From Reuters, a sobering story of the FAA's shutdown of companies providing commercial aerial video services for Hollywood. Excerpt:
The fortunes of Flying-Cam, the aerial filming company that worked on "Skyfall" and worked on movies including the "Harry Potter" and "Mission Impossible" franchises, illustrate the difficulty of fostering a commercial drone industry in the U.S. Flying-Cam, which has offices in Los Angeles, Brussels and Hong Kong, began using small remote-controlled aircraft outfitted with cameras in the 1980s. Such innovations earned company founder Emanuel Previnaire an Academy Award for technical achievement in 1995. But in 2011 Flying-Cam’s U.S. business was effectively grounded when the FAA notified the film industry that flying unmanned aerial systems (UAS) for commercial use was illegal until regulations were finalized.
In 2007 the FAA had quietly clarified its position on what constitutes an aircraft, as non-military UAS were morphing from recreational playthings into genuine aircraft able to fly hundreds of miles, reach elevations above 10,000 feet and carry a sizable payload. This was a de facto ban on the commercial use of drones until the FAA came up with formal rules governing their use. Since many companies were unaware of the change, the FAA began to tell industry officials that the use of drones was not yet legal as it became aware they were using them.
Virtually overnight, Flying-Cam and other companies in the same business were grounded in the U.S. “Everything has been shut down until they regulate it,” says Haik Gazarian, director of operations for Flying-Cam. “The most tragic part is, an industry that was shining in many ways has been reduced. We’re not able to do these sequences in the U.S. We have to take the whole thing outside.”
Flying-Cam laid off more than 30 workers and other companies doing the same type of work have gone bust. Flying-Cam is picking up more overseas business, meanwhile, largely because regulators in countries such as England, France and China have developed new rules that allow and even encourage the commercial use of drones. Flying-Cam recently shot aerial scenes for the forthcoming films "Transformers: Age of Extinction" in Hong Kong and "Smurfs II" in Paris, for instance. And the production for a Sony PlayStation advertisement was recently moved from L.A. to Budapest so the director could include such aerial shots.
Comments
Andrew,
May be they can pool their resources and fight together. If every one is going to fight separately then I doubt the outcome. Just remember never to fall for the " Divide and rule" technique :).
Sadly I doubt there is any way the FAA can be held accountable for stiffing a growing industry under the pretense of an invalidly adopted rule that they must have known wasn't enforceable from the start. Honestly I'm surprised that Trappy is the first one to challenge this. You would think some of the companies referenced in the article would have fought the shutdown, rather than meekly accepting the FAA's lies and closing down their business.
I wish DIYDrones would be more adamant about this. At this point (or at least once the judge rules on the case), we should be shouting from the rooftops that the alleged ban on commercial UAS is a sham and that companies are in fact free to use them however they wish in the US, no matter what FAA "policy" says.
So, if Mr Pirker wins his case, will Flying Cam et al be lining up to deliver their lawsuits against the FAA for unlawful restraint of trade...?
I wouldnt be suprised if Canada passed more drone friendly laws to fill the void. Vancouver is already a popular alternative to Hollywood for films and television.
I have seen the fast and furious filming in London with a multicopter. So becides the USA it is booming...
CASA (Civil Aviation Safety Authority) are the FAA equivalent here in Australia, the link will take you to the CASA UAV site where they lay out the guidelines for commercial UAV operations, an interesting read. Hopefully the FAA will read it as well, as I'm sure they visit here on a regular basis, that way they could just copy and paste it to get the US UAV commercial industry off the ground. It's really not that hard, is it?
They didn't shut down, but are forced to do all aerial filming outside of US.
I didn't realize Flying-Cam had shut down. They had really nice machinery!
Now why would the legislators cry that business in US is being outsourced!!. It is cheaper, easier, and legal else where, thats why. Where else can they go? If delay tactics or some funny regulations are there just to prove who has got the bigger D , then fine, this is going to happen.
As we all know the Amazon thing was filmed in Canada to avoid regs. Moving to Alaska or Europe would be a very smart thing to do if you were a 20 year old wanting to get into the industry properly in the USA before you were 25 at very least. The company chosen for the 2017 civil trial in mainland USA is going to be a hot ticket. Lets hope its not just one of the military vendors already operating.
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