Unless I feel particularly motivated this will be my last reply to this thread.
In the scale of evolution the hobbyist drone has come a long way in a very short period of time. Aviation has been considered a viable mode of transport for over one hundred years. Making similes in evolutionary terms is a great game to play but mostly makes for amusing nonsense. The point is birds are here to stay as is commercial and private aviation.
Drone technology will continue to develop, particularly in the commercial market. However, domestic users will be targeted for irresponsible behaviour which will affect the vast majority that fly sympathetically within current rules, regs, guidelines and legislation. I would love to rely on punitive measures in the current codes of practice for those few that flout the rules, and are punished accordingly. At the current ever increasing rate of domestic market drone sales and the continued malpractice of the ill informed, I fear the numbers of those flagrantly breaking the boundaries of acceptable behaviour will increase in the same scale. I don't think the relevant authorities will have the resources to isolate the culprits and to bring them to justice, so something will have to be done and that will be restrictive use or no use at all.
Some of the arguments put forward in defence of those breaking current codes of practice are ludicrous, blaming everything and everybody but themselves. I read somewhere, possibly in this thread, that DJI are spoiling our enjoyment by introducing NFZ architecture that severely restricts our drones, and that they will never buy another DJI product again. Does he/she really believe that DJI want to do this to stop people from buying their product? No, they're trying to work with the authorities so their sales will continue to grow. They have had to do this because of the numbskulls that think only about themselves and not about the safety issues that currently exist nor the continued future enjoyment of the majority of reasoned owners.
DJI have developed some incredible products, truly amazing. The software development has been buggy; my android goapp crashes regularly and I'm not happy about it. But if all the necessary pre flight checks have been made and the settings in the app figured out correctly, the hardware design is almost fool proof. The mavic will stop what it's doing and return to home with a mind boggling degree of accuracy if the fundamental understanding of how the aircraft works and how it should be set up pre flight, and what you should do if things don't go according to plan. Unless of course you didn't set your minimum altitudes or check the compass was showing high degrees of interference at start up or you turned obstacle avoidance off or you didn't gauge the wind or you etc.........
I'm sure that won't put people off flying with no checks and laying blame elsewhere. I'm not saying all probelms are operator inflicted, but the vast majority are.
Sermon on the mount over. Out.
