Please see this warning from the Los Angeles Police Department, sent to the California Association of Realtors. Discussion on helifreak here. More background and discussion here. I'll be talking to the NYT about this tomorrow.
Short form: Amateur UAV use within the usual FAA guidelines (under 400ft, within visual line-of-sight, away from built-up-areas) is allowed, as always. But commercial use requires a COA, which you're not going to get. So there's nothing new here, but it's a reminder that the guidelines will be enforced.
LAPD Warning Against Hiring Unmanned Aircraft Operators for Aerial Photos
Los Angeles authorities have asked C.A.R. to communicate this warning to REALTORS® who hire unmanned aircraft operators to take aerial photographs for marketing high-end properties. Using these devices (also known as drones) for flight in the air with no onboard pilot may violate, among other things, the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) policy on unmanned aircrafts, and Los Angeles's local ordinance requiring permits for filming commercial motion pictures and still photographs.
The Los Angeles Police Department's (LAPD) investigation has apparently revealed that aerial photos where unmanned aircraft were observed have appeared on certain real estate sales websites. According to FilmL.A., the LAPD Air Division has issued this warning as it intends to prosecute violators in the near future. FilmL.A. is a public benefit company created by the City and County of Los Angeles to manage film permit activity and related issues.
Under the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)'s current policy, no one can operate an unmanned aircraft in the National Airspace System without specific authority. Operators who wish to fly an unmanned aircraft for civil use must obtain an FAA experimental airworthiness certificate, which will not be issued to an unmanned aircraft used for compensation or hire. Although the FAA allows hobbyists to fly model airplanes for recreational purposes under specific guidelines, that authority does not extend to operators flying unmanned aircraft for business purposes. More information is available from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Notice on Unmanned Aircraft Operations and the FAA's policy.
Comments
How can this kind of flying while filming motorcycles on Mulholland...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eKsDwU7kdo
be less dangerous to life and property than a 4 pound quad rotor?
BTW. The heli in the YouTube video (N4177R) is owned by a company called Air & Land Ventures. Here is a link to an incident involving another Air & Land Ventures R44...
http://aircrashed.com/aircraft/aLAX08LA183.shtml
All of this protection is killing this country.
Jay, Lebdog, have a safe trip.
I,ll go with Brads answer and add i can play real dumb real well !
In my case it meant:
It didn't mean consulting a lawyer, or asking for explicit approval from the regulator - because these things seemed unessiscary based on what I learned from the above. It also informed my opinion about my local "home-brew UAV types".
Hyopthetically, if I did get it totaly wrong and had to explain myself to a judge, I would plead "this is the effort I made to be safe and legal. I'm very sorry if it was inadequate, hopefully the aeromoddelling community can learn from your judgment how to be better prepared. I will certainly not make this mistake again". Hopefully that would be enough for the judge to get their job done without feeling the need to smack me down.
I know there are poeple that play by the rules and those who don't think the rules should apply to them. I couldn't begin to tell you what percentage is good or bad, but there are plenty of people on this thread that appear that they would rather self-interprit the regulations and go on doing what they are doing. My point is that a large gathering for the purpose of speaking out against current and future regulations, I would expect it to attract some of the wrong crowd and I would not want to carry the responsibility of policing and ensuring everyone is following regulations. It's kind of like the Occupy Movement...someone thought it was a great idea to get people together and speak out, and then City Hall gets broken into and vandalized.
So, every home-brew UAV person you know are part of the "good guys". But what does "reasonable effort to comply with the law" mean? "Your Honor, I made a reasonable effort to not rob the liquor store"! You either comply or you don't.
In order to determine the percentage of people that behave badly, you need to know how many people are flying AP/FPV and what the standard is. We KNOW that the current standards are set by local, state and Federal regulations. We can assume that all of this reaction by the FAA, LAPD and Hollywood was not due to 1 or 2 people bending the rules, but what percentage they represent is unknown. Here is a good comparison: we don't see a big and repeated push from the government or any industry reminding us that we can not tie a bunch of baloons to a lawn chair and go for a ride and that's because this only happened a few times and isn't expected to be a continuing problem.
Then it would be better to marginalise irresponsible flyers, publically differentiate them from the mainstream and privately pressure them to adopt safer practices.
Posting vids of safe and legal flights could be a very helpful thing to do, especially if they contributed to a wider discussions about safety.
@M.A.N
Seems my experience is different to yours, I believe you.
I still think it's unhelpfull to reinforce the idea that a "high percentage" of them behave badly. Just because you think you have a right to ruin someone's reputation, doesn't mean it's the right theing to do. Regulators get innvolved when self-regulation doesn't seem to be working. Behavior on this list is not helping the cause of UAV operator freedom.
@John Johnson
that's exactly the oposite of my experience, every "home-brew UAV type" I know is sensible and serious about safety, and makes every reasonable effort to comply with the law. I'm know there are some exceptions out there, but I think you are promulgating an unhelpfull and largely inaccurate stereotype.
I beleive Spektrum did a demo early on with 80 aircraft in the air all using DSM2. But for those using video downlink, there are only a handful of legal frequencies to use. So even if you did manage to get a group of people together and have uplink and downlink frequency management program in place, you would still have to deal with the chest-beaters who would say "This is America and if want to use 900Mhz I shouldn't have to wait for someone else to land" or "This is America and I don't need a HAM license to use 900Mhz".
Now that I think about it, a gathering of home-brew UAV types is a scary thought because because a high percentage of them enjoy thumbing their nose at any type of law or restriction so you could expect any type of organization and safety to be challenged throughout the entire event.
Yeah, Talladega Nights but this time starring Randy Quaid and Jesse Ventura.
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