If so, the FAA has launched campaign targeting you as a rookie drone pilots Drones are no longer high priced specialty item, they come in all shapes and sizes. From affordable film-quality options to toy-sized mini versions now most anyone can own one. Drones have become cheap, fun, and easy enough to control that they make good gifts for any holiday season. But that means that where tech-savvy families would have had to remember to wrap batteries alongside holiday gifts, now they need to worry about Federal Aviation Administration flight regulations.
Thanks to the massive rise of consumer drones, the FAA released a video this week that proposes best practices to help people “stay off the naughty list” as they play with their airborne gifts. The “Know Before You Fly” video is available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF5Q9JvBhxM
It’s safe to say drones were one of the hottest topics in 2014. “Drone porn” became a thing, and the FAA spent so much time going back and forth on how to regulate them that we might not have regulations until 2017. So it’s no surprise that the issue of privacy is actually on a lot of people’s minds:
If you were gifted a drone for Christmas, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has you in its sights. It may not be in the form of long-awaited laws for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that are due later this year, but is a campaign directed at rookie pilots whose expertise may be outstripped by their unbridled enthusiasm.
With the increasing availability of cheap and feature-packed drones, these aircraft have become an aviation concern. The danger is the potential for swarms of drones taking to skies across the US, controlled by people who mightn’t have such a great handle on how to use them.
The FAA is continuing to work away on new regulations to keep all these flying vehicles in check, but in the meantime it has teamed up with UAV organizations and hobby groups to launch Know Before You Fly, a public awareness campaign promoting its already existing rules. Primarily, this means keeping the drone within sight, not flying it over 400 ft (122 m), conducting routine inspections of the craft, keeping clear of manned aircraft and notifying airports or control towers if flying within 5 miles (8 km).
The FAA has also attracted criticism for its slow progress in revamping rules for what is a new era in unmanned flight. It remains illegal to fly UAVs for commercial purposes unless granted permission from the agency, a roadblock that has seen some private firms promise to take their operations overseas.
But Know Before You Fly is at least an acknowledgement of the sharp uptake in the number of drones taking to the skies and expresses a desire to inform and cooperate with budding pilots. The campaign will incorporate a website, educational materials offered at the point-of-sale, along with digital and social media campaigns.
