Philadelphia vlogger Faces fines of $200,000

[jwilson]

So far he hasn't hurt anyone. So he must know what he's doing to some extent.

 

[Vic Moss]

So far he hasn't hurt anyone. So he must know what he's doing to some extent.

Absolutely not. It's pure luck he hasn't hurt someone. And of course he knows what he's doing, but not as a safe operator. He's a fool.

 

[jwilson]

Absolutely not. It's pure luck he hasn't hurt someone. And of course he knows what he's doing, but not as a safe operator. He's a fool.

Can you post a video of him flying a drone that you think is unsafe?

 

[maggior]

Can you post a video of him flying a drone that you think is unsafe?

I don't know if his video of it is still up there, but he got an Avata FPV drone when it first came out. He was flying it around the Philly neighborhood he lives in over apartment building. He lost control of it and it crashed somewhere. He never could find it and had no idea what happened. Of course he made a big joke out of it as he was climbing onto rooves trying to find it. Looking on youtube he has a lot of avata videos and I'm not about to give him views by going through them to figure out which one was the one I saw.

Regarding him being broke, I recall a point being made about all of the expensive drones he had on shelves in the background as he made his case for being broke back when this started.

The guy is a clown and makes a mockery of the drone hobby and industry.

 

[EssenYVR]

... We can't continue with the idea that flying a drone is a dangerous task full of peril and everything you do puts lives at risk so the penalties are *always* life in prison, $1M fines, etc. ...

The penalties are not "always" life in prison or million dollar fines. The usual result of an infraction is a warning. You're being misled by the fact that it's only the most extreme cases that become news. There's already too much fearmongering going on across the country using this very tactic.

 

[mavic3usa]

The penalties are not "always" life in prison or million dollar fines. The usual result of an infraction is a warning. You're being misled by the fact that it's only the most extreme cases that become news. There's already too much fearmongering going on across the country using this very tactic.

Fearmongering is arresting a drone pilot on multiple felony charges when no one was hurt or injured.

 

[Vic Moss]

Can you post a video of him flying a drone that you think is unsafe?

I'm not giving this clown any more views. All you have to do is watch them. Examples: flying in fog; trying to land on the top of a statute in downtown Philly; running the drone into himself; flying FPV w/o a VO from inside his car; etc.

The guy is a menace. Watch him and you have to agree. There is no other logical outcome.

 

[Wreckhunter]

Can you post a video of him flying a drone that you think is unsafe?

Most of the videos he has posted are of unsafe acts,so there is no single video that shows otherwise.

 

[jwilson]

I watched three of his videos and they didn't look unsafe. Some were definitely illegal. Like flying by a statue of William Penn way up on the top of a building. Maybe 800 feet up. I don't know if any of his videos got taken down.

 

[EssenYVR]

I watched three of his videos and they didn't look unsafe. Some were definitely illegal. Like flying by a statue of William Penn way up on the top of a building. Maybe 800 feet up.

According to Wikipedia, 548 feet. Interesting to read about the curse of the William Penn statue - could it be that it's the cause of this vlogger's woes?

 

[Wreckhunter]

I watched three of his videos and they didn't look unsafe. Some were definitely illegal. Like flying by a statue of William Penn way up on the top of a building. Maybe 800 feet up. I don't know if any of his videos got taken down.

Illegal would be in the same league as unsafe right ?

 

[Vic Moss]

Illegal would be in the same league as unsafe right ?

Not always, but in the case of Philly Mike, yeah. Just about every time.

 

[jwilson]

Illegal would be in the same league as unsafe right ?

No there are a lot of dumb FAA rules.

 

[Vic Moss]

No there are a lot of dumb FAA rules.

Many of the ones he broke are NOT dumb.

 

[Torque]

No there are a lot of dumb FAA rules.

Name your top 3.

 

[Ty Pilot]

That this guy has any followers or sympathizers, is a sad comment on the state of remote piloting today; especially in light of how he has conducted himself since his first contact with the FAA. He conceals his arrogance and extreme anti-authority positions with his abundant and willful ignorance, and pretends to be the classic "victim". Brilliant.

He doesn't give a second thought to how his actions are perceived by the general public, nor their impact upon the remote piloting community in general. He is a gigantic troll with a solid middle finger 'salute' to all who fly drones. The sooner his fifteen minutes are up the better.

