A few months ago, the idea that my [hacker] roomate and I were spitballing around was a drone that could fly from my house in Phoenix, to MIT's campus in Massachusetts.
The joke was that we both daydreamed about being able to go to school there, and building a drone that could go across the country would be cool enough to get their attention. They'd have to admit us!
This was the type of thing that we would probably never, ever do, but sitting around drinking beer and talking about how you could do it was still a fun time.
Then the joke got smaller. My mom makes the best chocolate chip cookies in the world. Trouble is that she lives an hour away. How cool would it be to have a cookie delivery robot? Build a plane that can fly across Phoenix to my Mom's house, pick up some cookies, then fly back? Cookie robot sounds almost feasible.
The most discouraging thing was to learn that if we even tried this, we would probably end up in jail. Flying an unmanned model plane like that is very, very, very, very illegal.
There are safety concerns, you see. It's possible to get drones certified as legal by the FAA, but it requires either sponsorship by a University (Roomate graduated, I dropped out, so that is out of the question), or sponsorship by a defense-contractor.
I understand the safety concerns. The reason that the FAA calls this illegal is because they don't want unmanned model planes wandering into controlled airspace, or crashing and starting a fire or something. I get that.
But I understand the safety concerns. Over half of the beers were consumed while having conversations about failsafe mechanisms to SCRAM the thing if it lost radio contact. This is very immature of me, I know, but it's still frustrating.
It's frustrating that this [TFA] is newsworthy because the person who built it wasn't arrested. Arrested? How did we get to this point where, if you tell me a story about somebody flying a model plane around the statue of liberty, my first reaction is that he is probably locked in an interrogation room somewhere being "questioned"?
Does stuff like this put people at danger? Yes. Having a 10-20 pound chunk of couregated plastic and balsa wood crash into the street is dangerous.
Should the person be thrown in jail? I don't know, should the people who drive 4000 guided hunks of steel around populated areas while texting and adjusting their radio knobs be thrown in jail? Is my cookie robot really more dangerous than my 4200 low-speed, guided battering-ram called "Jeep"?
Is my cookie robot really more dangerous than my [...] Jeep?
I think so. This cookie robot would have to fly at least 500 ft AGL, and other aircraft do fly at that altitude-- crop dusters, traffic helicopters, aircraft landing or taking off, etc. If your cookie drone were sucked into an aircraft engine or hit a helicopter rotor, it could be catastrophic for those aboard that aircraft not to mention those on the ground near the crash, which could include hundreds of people. So I'd say yes, the cookie drone is more dangerous than your Jeep, especially if the cookie drone were as popular and numerous as automobiles.
...conversations about failsafe mechanisms...
Personally, I think we'll eventually be able to build your cookie drone. And I think it has a chance of being very popular. But I think it will require a lot of coordination with the existing (legacy?) flying community, including things like new flight rules (maybe AFR for automated flight rules, to go along with the existing VFR and IFR?), standard and well-tested automated guidance systems that are good enough for this use case but not able to be weaponized (existing GPS + accelerometers w/ Kalman filters don't meet this criteria), and new ground systems for takeoff and recovery.
there are other objects flying 500ft AGL and much much higher you know. Every now and then they too hit aircraft and are sucked into engines. How many people have died due to them during last century of flight? As many as car crash deaths in 1-2 hours, few days at most?
And is it because they have some incredibly efficient TCAS module installed?
Nature really, really is amazing. Part of the motivation for "The MIT drone" as it was lovingly called among my friends was trying to beat nature :).
There is a bird called the Arctic Tern which performs a polar migration (44k Miles/yr). The fact that there is an autonomous flying machine capable of refueling itself using its surroundings, and flying that far is really daunting.
For some reason though, flying around unmanned drones with weapons attached over sovereign countries (Pakistan) even when Pakistan's government request them not to do this is perfectly ok. Even if it means killing nearly 700 civilians.
even when Pakistan's government request them not to do this is perfectly ok
While I agree with the sentiment, I'm pretty sure the last WikiLeak clarified that we had the consent of the Pakistani military brass, who took credit for the attacks, and who were lying to the elected officials/citizens.
The fact that it's possible to make that kind of statement with that kind of confidence really just sent home what Wikileaks might mean at the end of the day. The only fuzz phrase you used was "pretty sure". No more CYA madlibs?
"According to (news network of dubious perspective) (shaky adjective) reports from (unknown, likely irrelevant person) suggest parties in (vague but suggestive geographical region) might be doing (questionable activity)."
It was very clear that Pakistan Army was supporting drone operations long before Wikileaks - there are friggin satellite pictures of US drones on Pakistani airbases.
I have to wonder why there is a contention now though over if they want them there or not? Seems that making it all clear and documented would be very simple.
Perhaps they changed their mind and no longer wish them to act there? I want to read more into the issue, but all I can think is that if they withdraw their consent, then we should leave immediately.
It's not a big deal because they have the plane. It is a big deal because of where they flew it.
