Drone

Laws need to catch up with drone technology

Posted on by mecicon

ChicagoWelcome

Do we want somebody firing a gun from a drone in Chicago or elsewhere in Illinois, which is precisely what happened recently in Connecticut?

That’s just one of the many alarming concerns about drones as they increasingly take to our skies, far outpacing attempts to sensibly regulate them.

In Chicago last week, two aldermen took a thoughtful step toward drone regulation, introducing an ordinance that would ban drones within five miles of O’Hare and Midway airports or within a quarter mile of schools, hospitals, open-air stadiums and places of worship. The ordinance introduced by Scott Waguespack (32nd) and Edward Burke (14th) also, among other restrictions, would ban drones equipped with firearms.

Chicago has a responsibility to act now in part because efforts to regulate private and commercial drones have stalled in Springfield. All that’s come out of the Legislature is a bill, now on Gov. Bruce Rauner’s desk, that would ban drones used for hunting and fishing and create a task force to study the issue for about a year. It would be nice if the creation of the task force leads to helpful state laws, but similar study groups in the past have had a spotty record; some have done a good job but others have accomplished nothing.

More http://chicago.suntimes.com/opinion/7/71/841051/editorial-laws-need-catch-drone-technology

Drone safety record good — so far

Posted on by mecicon

jimmyharmon

By Doug Thompson

No aircraft has hit a drone in Arkansas or anywhere else in the United States, Federal Aviation Administration records show. Airport managers, regulators, pilots, aircraft passengers and private drone operators want to keep that record.

“Hitting a bird can bring down an airplane,” said James Smith, manager of the Springdale Municipal Airport. “Imagine what a drone can do.” FAA rules allow a maximum weight of 55 pounds for private drones, which use electric motors powered by batteries.

Sales of drones for private used by hobbyists are not tracked by the FAA. The U.S. Consumer Electronics Association projects sales of 700,000 remotely piloted aircraft this year, ranging from small remote control planes to large “Unmanned Aircraft Systems” capable of carrying a large, professional-grade camera. Worldwide sales of the larger craft are expected to be 80,000 units this year, according to industry accounts.

The FAA expects to approve its 1,000th request for private, commercial use of drones sometime this week, said Les Dorr, agency spokesman. Any drone used for a commercial purpose requires both an exemption from the noncommercial restriction by the FAA and operation by someone who holds a regular pilot’s license, just like that required to fly an aircraft.

Those requirements would change under a set of rules proposed by the FAA in February, said both Dorr and Tom McMahon, spokesman for the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, an industry group. The new set of rules would set up a certification process just for drone operators.

Parties interested in commercial drones range from photographers to real estate companies, news organizations and farmers wanting to monitor crops. Many existing restrictions on drones would still apply, such as operation being limited to daylight hours and only as long as the operator keeps the drone within his direct line of sight.

Drones can be hard to see even when ground clutter below them isn’t a factor for a pilot in a descending airplane, and they are too small to be tracked by airport radar, Smith said. Drone owners in Northwest Arkansas have been very responsible, though, Smith said.

“I’ve received a grand total of one telephone call about a drone, and it was the mother of someone who lost his and, as far as we can tell, it was never near the airport,” he said.

The overwhelming majority of drone operators around the country have also been responsible and cooperative with the FAA in helping refine a set of proposed rules, Dorr said. Those proposals drew more than 4,500 comments during the process of drafting them, he said.

“U.S. airspace is the most complex and crowded in the world, but we’ve met challenges before,” Dorr said. “The FAA is in the business of getting new technology into the nation’s airspace safely.”

The proposed regulations are practical and workable, said Jimmy Harmon of Bella Vista, owner of a polished concrete company who is also a photographer and drone owner.

Both existing rules and the proposed FAA regulations make it illegal to fly them above 500 feet, the minimum safe altitude for manned aircraft. They are forbidden to fly within five miles of a major airport or leave the line of sight of the operator. They would only be allowed to operate in daylight hours.

The FAA has the authority to punish drone operators for unsafe operation under the same laws restricting flights by pilots of regular aircraft, courts have ruled. For example, someone who flies an aircraft over large public gatherings or places where any flights are restricted, such as over some national parks, public buildings or defense installations, could face fines and up to a year in prison.

An unmanned drone beer delivery service for ice fishermen in Minnesota was shut down by the FAA last year when told the practice violated the “noncommercial” drone restriction.

