John Villasenor, senior fellow at the Center for Technology Innovation, Brookings Institution, was on NPR's Talk of the nation today talking about civilian drones. 3D Robotics gets a mention.
As usual, there is some confusion over terms and definitions:
VILLASENOR: Well, first of all, I think it's very important to emphasize that model aircrafts are not drones. Model aircraft are flown within the line of sight of, and under the control of a pilot at all times. And so whatever definition someone might adopt of drones, that definition should not include model aircraft.
I think the other thing that's important to emphasize is that many of our military pilots, unmanned aircraft pilots, they justifiably aren't particularly thrilled with the term drone because it implies - it can imply sort of a hands-off approach, where in fact these folks are extremely skilled aviators who are no less skilled just because they happen not to be in the cockpit. And so they often prefer designations such as UAV, which is unmanned aerial vehicle, or RPA, which is remotely piloted aircraft.
CONAN: But for good or ill, the word drone has become associated with these, and that's the word that's in common usage. So we're going to continue with it.
You can listen to it or read a transcript here.
Comments
I thought this comment from a Police SWAT team who have started using an AR.drone was interesting.
JEREMY: Right. That's correct. And, you know, right now we've basically been experimenting with using the small, low-level, low-altitude, you know, up to maybe 50, 60 feet - that Parrot AR.Drone is almost like a sentry. So we can actually place it on, you know, on the corner of a building and just allow it to be, you know, an extra set of eyes for the commander or for whoever wants to keep track of that camera. And we can do so and take photos and stuff from an iPad which can essentially be beamed back to whoever wants to take a picture of them.
So I mean, the implementation or the - everything is there for law enforcement right now. The problem is, is that, you know, a lot of people don't understand that there are actually federal FAR guidelines for the use of drones. And those people that are actually flying like the one-person type (unintelligible) email about the FTV system for their own personal RC airplane...
CONAN: Right.
JEREMY: ...actually, that stuff is actually - I mean, to be (unintelligible) that's actually illegal through the FAA's guidelines right now.
CONAN: Well, it may be, unless he has a special dispensation, which we don't know that he might...
JEREMY: That is correct. That is correct. I mean, unless they've got the special, you know, special license and they're operating outside of any possible controlled airspace, they can actually be fined for such.
CONAN: Jeremy, those are all interesting questions. So, John Villasenor, clearly police departments are beginning to experiment with this and as we've mentioned in the introduction, beginning to use it in some specified circumstances as well.
That thread made me wonder what the real budget in the Police area is. All the majors are falling over backwards to sell to the Police and close the funding gap left by pull backs is the money actually there?