I'm sure it wouldn't be news if they were flying around a field, but the alternate reaction could have been "Oh my god! a plane! around the statue of liberty! terrorists are trying to blow it up!, ARREST THEM!" and thankfully here nobody over reacted.
I'm of the mind that they should have no fly zones (around airports) and a ceiling (a few hundred feet so as not to interfere with airplanes) and a floor (a hundreed feet so as not to interfere with powerlines) and then allow people to fly their own UAVs, but thats just me. There are probably too many reasons why it is a bad idea.
The rules you suggested are already in place in AC 91-57. the operating site should be away from populated areas, must contact the airport if within 3 miles of an airport (effectively, don't fly near the airport), and stay under 400ft.
He said he read up on all the applicable laws before hand. If I recall model planes controlled by a human within line of site under a certain altitude are perfectly legal and it looks like that is what was done here. In other words this wasn't a UAV.
>You're not going to have enough battery or gas in your rc plane to fly cross-country or even a two-hour round trip.
There was an R/C plane that flew trans-atlantic; it wasn't much larger than a hobby store plane. Cross country is much, much farther (about twice as far as the transatlantic flight), but this is what makes the problem so much fun.
>Also, your radio won't be able to communicate with the plane for more than a hundred meters legally and a few miles illegally.
The point is to make these things happen autonomously. Beyond that, yes, it is absolutely possible to control the thing all over the world (albeit this would be illegal). While it absolutely wouldn't work for doing real-time controls, HAMs have been bouncing radio waves around the planet for longer than I've been alive.
Aerosonde's Laima, with a wingspan of under 10 feet and a fuel capacity of about 1.5 gallons, flew trans-atlantic in 1998, a distance of 2044 miles. It's 2462 miles from LA to NY by air. (It was partly R/C and partly autonomous.)
There's a whole thriving community of hobbyists building and flying autonomous aircraft, publishing information and code, and selling custom designed hardware.
Here's _their_ take on the legality of autonomous aircraft
Yep. Conditions which the NYC flight could probably claim to have had ( it's a little unclear whether the on board video let them fly it outside LoS, and if it did whether they ever did fly it outside LoS.)
I guess my point is that it's no more "definitely illegal" than driving a car. There are rules and regulations, but there are many people working within those rules, and legally flying autonomous drones. Nobody says driving a car is "definitely illegal" because you need to have a license, a registered roadworthy car, stop at red lights and drive on the correct side of the road. The regulations do allow for autonomous rc aircraft. They don't allow for them to do 60 mile round trips to collect cookies from your Mom, but saying "thats definitely illegal" needs at least qualifying with something like "except under certain constraints and conditions" or it's at least misleading, if not outright wrong.
"Recreational use of the NAS is covered by FAA Advisory Circular (AC) 91-57 which generally limits operations to below 400 feet above ground level and away from airports and air traffic."
This is recreational use, and I consistently see people deferring to this "Advisory" circular which specifically states it merely "encourages voluntary compliance"
solar power? It'll help somewhat.
Radio? Amateur radio. Use either the existing satellites on the vhf+ bands, or get really good at antenna design and make a good, small hf antenna (good part is the hardest, you don't really want to be putting out more than 5 watts), and hope for good sun activity.
The joke was that we both daydreamed about being able to go to school there, and building a drone that could go across the country would be cool enough to get their attention. They'd have to admit us!
This was the type of thing that we would probably never, ever do, but sitting around drinking beer and talking about how you could do it was still a fun time.
Then the joke got smaller. My mom makes the best chocolate chip cookies in the world. Trouble is that she lives an hour away. How cool would it be to have a cookie delivery robot? Build a plane that can fly across Phoenix to my Mom's house, pick up some cookies, then fly back? Cookie robot sounds almost feasible.
The most discouraging thing was to learn that if we even tried this, we would probably end up in jail. Flying an unmanned model plane like that is very, very, very, very illegal.
There are safety concerns, you see. It's possible to get drones certified as legal by the FAA, but it requires either sponsorship by a University (Roomate graduated, I dropped out, so that is out of the question), or sponsorship by a defense-contractor.
I understand the safety concerns. The reason that the FAA calls this illegal is because they don't want unmanned model planes wandering into controlled airspace, or crashing and starting a fire or something. I get that.
But I understand the safety concerns. Over half of the beers were consumed while having conversations about failsafe mechanisms to SCRAM the thing if it lost radio contact. This is very immature of me, I know, but it's still frustrating.
It's frustrating that this [TFA] is newsworthy because the person who built it wasn't arrested. Arrested? How did we get to this point where, if you tell me a story about somebody flying a model plane around the statue of liberty, my first reaction is that he is probably locked in an interrogation room somewhere being "questioned"?
Does stuff like this put people at danger? Yes. Having a 10-20 pound chunk of couregated plastic and balsa wood crash into the street is dangerous.
Should the person be thrown in jail? I don't know, should the people who drive 4000 guided hunks of steel around populated areas while texting and adjusting their radio knobs be thrown in jail? Is my cookie robot really more dangerous than my 4200 low-speed, guided battering-ram called "Jeep"?