and is somewhat askew of the main topic so I will let it go at that.
As far as taking action ans juste notre sitting down complaining on an arm chair, i joined an action started by Sefan to group intérêts of small entreprises and drone entrepreneurs to have pour sa y un thé EU lobby universe. So Monroe, i agréé people get the government and administration's they deserve, and yes at this stage I really wonder if revolution is just not the simplest solution. Because indeed you say: you know the game rules, play them to your advantage. But you see there are values and principles i'm not ready to violate to become a bigger bastard than the other bastards to get my way...
Hi Billy, there could probably be assorted legal workarounds if there were anything legal that actually related to this.
Unfortunately, the FAA itself is acting completely without any legal substantiation for what they are doing.
It is hard to have a legal workaround that will do you any good with a bureaucracy that cares not one whit for "laws" in the first place.
Or in this case, even by their own definition commercial.
They have decided in their (infinite authoritarian wisdom) that non profit for free actions are commercial and come under the associated restrictions they have also placed with no legal substantiation for them either.
They are the only agency on earth that thinks that volunteer for free search and rescue missions are commercial.
They are reasonably, logically and legally wrong on all points, but that doesn't stop them.
You can't work around an agency that has no concept of right and wrong.
Has anyone figured out how to get around the not making any money part? Can you not charge for the flight but charge for initial consultation? Ask for donations? There has to be a legal work around, after all this is merica where I have a right to make my money.
@Monroe, I do not think you can compare vehicle driving licenses and vehicle insurances for commercial purposes with the situation of drones today.
If there were laws imposing permits/licenses for drones, everybody would certainly be glad, me the first, to comply and do what is necessary to get their permit. This is the whole issue: everybody is waiting for our beloved regulations authorities to produce these damned laws, but they don't and worse it is lasting for many years now. The first responsible of this situation, FAA, is then also the first one to accuse and sue corporations or individuals for not following their made up rules that are not laws. I say the civilian society should sue FAA for failure to execute their primary mission, i.e. to drive the government to produce drone laws (it is a bit the story of the guy setting fire all over the place, playing the fireman, and accusing others of being irresponsibles...)
Either there are no laws regulating drones and then everybody is free to fly without a license/permit (which is undesirable in my opinion because it would lead to anarchy), either we admit there are laws that apply to drones, directly or indirectly, (these laws must however not be "FAA imagination" nor FAA wishful thinking ) and then people already are de facto subject to existing laws (for example, if you hurt someone; criminal and civilian charges could be filed against you; if you violate the privacy of people, except for omnipotent "above the law" agencies like NSA & IRS, you'll also get in front of courts - drone or not : FAA has nothing to do with this ; it is the role of Justice to judge in their independant role; it is not the role of an agency, eventhough they think they can act like God above all laws but that's because these agencies are given way too much money and power, with no control, not accountability to anyone and can't be sanctioned not even by elected government bodies which is quite frightening for the sake of US democracy, but that's another debate).
When something goes so wrong against all logic, the answer is to be found, like in 99% of these cases, with money interests. So where is the money interest that results in FAA not producing, for years now, any drone laws and forbidding commercial use ? Military-big industrial corporations that would like to keep the whole commercial drone market cake for themselves. That's the knot of the problem. These corporations lobby & infiltrate deep within agencies and government bodies to push their $$ interest in a covert mode simultaneously publishing to the outside world some reasons nobody will refuse like for example: it is for "safety concerns" that we will allow only certified drones from big corps; it is to fight "Terrorism" so we decided you can't fly drones because they are a potential weapon, etc , etc. But the truth is: it is all about money for a few on top. And FAA is obviously manipulated in this objective.
Jesse, the FAA doesn't need to do a thing to modernize the air traffic control system other than to send a couple of guys to Frankfurt to see how it's done.
Yep, Monroe, there is a pattern. It is called criminal extortion, corruption,bribery and violation of constitutional guarantees of equal treatment under the law. Bureaucrats such as those populating the FAA and politicians who are fed, clothed and owned by established commercial entities are bribed with small slices of money and power to eliminate competition by making regulations that suppress individual and small enterprises in the name of "safety" (usually "safety" from some non-existent or trivial boogeyman who exists largely via the fiction writers of the mass media). The proof of this lies in the near-total non-regulation of a huge list of genuinely dangerous things, when such safety regulations would negatively impact the established funding sources of the bureaucrats & politicians. So we have citizens sick, injured and dying literally by the millions because of no genuine regulation of the nation's food supply, its energy distribution systems, industrial pollution, mining, and on and on. A completely unregulated fertilizer plant can blow up killing and maiming half a town and exactly nothing is done about preventing the next one, or we lose most of one of the biggest oldest cities in the country, New Orleans, because of an idiotic lack of environmental regulations, but some douchebag is paid to write threatening letters to a volunteer hunting for missing persons with his harmless little UAV? Don't get me wrong, we need rules and regulations but until they are formulated and applied in an honest, logical, scientific and transparent manner agencies such as the FAA deserve no respect whatsoever.
The FAA needs to worry about more important things... like continuing to modernize the air traffic control system.
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