I write about the airline industry and aviation safety.
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.
A drone drops a football for the Drone Drop event at the 2017 Pro Bowl Skills Challenge on Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2017, in Lake Buena Vista, Fa. (AP Photo/Gregory Payan)
I’m all for safety and security measures around major events like this Sunday’s Super Bowl at NRG Stadium in Houston. There’s no question that these major events are targets for terrorism and protecting them is a security nightmare. No drone pilot should be flying anywhere near the stadium. But the FAA’s restrictions – issued in what is referred to as a TFR or Temporary Flight Restriction – cover a radius of 34.5 miles (30 nautical miles) from the stadium and extend from 4 pm to 11:59 pm local time.
The TFR restrictions may well be reasonable for manned aircraft – which have exceptions that allow manned aircraft into the TFR areas that drone operators do not have – but are hard to justify for most light weight consumer drones that do not have the speed or range to travel anywhere near 34.5 miles with their limited battery life of 5-7 minutes for many and 20 to 25 minutes tops for higher end models.
Excessive and unreasonable regulations don’t make us safer or more secure. They turn innocent people – say a father or mother flying a small drone with their child in their backyard on a Sunday afternoon within the TFR zone – into scofflaws. The FAA could certainly tailor these flight restrictions to protect the Super Bowl attendees without needlessly grounding commercial and non-commercial uses of light-weight drones within such a broad area.