 

[jwilson]

Name your top 3.

I would say maintaining VLOS is the worst one. Then not flying over people. The altitude restrictions should be dependent on where you are, not fixed for every location. DJI has admitted this by allowing 1,000 meters in certain locations.

Look at these statistics:

How many general aviation deaths per year?


In the United States, general aviation accounts for 94% of fatal aviation accidents and in 2019 there were 1,302 general aviation accidents resulting in 414 fatalities. The fatal accident rate was 1.029 per 100,000 flight hours that year.

How many people were killed by drones?

 

[Vic Moss]

I would say maintaining VLOS is the worst one. Then not flying over people. The altitude restrictions should be dependent on where you are, not fixed for every location. DJI has admitted this by allowing 1,000 meters in certain locations.

I would agree to a point about BVLOS. Yes, we can fly safety further than we can see. And the FAA knows this. There are some working to relax VLOS rules at the very moment. The issue comes about when jokers fly out 3 or 4 miles and have no idea where what is around them. That is completely irresponsible.

Ops over people are being relaxed as well, and that announcement will be coming soon. 107.31 and 107.145 waiver acceptance policies are in the final stages of being approved. For 44809 flights, you'll need to take that up with the CBOs.

And altitude needs to stay at 400'. The reason DJI increased their limits is due to terrain, not safety. I fly in the mountains frequently, and on more than one occasion have been locked out of clearing a ridge. I'm glad DJI relaxed those. But the 400' restriction needs to stay in place. That is there for safety. And if that's abolished or relaxed, we'll see yahoos flying at ridiculous altitudes even more than we do now. There is a very good reason we have the 400' rule.

Look at these statistics:

How many general aviation deaths per year?


In the United States, general aviation accounts for 94% of fatal aviation accidents and in 2019 there were 1,302 general aviation accidents resulting in 414 fatalities. The fatal accident rate was 1.029 per 100,000 flight hours that year.

How many people were killed by drones?

This is a good rubric and the FAA knows this as well. When drone rules were first created, there was no data to base rules on. And the FAA is a data driven agency. Now we have quite a bit of data and some rules are being relaxed. But for every good set of data, there are always the outliers who play cowboy and make the industry look bad.

With the prosecution of Philly Mike, and what I hope is severe punishment, the idiots with drones will finally understand rules are there for the safety of the NAS, and flying drones are a privilege, not a right. I hope we start seeing even more FAA actions against the most egregious of the scaflaws.

 

[Aerophile]

I would say maintaining VLOS is the worst one. Then not flying over people. The altitude restrictions should be dependent on where you are, not fixed for every location. DJI has admitted this by allowing 1,000 meters in certain locations.

Look at these statistics:

How many general aviation deaths per year?


In the United States, general aviation accounts for 94% of fatal aviation accidents and in 2019 there were 1,302 general aviation accidents resulting in 414 fatalities. The fatal accident rate was 1.029 per 100,000 flight hours that year.

How many people were killed by drones?

It's hard to take anyone seriously when they start with the straw-man, false equivalency between General Aviation and this nimrod from Philly.

If you can't understand why that's such complete nonsense, that only reinforces the disconnect from reality. Precisely why we can't have nice things and why this hobby is doomed.

 

[Vic Moss]

It's hard to take anyone seriously when they start with the straw-man, false equivalency between General Aviation and this nimrod from Philly.

If you can't understand why that's such complete nonsense, that only reinforces the disconnect from reality. Precisely why we can't have nice things and why this hobby is doomed.

Actually, when it comes to aviation, the FAA does (& did) this quite often. And it's an argument we use on occasion ourselves in FAA Aviation Rulemaking Committees (ARCs).

While the FAA is getting better at UAS data compilation, they didn't have much to go on at first. When crafting legislation they used a lot of manned aviation statistics as guidelines for unmanned regulations.

And now we use them in ARCs to prove just how much safer drones are when we're giving the FAA suggestions on why rules need to be relaxed. On more than one occasion we've been told they are looking for zero deaths in certain situations. We point out that acceptable levels of risk are allowed in manned aviation, so why can't we allow that same type of rubric when crafting unmanned regs.

So no, comparing the two is not a disconnect from reality, and most definitely NOT going to doom this hobby (or industry). As a matter of fact, it is used regularly to craft relaxed FAA regulation for sUAS use.