State laws can also apply. Arkansas has anti-voyeurism laws that prohibit invasions of privacy and which apply to those using drone cameras under amendments to that law made in the last legislative session.

Out-of-state, two people were arrested in July 2014 on “reckless endangerment” charges when a New York Police Department helicopter had to swerve to avoid their drone, according to news accounts. Six months before, New York police arrested a Brooklyn man for the same charge after he lost control of his remote control helicopter. The craft crashed, falling so far that authorities believed it substantially risked the safety of others.

Not all the legal risks involving drones are faced by owners and operators. William H. Merideth, 47, of Hillview, Ky., shot down a drone flying over his house recently. He was charged with first-degree criminal mischief and first-degree wanton endangerment for discharging a firearm within city limits and destroying the $1,800 drone.

“They’re going to be like guns,” Harmon said of remotely piloted aircraft. “Most people with guns are responsible. Some are not.”

In May, an airliner approaching LaGuardia Airport in New York reported passing near a drone at an altitude of 2,700 feet. It was the third report of a drone near the airport that month. Even small drones can attain altitudes of 2,000 feet if restrictions are ignored, according to industry figures.

Other countries farther along in the commercial drone approval process have had near misses. A passenger liner coming in for a landing at London’s Heathrow Airport missed a drone in July 2014. Safety authorities in Britain ruled there had been a serious risk of collision after confirming witness accounts. Crew on the aircraft said their Airbus A320 passed within 20 feet of the drone, whose owner was never identified.

This year, a Lufthansa airliner crew flying from Munich to Warsaw on July 20 reported spotting a drone as the plane came in for a landing at its destination, passing within 100 meters or 330 feet on the approach.

Irresponsible drone operators do what they do to get pictures no one else can get if they follow the rules, Harmon said. Yet the irresponsible operators don’t get “bragging rights” unless they show the pictures somewhere — in effect, providing photographic evidence that they broke the rules.

“When we see a picture somebody posts on the Internet, we can tell when it was taken from higher than 500 feet,” he said.

“I’m on a Facebook page with a lot of other drone owners,” Harmon said. “We know some members of our group work for the FAA. We’re not stupid. We know they’re there, but don’t know exactly which ones they are because we don’t ask. But when somebody posts a picture, you can bet someone will respond with something like ‘Hey, that’s not right and here’s why.’ If he gets really detailed and cites a lot of rules, you can bet he’s with the FAA. ”

Even more effectively, Harmon said, FAA regulations can be written into the computer software that controls drones, Harmon said. Updates and patches to that software could add it, he said. Harmon bought a drone with computer software in it that will land the craft automatically if it flies within five miles of an airport, he said.

The landing would come after warnings to the operator he is approaching the airport. Not all models have that feature, but they could, he said.

“Sure, you can hack the software and get around it, but the average Joe can’t,” Harmon said. “You’d really have to know what you’re doing and be pretty good at it.”

A former volunteer firefighter for the Pea Ridge Fire Department, Harmon voluntarily piloted his drone in a search for two concert-goers in Oklahoma who went missing in a flood, he said. Their bodies were later found by others outside of the area Harmon was searching. Harmon used a camera attached to a drone to conduct thorough inspections of hard-to-reach places and to cover wide areas by flying a pattern over them.

“The advantage of a drone is that you can stay over an area, fly close to the ground and really examine a place closely,” he said. “We had people looking at the images from the drone flight on Facebook. If they thought they saw something, we’d go back and look at that spot.”

As for business potential, Harmon sees it as a sideline that will offer options to his existing photography business in the future.

“People hire me for the pictures I take with the camera in my hand, not for what I can do with a drone,” he said. “Real estate is going to be really big, though. People will be able to provide pictures that show the whole property from above.”

http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2015/aug/03/drone-safety-record-good-so-far-2015080/?latest

Chicago Law Firm Secures Federal Approvals for Commercial Drone Use Under Firm’s Section 333 Filing Service

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jeffreyantonelli

Growing number of commercial players in the emerging drone industry seek Antonelli Law’s drone law services to help secure clearance from the Federal Aviation Administration to conduct drone flights The attorneys of Antonelli Law, a leading Chicago-based drone law firm that specializes in federal commercial drone law, have secured a total of 11 Section 333 Grant of Exemptions, which allow operators of unmanned aircraft vehicles to conduct aerial surveillance for data collection and for a variety of other commercially-driven purposes.

