Drone pilots refuse to be grounded by The Villages FL

[mavic3usa]

would be police, government, private investigators and insurance companies. I don't know if any of you guys heard this, but insurance companies would fly over people's homes to see if their were any fire hazards or anything else that would give the insurance company cause to raise their rates.

yeah, we've heard about that

 

[Felix le Chat]

Take off someplace else and fly over The Villages if that's what floats your boat.

A jurisdiction can enact an ordinance or pass a law which forbids taking off and landing drones within its boundaries, but it can't regulate the airspace above. That's the province of the FAA. If neighboring lands outside the jurisdiction boundaries don't have similar prohibitions, and if the FAA hasn't published any restrictions applicable to those areas, then it should be legal to take off and land outside jurisdiction boundaries and fly over it in FAA-regulated airspace. No doubt private and commercial pilots routinely fly over The Villages in their Cessnas and 737s in compliance with FAA regulations and nobody gives it a second thought.

What sets drones apart from other aircraft (other than helicopters) is their ability to fly lower and slower, and to hover. Plus, they're usually equipped with cameras. Concerns about intrusive behaviors raise some folks' hackles and may prompt jurisdictions to restrict drone use.

Re: cameras attached to flying objects. Isn't it ironic that nobody bats an eyelid at the fact that the entire country is surveilled photographically 24/7 by domestic satellite tech:

That the Google Earth everyone loves is fuelled by commercial aircraft taking pictures from takeoff to landing... with enough precision to construct detailed 3D models of interesting buildings...

And getting down to more or less ground level: not forgetting the spiders web of terrestrial CCTV street cams that are sophisticated enough to be used for automatic facial recognition.

Before finally: at ground level there are the Google cars and Google walkers that will automatically immortalize you and your dog in glorious HD... but some yahoo flying a camera drone is automatically a thief, a spy or a pervert.

 

[mavic3usa]

Interesting discussion on this situation as well as other applicable drone rules and regulations. It's an good discussion and although the video is a bit long, lots of current topics are addressed including the situation at The Villages.

Take a listen:

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