Why the quadcopter "issue" may soon go away....

[Scott Richlen]

or maybe become an increasingly interesting spectator sport for those of us annoyed by their antics.....

With increasing numbers of commercial users, our issues with quadcopters and drones (and AMA's silly fixation on them) may soon go away.  Here's why: for example, think of what would have happened a few years ago (before Uber) if you had bought a car and decided to start your own personnel cab service?  It would work great until you got arrested for operating without a commercial hack license or worse, got a visit from the local enforcers from the cab company.  Now consider what will happen when commercial services using quadcopters and drones become big-time commercial enterprises and come into conflict with private users screwing around.  Recall back when AMA almost lost all of its RC bandwidth to commercial use?  Do you think that the politicians are going to listen to one moth-eaten lobbyist from AMA when the commercial users are sending in lobbyists with suitcases full of dough?  What happens to AMA if they clumsily step into a conflict with one of the commercial organizations that decides that it wants to be the major force representing the quad and drone-using industry?  What happens if the commercial users see that a bunch of amateurs are doing dumb things with their quads and drones and messing up their business?

[peabody]

Scott....
The AMA was pretty much ORDERED by the FAA to deal with non-commercial uses of these things...hence a TON of money hiring lawyers to talk to the FAA....
The FAA feels that it is capable of dealing with "commercial" uses, and there is a prototype class for commercial drone users currently running in St. Pete, FL......the issue has been that the rules have changed several times before a lass could be graduated....I understand that it is in hiatus currently.

A big issue is understanding the AMA's insurance program and structure.....recently at a civic event here in Paradise, a kid with a drone was recording the goings on.... I spoke with him: the Mayor had called the airport (about a mile away) and they gave permission to fly it. The kid is an AMA member, and is under the impression that he has AMA liability insurance while using his drone commercially.....he IS covered if he is NOT using it for commercial purposes....

Very complex issue.
No easy answers.

The hope is that drone fliers will join the AMA and local clubs and learn to fly them responsibly. 

Have fun!

[Brett Buck]

The hope is that drone fliers will join the AMA and local clubs and learn to fly them responsibly.  

  The word "responsibly" appears to mean different things to different people.

   With the recent (pocket vetoed) CA drone law, it came to light that the AMA appears to consider flying at low altitudes over other people and their property to be a "right" and that is what they appeared to be defending (and demanding "action" from AMA members to flood the governor's office with mail). They didn't even mean drones/FPV air vehicles, they included typical RC "models". I don't know about anyone else, but I am not exactly on board with the idea that typically low-time "buy and fly" RC sport fliers flying over me is acceptable practice, much less drone guys who bought their new toy at Wal-Mart 2 hours ago on a lark.

I wouldn't apply the word "responsible" to those actions.

   This recent thread discusses the interaction David and I had with our District 10 AVP on the topic:

http://www.clstunt.com/htdocs/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=394262&mesg_id=394262&page=

    The AMA and the commercial quadcopter manufacturers appear to be in complete lockstep. I imagine that that the commercial drone industry is all for the AMA becoming the "community-based organization" in charge of policing drone use, since the AMA will be a lot easier to manipulate to their desires than any of the likely alternatives.

   Brett

[Scott Richlen]

Some clarification is needed...

The AMA was pretty much ORDERED by the FAA to deal with non-commercial uses of these things

I'd like to see any proof of that.  Normally, it would be completely out of character for the government to do this since they have no money involved (so far) and no authority to tell AMA to do this.  And any authority that the FAA does have CANNOT be delegated outside of government.  Granted that the current administration has stretched the concept of "rule of law" into an unrecognizable form, but hopefully we will soon return to sanity and normalcy.

Realize that a very successful "enterprise" to get "free money" from the government is to become a "community-based organization".  We currently have many of these organizations functioning in the health-care field to sign people up for Obamacare, but also in many other areas outside of health-care.  Perhaps the AMA is also chasing this?

So, it sounds more like an excuse out of somebody from AMA to cover their interest in chasing quadcopter money.  I would like very much for AMA to adhere to its role of representing model aviation as the supposed educational organization it is.

The hope is that drone fliers will join the AMA and local clubs and learn to fly them responsibly.

Probably the fastest way for a model airplane club to loose it's flying site is to enroll a bunch of quadcopter newbies in its membership.  It is one thing for long-time RCers to fly a quadcopter, another for a guy that bought a quadcopter "to have fun".  In fact, a week ago the Norfolk guys had to kick some yahoos with a large quadcopter off their flying site before they flew up into Naval air traffic.

The AMA and the commercial quadcopter manufacturers appear to be in complete lockstep. I imagine that that the commercial drone industry is all for the AMA becoming the "community-based organization" in charge of policing drone use, since the AMA will be a lot easier to manipulate to their desires than any of the likely alternatives.

All true, however, with the rise of drone-based commercial services (most likely using quadcopters or similar) the services themselves will create their own representative organizations for lobbying Congress.  The equipment that they will use is comparable to automobiles as compared to RC cars with regard to the current quadcopter toy industry.  The dynamics will change significantly and AMA needs to be very careful not to get crunched.

Like I said - this could be an interesting spectator sport....

[Steve Fitton]

The sooner AMA divests itself of quadcopters the better.  The concept of "controlling" quadcopter users is laughable.  Since all it takes to fly a quadcopter is money and some computer skills, its not really any form of model aviation you are attempting to regulate.  It is more accurate to describe it as attempting to regulate computer hackers whose new hacking medium is the sky itself.

When what I believe to be the inevitable fatal midair between a manned aircraft and quad happens, it would be better if AMA could tell the Government "they do NOT belong to model aviation".

The Norfolk Aeromodelers case is illustrative of the hacker nature of quad users: The quad operators, a quasi commercial operation, googled local clubs and discovered that some of them had maps to their flying sites.  They then proceeded to drive out to our field, assuming nobody would be flying during the week.  They were conducting sales demonstrations, unaware that while our field is ok for CL there are many low level military and civil air routes at low altitude in the immediate vicinity, including the base for the local air ambulance helo.  When one of our club members who was in the area observed what was going on and tried to stop it, the drone guys said that (one) of them was an AMA member and that they had every right to use our field and we could go to Hell.  With their refusal to stop operations things escalated between them and our club member until direct action and/or law enforcement involvement became the only option.  The struggle finally ended with the drone people leaving with their 3 foot by 6 foot air vehicle loaded into the back of the truck it came in.
If our club member had not stumbled across this situation, our club could have easily been the first to have the distinction and notoriety of being the first to have a drone vs manned midair, without any of us having clue one what our field was being used for behind our backs.
Quadcopter people are hackers, pure and simple.

[Dave_Trible]

This seems like paddling up stream.  A week or two a ago I got the standard AMA infomercial about how they were arguing the drone cause.  I replied to the author,  pres. Dave Mathewson my kind regards but great displeasure in AMAs involvement and asked him to reconsider.  I got not answer from him but within an hour I got an email from a guy trying to recruit me as a commercial drone pilot.  He said he got my contact info from the AMA website.  We've seen the enemy- and its us!

Dave

[Steven Kientz]

A quadcopter flyer stopped at our circle  while we were flying. He told me if  he had known we flew C/l in the park he would have brought  his quad and filmed us. I told him the park doesn't allow R/c flight. His response was " Well I wouldn't advertise that I was flying here. Total disregard for the parks policies, not to mention peoples safety and at the very least our possible banishment from flying there. He later told me he was flying over a corn field nearby and lost an $1800 dollar machine. I asked if he had permission to fly there and he said no one owns the skies. I told him he was correct and then asked about the private property he was parked on. I doubt he'll be back.