The leading drone lawyers at Antonelli law offer a full spectrum of commercial drone law services that have helped clients in the real estate, engineering, and cinematography fields clear the FAA’S legal hurdles to be able to start flying drones in just a few months.

During July 2015 alone, the law firm’s team of legal and aviation experts have successfully secured four Section 333 approvals. Camera and video-equipped drones are increasingly being used by companies large and small to conduct aerial surveillance. And while thousands of U.S. commercial users want to seize on the potential of drones to leverage their businesses, only about 820 total petitions have been approved by the FAA as of July 2015.

The FAA is expected to finalize its laws for commercial drone operators within the next year, but until then, laws dictating commercial drone use will continue to evolve. Obtaining FAA approval for certain types of drone use has become easier in 2015. Recent changes that took effect earlier this year have allowed Antonelli Law’s Drone/UAS Practice Group to secure Section 333 approvals faster than ever—in as few as 90 days. Previously, every petition filed for commercial drone use had to be reviewed by the FAA on a case-by-case basis with full regulatory analysis and publication in the Federal Register.

Kansas City, Missouri-based engineering firm, Burns & McDonnell Engineering Company Inc., is one of Antonelli Law’s latest clients to receive FAA approval. The company—which provides engineering, architecture, construction, environmental and consulting solutions—received clearance on July 14 to operate a variety of small drones, including the DJI Inspire 1, Draganflyer X4-ES, and SenseFly eBee. Burns & McDonnell is one of several clients of Antonelli Law to obtain FAA approval within 90 days.

“The opportunity for Burns & McDonnell to start deploying drones for 3D aerial utility corridor mapping and infrastructure inspections will not only quicken our ability to deliver quality-driven results to our clients, but drones will undoubtedly increase the safety, productivity, and remote sensing options of our existing aerial data gathering operations,” said Steven Santovasi, department manager, geospatial services for Burns & McDonnell. “Federal drone law is not easy to navigate, however. Securing FAA approval to fly required us to engage the services of the drone law experts at Antonelli Law.”

While drones are showing their positive value in fields such as agriculture, architecture, construction, and real estate; smaller business owners interested in launching commercial drone operations often discover the pursuit to be anything but a low-cost, small-investment decision.

This summer, Antonelli’s Drone/UAS Practice Group launched “Drone Democracy,”—a lower-fee Section 333 service intended to help potential operators of commercial unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) obtain expedited legal clearance from the FAA—as a way to help more commercial users be able to fly drones. Created as a division of Antonelli Law’s Drone/UAS Practice Group, “Drone Democracy” exclusively serves commercial UAS users seeking FAA approval to operate drones for small-scale uses like residential real estate and nature photography.

The firm also now assists clients with obtaining the FAA-required N Number registration, a required step in the process to be able to fly a drone also referred to as the “tail number,” which identifies each drone by a serial number.

Obtaining an N Number for drones obtained from outside the U.S. can be particularly difficult, but for a fee of $250 Antonelli Law will handle the lengthy, bureaucratic process of obtaining N Number registration for commercial drone users.

As an avid drone-user himself, Antonelli’s passion for the law intersects with his interest in flying unmanned aerial vehicles for fun. On his Drone Laws Blog, Antonelli regularly highlights updates in the FAA’s changing regulations for drone users and keeps followers updated with the latest Section 333 exemptions his firm has secured.

“We’re still on the brink of unearthing the many ways drones can aid in so many facets of society—from aiding in search and rescue missions to speeding-up survey work—we haven’t even begun to tap into the full benefits of drones,” Antonelli said.

For a full list of clients that have successfully secured Section 333 approval with the help of Antonelli Law, visit http://dronelawsblog.com/antonelli-law-clients-receiving-section-333-aproval-faa/.

Two airliners fly within 100 feet of drone above New York

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jfk

NEW YORK: Two airplanes flying near one of America’s busiest airports each came within 100 feet of a drone on Friday, according to audio from each flight’s radio calls.

The first, JetBlue Flight 1843, reported spotting a drone at 2:24 pm while approaching John F. Kennedy International Airport here, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

In the audio recording, the cockpit says that the drone passed just below the planes nose when the jet was flying at an altitude of about 800 to 900 feet.

