July 18, 2014 // 04:47 PM EST
Flying drones for search-and-rescue purposes is legal, and all the cease-and-desist orders the government has sent drone pilots are bogus, an appeals court judge ruled today. It's the second time that the Federal Aviation Administration has been rebuked by a judge for trying to force drone pilots to stop flying despite there being no regulations against it.
This now becomes the second time a federal judge has ruled against the FAA's practice of trying to stop commercial drone pilots (or, in this case, a nonprofit) from working.
It's a huge win for Texas Equusearch, a volunteer, nonprofit search-and-rescue team that has been flying drones since 2007. Earlier this year, the FAA sent the organization's drone pilot, Gene Robinson, a cease-and-desist email saying that the group was "operating outside of the [FAA's] provisions, stop immediately." Three judges with the Washington DC Court of Appeals ruled that the FAA's email is a bogus order. Read the entire article here
Comments
The legislative branch makes the rules. The executive branch enforces the rules. The judicial branch interprets the rules.
That means:
#1 impossible for FAA to "make rules"
#2 impossible for FAA to "interpret rules"
The only thing the FAA has the constitutional ability to do is inforce the rules.
Awesome
However, this will probably be short lived once the FAA does release their rules.
The United States legal system although complicated it is indeed impressive. Following this has become increasingly hard due to the combination of state legal ruling, some imposed local level legislation, other changes in rules for certain contained areas and most recently the FAA's statement on FPV...
Thankfully case law is in this subject of controversy seems to be keeping up with the mandates and overturning flawed initial judgments due to the reasons many of us have questioned like the above. Typically if the group or activity is very organized history has proven that self management in many cases will be much more effective than a public option oversight, providing better compliance and cooperation.
Drone share and other platforms for sharing data, if modified to incorporate live information could prove effective in planning for the Air Space G and E class avoidance system it seems really the answer rather than over reaching and probably innovation destroying policy.
If in theory the system used a basic location data and placed your Geo Fensed dome in the area that you plan to take off, this could be fed to a cloud server location, like droneshare. This then could integrate with Google Earth just like the tlog files but now just a Geo fensed shape at the base station location.
Sometimes it could be a lo-tech answer and if white reflective large letters were printed on recycled polyester non woven gray goods maybe 100' x 50' that said...
"HOBBYIST FLYING"
This could come in all Phantom boxes with a handful of tent stakes and recommended to be displayed to warn anything flying overhead...
The quicker we as a community develop a solution that satisfies most of the concerns the better, as the federal suggestions so far have prove they are misguided. My ideas above are really just thinking outloud and hope that they spur some discussion.
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