I wish regulations were sensible but strictly enforced.

[lookout]

VLOS for me is the most important safety rule we have. Its impossible to act safety using the typical technology and training around a consumer, off the shelf drone.

For safe BVLOS flying the drone needs to be able to interact with other airspace users (passively and actively), potentially controlling agencies and so on. Typically that means some sort of transponder (1 or 2 way) and an operator in direct contact with either the control agency for the airspace or at least a common radio channel for other users. If that isnt possible a pre-filed flight plan and NOTAM is needed to notify other users.
Google/amazon and other drones will likely have transponders and pre-cleared flight plans along with an operator with a phone or radio to ATC if needed. A consumer flying for leisure typically has none of these.

If you're outside VLOS you cant see other traffic or if you do, potentially cant get the drone down or out of the way fast enough. You have no depth perception to judge closure rates, distances or relative positions. You have absolutely no situational awareness what-so-ever.
You wont hear anything if your drone is 2 miles away. Even if its closer good luck hearing that low flying jet at 500kts or that paraglider that just crested a hill. Or the guys flying a high performance kite 1 mile from you.

The whole point of line of sight is to allow you to identify and mitigate risk and threats from airborne and ground based objects in the area. To do that, you need to be able to see exactly where the drone is in 3D space. The rules stem from Visual Flight Rules for manned aircraft.

If every drone operator was made to sit a lengthy course with an effective exam and made to liaise in real time with ATC for each flight combined with the drone having transponders you could make an argument for BVLOS. But for just regular hobby fliers who want to look at stuff 3 miles away with no pre-planning and permissions then no. Its a very bad idea.

High performance kite?

Like the one in post #26?

Oh wait...a kite...with an engine?

Since when did kites come with engines?

They call those ultra lights.

BVLOS?

Well I definitely don't trust the video lag on one of the toy FPV drones on a standard wifi 5 feet away from me. Not suitable for trying to fly it especially behind a couple of thumbs with a device variable response time with a touch screen. That could be risky too. And then you try to drive with a 'hood on.

Straight R/C is the way to go on that. But if you use the mobile app you can't use the R/C...useless in my opinion.

I can just see those amazon deliveries complete with a bug zapper all over the boxes. The bugs come with the shipment for free. No extra charge.

 

[pinballwiz86]

There’s too much regulation as it is.

 

[maelstrom]

There’s too much regulation as it is.

Only because of people operating their drones irresponsibly! Someone said we should just use common sense - clearly that hasn’t worked so far. Some people seem to think that it’s their inalienable right to operate their drone where and when they want and to restrict them from doing so is somehow taking away their freedom. I read a great quote recently which sums this up perfectly:

“Insisting on one's rights without recognizing one's responsibilities is not freedom. It‘s adolescence.”

 

[Cymru]

Only because of people operating their drones irresponsibly! Someone said we should just use common sense - clearly that hasn’t worked so far. Some people seem to think that it’s their inalienable right to operate their drone where and when they want and to restrict them from doing so is somehow taking away their freedom. I read a great quote recently which sums this up perfectly:

“Insisting on one's rights without recognizing one's responsibilities is not freedom. It‘s adolescence.”

This is the problem. In many hobby areas they self-police and the idiots get frozen out and vanish. That doesn't appear to be the case in the drone community. Far too many "ITS MY HUMAN RIGHT" style arguments for it to work. They genuinely dont see or want to accept the fact airspace is a shared resource and comes with rules.

 

[Riteguy]

You can’t possibly equate military drones to those we fly. Military drones often have missions were lives are at stake or have national security implications. Even military drones have failsafe systems which could well involve an RTH or a diversion to a pre-planned alternate.

When talking about the loss of control, they indeed are similar. How they react is probably handled differently because of the technology behind each. When command/control is lost with both drones serious damage/injury could result. My point is if we can fly warbirds from any place in the world using video display and do so with amazing accuracy, we certainly can fly our hobby drone BVLOS.

 

[BigAl07]

When talking about the loss of control, they indeed are similar. How they react is probably handled differently because of the technology behind each. When command/control is lost with both drones serious damage/injury could result. My point is if we can fly warbirds from any place in the world using video display and do so with amazing accuracy, we certainly can fly our hobby drone BVLOS.