Then at about 5 pm, Delta Flight 407 — which had 154 people on board — was preparing to land when the cockpit reported seeing a drone below its right wing.

Neither plane needed to take evasive action, the FAA said.

Factoryville, PA native gets permission to fly drone for money

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mattsch

BRENDAN GIBBONS

A Factoryville native is among the first Pennsylvanians to receive official permission to make money by flying drones.

Matt Sandherr, 33, operating under his fledgling business Diversified Drone, received a notice July 24 confirming he was exempt from certain Federal Aviation Administration regulations that would have stopped him from using his drone for commercial purposes.

Drone pilots have been able to fly their crafts as hobbyists for years, though FAA regulations have prohibited commercial use. The agency proposed new regulations in February that would clear the way for more commercial users. For now, seeking exemptions on a case-by-case basis has become the most common way to fly for money. The FAA granted the first exemption in July 2014 and has issued more than 900 since.

Mr. Sandherr’s application was submitted by Joseph Price of Corbett Price Law, a Scranton attorney trying to build his drone law practice. He submitted about 30 pages describing the drone’s airworthiness and Mr. Sandherr’s piloting ability. The user manuals that came with Mr. Sandherr’s DJI Phantom 2 drone were included in the application, he said.

“The Northeast Pennsylvania corridor is ripe for these kind of exemptions,” Mr. Price said. “(FAA officials) look for low-density populations.”

But Mr. Sandherr plans to explore the promise of drone flight outside Northeast Pennsylvania. He sold his Blakely-based car window tinting business, Mobile Tint Inc. Early this month, he packed up his drone and family and moved to Punta Gorda, Florida, where he hopes to start making promotional videos for charter fishermen and real estate firms, among others.

The drone can provide a new perspective on boating into a canal-front Florida property, he said.

“If you shot a nice drone video, you can, for real estate, demonstrate the trip in from the harbor…from an aerial point of view and share that with hundreds,” he said.

He recently made a video for a Florida friend who captains a fishing boat. It includes several aerial views of the boat cutting its way through brackish mangrove swamps.

“It was an amazing set of shots,” Mr. Sandherr said. “It just really illustrated the boat, the harbor, the set of islands.”

Mr. Sandherr began flying drones about three years ago, but has been interested in piloting since his first trip in a small plane around 10 years old. His first solo flight was one of the most exhilarating and terrifying experiences of his life.

“That’s the most incredible experience in the world, when somebody hops out and says, ‘I’ll be listening in on the radio, but if something goes wrong, it’s you,’” he said.

With its relatively low cost and versatility, the drone offers a new set of opportunities.

“It’s such an amazing piece of technology, the possibilities and the uses,” he said.

Around the country, aerial surveyors for farmers, mining companies and the oil and gas industry have received FAA permission, as have filmmakers and advertisers.

Mr. Price hopes other local drone operators will seek exemptions. He has also submitted an application for Access Aerial, started by University of Scranton systems administrators John Culkin and Lee DeAngelis. Theirs has not yet been granted.

http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/business/factoryville-native-gets-permission-to-fly-drone-for-money-1.1921186

CADDrones.com Relaunched as Subscription Based Open Source CAD and 3D Printing Drone Community

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caddrones

The CAD Drones community is for hobby, educational, and commercial use. Companies, institutions, and Designers of all types can share FREE 3D printable versions of drone projects, files, software, etc and even sell paid versions of them on our Buy, Sell, & Trade page.  Subscribers can add an unlimited number of files or products to the community BS & T page, Free CAD Files page, and Free Software page. Non Members and Members can view every page on CADDrones.com but only subscribers can contribute to every feature. If you are already a member ofCADDrones.com we are no longer using our Ning powered community that previously used CADDrones.com as its home. If you would like to help migrate some of your content from our old community to the new one you can visit CADDrones.ning.com until it officially goes offline around August 14th. Our new and improved community will be taking over the CADDrones.com URL. We will be sending subscribers special offers often like 10%-20% our parachute products or 3D Printers we plan on distributing soon.

