Things were looking pretty grim in the aftermath of their ill-received (to put it mildly) statement regarding the FAA NPRM. Fortunately for them, it appears their message did NOT intend to throw FPV quad pilots under the bus.
Steve Petrotto gives an excellent and unambiguous interview with Michael Rollins about what HH’s actual intent was and how it all went pear shaped on them.
Steve’s interview with Michael can be seen here. For those of you that have never heard of Michael Rollins, I recommend you check out some of his other content. He’s been doing some great interviews with folks in the FPV quad flier space of late.
Steve Lehto of Lehto’s Law has done a nice summary of the recent court win in Michigan for folks that wanted to fly in local parks.
Video can be viewed here.
Paul Dye over at Kitplanes Magazine has written a great article that clearly articulates the issues with the NPRM. Check it out here!
Excerpt:
“It is a draconian proposal that has clearly raised a lot of ire. But it needs to raise more, so the EAA asked the FAA for an extension of the time period to allow more comments. The FAA very abruptly denied this request, saying that they will not allow an extension due to security concerns and the dire nature of the threat posed by drones.”
“Dire threat”, my ass.
“Our Hobby… Our Future #FightForFPV“
This young man has done a most excellent job getting his message across!
Check out the Model Aviation PAC!
https://www.flyinggiants.com/forums/showthread.php?t=274897
Here’s the Facebook Community page for the protest.
Here’s the Go Fund Me page for helping fund the things needed for the protest. Help out if you can!
Way back on the 14th of January 2020, DJI posted a blog article describing the things they see wrong with the FAA NPRM. They’ve presented sane Remote ID proposals in the past, which of course have gone ignored by the FAA. I think that Remote ID for commercial drone/UAV/UAS operators is a good thing. However, Remote ID has no place on hobbyist aircraft and regardless of the result of the NPRM, no aircraft I fly will ever carry one.
DJI presents a pretty clear case as to why the current NPRM from the FAA is completely idiotic. You can read their blog entry here: We Strongly Support Drone Remote ID. But Not Like This.
A study done by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in 2016 studied bird strikes where damage or fatalities occurred. I highly recommend you read the study linked above, but the takeaway is this:
“Our analysis has been based on actual bird strikes, not near misses or simple sightings. We find in general that small UAS under 2kg pose a negligible risk to the safety of the national airspace. We estimate that 6.12×10−6 collisions will cause damage to an aircraft for every 100,000 hours of 2kg UAS flight time. Or to put it another way, one damaging incident will occur no more than every 1.87 million years of 2kg UAS flight time. We further estimate that 6.12×10−8 collisions that cause an injury or fatality to passengers on board an aircraft will occur every 100,000 hours of 2kg UAS flight time, or once every 187 million years of operation. This appears to be an acceptable risk to the airspace. “
The claim of “safety” with regard to the Radio Identification requirement in the FAA’s recent NPRM is backed by nothing more than hot air. There’s been no evidence that a risk analysis has been done. In fact, the only evidence favoring these new rules is from the Commercial Drone Association:
“We understand why model aircraft proponents want to remain exempt, as they have been flying safely for decades. However, times have changed, and hobbyists are no longer flying alone,” said Lisa Ellman, Co-executive Director, Commercial Drone Alliance.“
The CDA has no real interest in safety, they want to ensure that “their” airspace isn’t cluttered with us dangerous recreational model aircraft flyers.
Yes, we’ve been “flying safely for decades”. EIGHT DECADES. Over 80 years with nothing but a small handful of documented fatalities. Read the study above to see the number of deaths & property damage were caused by birds. Maybe the FAA should concern themselves with tagging every bird they can get their hands on. THAT is where the real danger lies.
The UFDA Crew is putting together a public protest at FAA HQ on 2/29/2020! If you can, make sure you go!
Do NOT bring any model aircraft or drones! The entire area is a no-fly zone and you’ll just get your ass in deep trouble!
More information on the protest can be found here: http://www.helpsaveourhobby.com/.