You can't be remotely serious about comparing our "off-the-shelf" hobby grade UAS to Gazzillion $$ Military aircraft? The Military version has tons of sensors, multiple cameras, operated with guidance from ATC (and much higher) and is precision controlled. In addition, they have multiple levels of redundancy. In your UAS, can you tell me a single system that has any level of failure redundancy?

What you're suggesting is like comparing your 1/14 scale RC Ferrari

with an actual production Ferrari.

 

[Cymru]

Firstly, in most parts of the world military drones are NOT allowed inside controlled airspace at all. In places they are, its with pre-arranged flight paths and corridors.
Military drones redundant systems, controls and failsafes. Everything from avionics to flight controls to data links are multiple redundant (and EW hardened) systems. The systems follow standard aviation rules for quality control, reliability and failsafes. Every single part has a papertrail in the QC audit. They're maintained using rigid schedules and standards.

They're operated by pilots who are trained, know the device, know the rules and are assessed as competent. They're in direct radio contact with controlling body.

Warbirds arent just flying it via a TV screen. They have full situational awareness with everything from radar / link-16 data links showing everything around them, visual and thermal cameras. EM emission detectors and the assistance of ATC or some sort of EW asset in theatre.

Compare to the consumer drone. Operated by someone with no training or assessment at all. Usually not even the basic knowledge of the rules of the air, airspace around them or anything else. Lacking any form of flight control, navigation or data link redundancy. There's no following of any aviation standard quality controls for part production, fitting or maintenance. Its a lump of non-redundant, cheapest supplier only, unverifiable plastic and OTS components. Nobody maintains them.

These are people who half the time arent even aware of basics such as wind strength and lack the forward planning to make sure the drone can actually come back. As opposed to trained, observed, assessed pilots a consumer drone could literally be operated by a bloke thats just come out of the pub.

Yes both (and do) crash due to loss of control. But it takes many things to break to cause a military drone to crash (and even then, usually its in a safe place). It just takes 1 thing to crash a consumer drone.

 

[BigAl07]

.... Every single part has a papertrail in the QC audit.

That's an understatement. I worked in precision machine manufacturing aviation components (parts for P&W, GE, and RR jet engines and ordinances) for a few years. Every part I ever made was checked, rechecked, EDM evaluated, and checked again before getting my serial # and work # etched onto it. To this day we can go back and see where every part I ever made went and most likely if it's still in the air (well except ordinances and they are scattered all over the world by now).

 

[pinballwiz86]

That's an understatement. I worked in precision machine manufacturing aviation components (parts for P&W, GE, and RR jet engines and ordinances) for a few years. Every part I ever made was checked, rechecked, EDM evaluated, and checked again before getting my serial # and work # etched onto it. To this day we can go back and see where every part I ever made went and most likely if it's still in the air (well except ordinances and they are scattered all over the world by now).

This level of checks will never happen in a consumer drone. Would cost wayyyyy too much money. A handful of people using it for commercial use would pay $10,000 for a drone like that.
The best we can hope for is people using common sense when flying a drone and DJI continuing to work on sensors and fail safe systems of which these things will trickle down into the sub $500 drones.

 

[BigAl07]

This level of checks will never happen in a consumer drone. Would cost wayyyyy too much money. A handful of people using it for commercial use would pay $10,000 for a drone like that.
The best we can hope for is people using common sense when flying a drone and DJI continuing to work on sensors and fail safe systems of which these things will trickle down into the sub $500 drones.

I never even suggested anything remotely like "this level of checks" for non-Military UAS.. I was agreeing with another member about Quality Control/Paper Trail for Military Aviation aircraft/components.

Also you need to realize DJI isn't the only player in the market (although they are the big hitter) so as an industry we need to be more responsible for our own actions and not expect the manufacturer to dummy down everything because when they do we get more problems than solutions.

 

[Cymru]

Also you need to realize DJI isn't the only player in the market (although they are the big hitter) so as an industry we need to be more responsible for our own actions and not expect the manufacturer to dummy down everything because when they do we get more problems than solutions.