Features/page contribution access for non-subscribing members: [Blogs] and [Discussion Forum]

Features/page contribution access for paid subscribing members: [Blogs], [Discussion Forum], [Groups], [Photos], [Videos],  [Chat Rooms], [Wiki Hub], [Link Directory], [View/Share Events], [Upload and Download FREE CAD files and Software], [Buy, Sell, & Trade]

Subscribers:

1 – 100 pay $9.99 USD/month or $99.90 USD/year (Fixed Rate*)

101 – 250 pay $12.49 USD/month or $124.90 USD/year (Fixed Rate*)

251 – 500 pay $14.99 USD/month or $149.90 USD/year (Fixed Rate*)

501 – 750 pay $17.49 USD/month or $174.90 USD/year (Fixed Rate*)

751 – 1000 pay $19.99 USD/month or $199.90 USD/year (Fixed Rate*)

*The rate you pay when you start becoming a subscriber is the fixed rate/price you will have to pay as long as you are a subscriber with us. For example if the price of our subscription reaches $49.99/month in the near future and you were one of the first 100 subscribers you will never be asked to pay more than $9.99/month or $99.90/year. When we roll out new features or software all current subscribers at that time will get automatic access to them with no extra charge! We are doing this because we feel that the first 1000 subscribing members will be essential to make this community into a powerful resource. Our motto is the sooner you become a subscriber the cheaper it will be. Some of the new features and software we willing be releasing often over the next 2 years will raise the price of our websites subscription rate in the process.

What does your subscription cost’s go to?

We have good news! The majority of your subscription fees go back into the maintenance, up keeping, and development of the CAD Drones Community. Your subscriptions will also help get us to our goal of hiring 35 New In-House employees and US/International contractors by the end of 2015! These contractors and employees will be dedicating their efforts and time into the CADDrones.com community. Not only will our members and subscribers be adding educational videos, guides, etc but our volunteers and employees main job will be to as well.

We’re looking at hiring paid employees and contractors to fill these positions by the end of 2015:

Wiki Admin – Community Admin – Chat Rooms Moderator – Buy, Sell, & Trade Admin – Events Admin – 10 Expert CAD,3D Printing, Drone Specialists – 5 Wiki Hub Developers – 5 Community Moderators – 3 Web Developers – 7 Software Programmers

If you’re interested in landing one of these 35 paid positions the best thing to do is ask us to work that position as a volunteer. Once we start hiring employees and contractors, only people who have volunteered in that position will be considered for the paid position. If we have a subscriber who has volunteered for a position and does amazing we won’t hesitate to offer that person the paid position as soon as we can!

Our goal is to make CAD, 3D Printing, and Drones come together and build an amazing community and tool that is useful for people of all skill levels at the same time. We’re currently in the process of applying for an Open Source License with the “Open Source Initiative” at OpenSource.org! We need help from anyone who has been through this process or is willing to volunteer efforts into helping us draft a perfect Open Source License for our community.

If you have any questions, suggestions, or anything else reach out to us by visiting our “Contact Us” page on CADDrones.com and filling out our form.

 

Drone flies over MANCI rec yard with inmates outside

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mansfield

Lou Whitmire

MANSFIELD – A drone flew over Mansfield Correctional Institution on Wednesday afternoon while inmates were outside in the recreation yard.

A spokeswoman at MANCI said the incident remains under investigation. No further details are being released at this time as to whether any contraband was dropped in the yard. However, the yard was cleared and a search conducted.

The Mansfield post of the Highway Patrol was contacted at 5:12 p.m. but did not respond to the incident the prison on Ohio 13 North, which occurred roughly after 3 p.m.

“We have had other instances of unmanned aerial systems breaching security,” said JoEllen Smith of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.  “The agency’s top security administrators are taking a broad approach to increase awareness and detection of unmanned aerial systems.”

Drones are more formally known as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). Essentially, a drone is a flying robot.

The aircraft may be remotely controlled or can fly autonomously through software-controlled flight plans in their embedded systems working in conjunction with GPS. Drones have most often been associated with the military but they are also used for search and rescue, surveillance, traffic monitoring, weather monitoring and firefighting, among other things.

More recently, the unmanned aircraft have come into consideration for a number of commercial applications. In late 2013, Amazon announced a plan to use drones for delivery in the not-too-distant future.

Last year the Mansfield post of the Ohio Highway Patrol stepped up efforts to watch and catch criminals in the act of throwing contraband over a prison fence.

Lt. Chad Enderby, then commander of the patrol’s Mansfield post, in 2014 invited media to the patrol post at Interstate 71 and Ohio 13 to bring the issue to the public’s attention, asking people to report anyone or anything suspicious being thrown over the fences of Mansfield’s prisons — especially Richland Correctional Institution, because of its proximity to Ohio 545.

Enderby last year said the patrol had seen an increase of conveyances, or “fence throws,” at RiCI and Mansfield Correctional Institution, on Ohio 13 and Piper Road.

Contraband primarily is drugs, tobacco and cellphones for the most part. Prime days for the majority of fence throws are Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays, Enderby said earlier.

The patrol is working hand-in-hand with the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections and has increased perimeter patrols of the two institutions.

http://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/story/news/local/2015/07/30/drone-manci/30879809/

Facebook builds drone for internet access

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facebookdrone-1

By Dave LeeNorth America technology reporter

Facebook has built its own drone that will bring internet connectivity to remote parts of the world, the social network has announced.

The drone – which has a wingspan of a Boeing 737 – will operate as high as 90,000 feet in the air, and can stay airborne for 90 days at a time.

Facebook said the drones would be able to offer internet speeds of 10 gigabits a second.

They will be tested in the US later this year.

It was designed in the UK by Facebook’s aerospace team, said Jay Parikh, Facebook’s vice president of global engineering and infrastructure.

“Our goal is to accelerate the development of a new set of technologies that can drastically change the economics of deploying internet infrastructure,” Mr Parikh said.

“We are exploring a number of different approaches to this challenge, including aircraft, satellites and terrestrial solutions.

“Our intention is not to build networks and then operate them ourselves, but rather to quickly advance the state of these technologies to the point that they become viable solutions for operators and other partners to deploy.”

Laser

It is the social network’s latest initiative in its Internet.org scheme, a project designed to bring connectivity to the developing world.

The strategy will help the network continue to grow users, a key requirement of keeping investors happy.

Mr Parikh said the drone’s technology should be regarded as a “significant breakthrough”.

“They’ve designed and lab-tested a laser that can deliver data at 10s of Gb per second – approximately 10x faster than the previous state-of-the-art in the industry – to a target the size of a dime from more than 10 miles away.

“We are now starting to test these lasers in real-world conditions.

“When finished, our laser communications system can be used to connect our aircraft with each other and with the ground, making it possible to create a stratospheric network that can extend to even the remotest regions of the world.”

However, Facebook’s expansion beyond its current markets has raised eyebrows, and accusations of cynical intentions.

Internet.org angered many in India’s technology community when it launched there, offering free mobile access to a small handful of sites, but not the internet as a whole.

Internet companies in the country said it was giving those free services an unfair advantage in the market, and noted that Facebook is able to track what users on the free service were doing.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33728704

Daniel Herbert of Rockaway Twp. gets aerial shots with his feet still on the ground

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danielherbert

BY SANDRA PLEDGER

Making a business work goes a long way, as Daniel Herbert, a Rockaway Township resident and owner of Skygear Solutions, Inc. would know.

He has been a successful business owner since 2014. Herbert found his way here from Delaware and provided Rockaway Township with a glimpse of what his company is about at White Meadow Lake Festival Days recently.

“It’s been a long time since I felt like I lived in a real community of families all happy to coexist and enjoy a great summer weekend together,” Herbert said. “I am always looking for exposure for my business and I also enjoy providing a new view from the air to those who are uninitiated with this technology, so of course I brought some equipment with me to show off.”

His wife, Marina Kopylova, is his partner in ownership and also operates as chief marketing officer.

Herbert said that having already worked with radio controls as a hobby and with retail and marketing is what made going into this type of industry a natural progression.

He said that multirotor drones have quickly trended into the highest revenue-generating products for both consumer and professional sales.

“This stuff is just plain fun,” Herbert said.

The camera streams live HD video to him on the ground which he can watch while framing shots. It also records the video and photos onto a memory card that he can recover after it lands.

The drone takes video and photographs. Both are very high quality but not usable for “spying” on people. The camera does not have zoom capability and the aircraft is quite loud if it gets up close.

Herbert’s company provides aerial photography and videography services, along with individual and group flight training. They also host several events each year, attend legal panel discussions, security conferences, perform flight demonstrations, have product launches, and provide customer service.

He said that Skygear sells ready-to-fly drones from $29.99 to well over $10,000. They also offer custom solutions that can be specialized for law enforcement, fire companies, agricultural use, cinematography, or even drone racing.