The problem is the drone community as a whole as proven its not mature enough to take responsibility for its own actions and act sensibly. There are enough people flouting existing, common sense rules to demonstrate that.

 

[BigAl07]

The problem is the drone community as a whole as proven its not mature enough to take responsibility for its own actions and act sensibly. There are enough people flouting existing, common sense rules to demonstrate that.

I sadly agree whole heartedly with that assessment and I see it each and every day. We are our own worst enemy in this arena. For decades the UAS industry (called R/C at that time) was self policing and held ourselves to a very high standard. Today... Not so much!!

 

[pinballwiz86]

Also you need to realize DJI isn't the only player in the market (although they are the big hitter) so as an industry we need to be more responsible for our own actions and not expect the manufacturer to dummy down everything because when they do we get more problems than solutions.

I imagine most drones are bought for Christmas or birthdays and given to children or adolescents. We really do need manufacturers to continue to work on systems to help prevent an inexperienced person behind the sticks from causing an incident. This will help prevent increased scrutiny and knee-jerk law making by the FAA in this country and other countries. Perhaps there could be an "unlock" for low-level flight, or flight near obstacles or population centers after X amount of flight hours on the sticks.

 

[Heavydpj]

The problem is the drone community as a whole as proven its not mature enough to take responsibility for its own actions and act sensibly. There are enough people flouting existing, common sense rules to demonstrate that.

Troof! I see it every time I log in. ??‍

 

[Cymru]

Perhaps there could be an "unlock" for low-level flight, or flight near obstacles or population centers after X amount of flight hours on the sticks.

The problem there isnt just the operator - its the drone. They've no redundancy at all. Not in propulsion, navigation, stability, communication. Large numbers of single points of failures. So the risk of it breaking over a population centre/obstacle or people is higher than acceptable even IF the operator is well trained.

 

[maelstrom]

So the risk of it breaking over a population centre/obstacle or people is higher than acceptable even IF the operator is well trained.

Exactly this and hence the need for regulations which attempt to prevent a dangerous situation arising. As has already been mentioned many times, the more the regulations (which are not that difficult to comply with) are ignored, the more draconian they will become. It doesn’t help when people openly boast about how far (well beyond VLOS) they manage to fly their drone. Whilst this isn’t what the majority of responsible operators are doing, it does give completely the wrong impression to anyone outside of the hobby, especially the authorities who make the rules and regulations.

 

[lookout]

One of these toy drones came without altitude hold, would drift in the wind, and had to be manually adjusted to maybe get it to stay in place maybe.

Had a short range, but that's if you could keep the handfull from getting away from you.

Frequent site ending mainly upside in the ground (good thing for the prop guards -- it needs it), and in the middle of a tree.

That's real quad flying--extremely not much of a thrill.

But the mavic behaves (for the most part). Regulations act like there's no such thing as a mavic, only these toys quads.

 

[dronerdave]

Regulations act like there's no such thing as a mavic, only these toys quads.

Yep, a toy quad without a camera would be difficult fly BVLOS. I actually think if we couldn't have an FPV camera systems on our drones, the rules wouldn't have developed as they have.

 

[Cymru]

Yep, a toy quad without a camera would be difficult fly BVLOS. I actually think if we couldn't have an FPV camera systems on our drones, the rules wouldn't have developed as they have.

Of course they would. You have absolutely zero situational awareness with FPV. And still have many many single points of failure.

 

[BigAl07]

... I actually think if we couldn't have an FPV camera systems on our drones, the rules wouldn't have developed as they have.

BINGO! We flew for decades with no VLOS (or altitude) restrictions before FPV, Gyro Stabilization, and GPS guidance. We flew with respect for other pilots (manned and otherwise) and we flew in areas away from people and other aircraft.

Actually we flew FPV for a while before "MultiRotors" took off (pun intended LOL). We had gliders and other fixed wing with FPV cameras a good while before the MultiRotors became a "viable option". Being able to fly ANYWHERE and without ANY training or exposure to rules etc created the environment for what we see today. Instead of learning to build, fly, and maintain your UAS all that is required is SRCP (Swipe your Card, Read the QUICK START GUIDE, Charge the battery, Push the Launch button). We are our own worst enemy unfortunately.