“We believe that with such a new and poorly understood technology that a certain level of after-care is necessary for customer retention and further dissemination of our brand,” Herbert said. “Educating our customers is a priority. Ensuring that safety guidelines are followed as well as maintaining a certain common courtesy to the public is very helpful in preventing unwanted incidents.”

Several events that Skygear Solutions has already done this year include: hosting the Team Delaware leg of International Drone Day with over 300 attendees in March, covering the Newark National Little League season opener and providing aerial footage to the crowds and setting up multiple hands-on displays to hundreds of Little League age boys and girls, and attending the Summit Aviation Community Day in Middletown, Delaware.

Safe UAV Operations Around Low-Flying, Manned Aircraft

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NAA

Its this weeks spot the group running scared campaign.

Let’s Be Fair About Sharing The Air…. Come on chaps really. What about get out the way you massive polluter?

Can you tell the National Agricultural Aviation Associations press release today has got my goat! I think primarily because they call unmanned systems UAV’s and anybody that is serious knows that term went out of fashion several years ago.

Also it sort of tells farmers that they know better and that they are safe hands.

I guess they are stuck between a rock and a hard place. For the association welcoming unmanned aircraft with open arms would be a good thing. Stacks of new members. I suspect there might be a similar if not larger amount of Ag drones out there already. For the current fee paying membership of NAAA this not a good thing.

I personally don’t think UAS are as much of a threat as surveys would suggest. The big numbers you hear have been extrapolated from a different country with a different need and scaled. They make no sense and were a sabre rattle from another dying association. Satellite data will replace what most folks are rushing to do right now.

The EU Copernicus project will map the entire planet every four days and hand out the data for free. Try doing that with a Phantom. Low res to start with but getting ever better. The real money will be in taking that free data and making it actionable. Then Mr Farmer might well use his local RPAS crop sprayer to do the job more efficiently in just the areas required.

Perhaps instead of sharing the air this could really read, Ag pilot transiting my farm get above 500′ and stay out of my way.

I think I am qualified to look at both sides, I am a licensed helicopter pilot and also don’t want to be hit by a Phantom in flight but I think crop dusters are overplaying their hand here.

To ensure that farmers are fully informed before making decisions to operate or contract with a UAV operator, NAAA encourages members to participate in our UAV Safety Education Campaign. The purpose of the campaign is to raise awareness, foster communication and prevent accidents between UAV operators and low-altitude manned aircraft.

The first public outreach tool in the UAV safety campaign is a specially designed “safety stuffer” that gives aerial applicators the means to make a simple yet bold statement. Use it to educate your customers about the safety concerns agricultural pilots have about hard-to-see UAVs, and to share NAAA’s recommendations for safe and responsible UAV operations in rural areas.

Similar to NAAA’s Wind Tower Safety Stuffers, the new UAV Safety Stuffers are designed to fit into a No. 10 envelope. You don’t have to advertise to get the message out. Simply slip an insert in along with the invoices you normally send to your aerial application customers.

The double-sided safety stuffers are printed on glossy, four-color paper and available in packs of 100. Best of all, the UAV Safety Stuffers are free to NAAA Operator Members. Non-members can get them, too, for $25 per 100-pack. NAAA encourages aerial applicators to order as many packets as they can reasonably use. We will continue to give them away to NAAA Operator Members while supplies last. (Additional postage fees may apply for large orders.)

Let’s Be Fair About Sharing The Air

The UAV Safety Stuffers build on the “Let’s Be Fair About Sharing The Air” campaign NAAA launched in 2010 to promote wind tower safety education.

Crop-sensing and aerial imaging stand at the top of many lists of the most popular uses of civilian UAVs. The fervor among farmers champing at the bit to purchase their own UAV to use for crop monitoring and other purposes has been well documented. What gets lost amid all the rosy projections for UAVs’ commercial uses is the safety concerns of pilots, and in particular the concerns of aerial applicators and other pilots operating near ground and the lower reaches of the airspace.

It’s up to everybody—NAAA, its state association partners and aerial applicators—to educate farmers, crop consultants, ag retailers and the public about safe and responsible UAV operations in rural areas. NAAA’s UAV safety stuffers are one component of that. Each ad ends with a simple plea to UAV operators: “Fly with care.” We invite you to get the conversation started in your area by using NAAA’s UAV Safety Stuffers.