To be fair, a 250g RC aircraft can cause a lot of destruction to a plane that’s in the process of taking off/landing or to a car on a highway.
Having said that, they really have gone overboard with the regulation. Restrict airspace near airports and over highways, not something as ambiguous as “over people”. They also (still) require a spotter for FPV which is just silly. The point of the spotter is so you can figure out where it went if you lose control (presumably, to take responsibility if it crashes into something important and does some damage). Anyone flying FPV is going to know exactly where the RC aircraft was when they lost control (and modern ones will return themselves home if contact is lost like that).
They need to focus more on regulating features instead of “what and where”. If every RC aircraft has to have a return to home feature that would make more sense than something super ambiguous like, “don’t fly above people.”
Agreed, I have no desire to fly near airports or over 400ft. I’m just flying my FPV quad in my backyard, no other person in sight, and they worry about my 260g drone and not my 240g drone, it’s overlooking much more important things like how you use it and its features, as you said.
The “what and where” requirements are easy to enforce. If a drone goes out of control and strikes a person, it was clearly in violation of a rule against flying over people.
“Return home” is a good start, but it is not enough. The feature set also has to include “see and avoid”. If it can decide to “return home” directly into the side of a manned balloon, it is not safe enough for unrestricted autonomous operation.
I say this as a balloon pilot who has observed drone pilots operating in the vicinity, and even attempting to land on top of a manned balloon.
To be fair, a 250g RC aircraft can cause a lot of destruction to a plane that’s in the process of taking off/landing or to a car on a highway.
Having said that, they really have gone overboard with the regulation. Restrict airspace near airports and over highways, not something as ambiguous as “over people”. They also (still) require a spotter for FPV which is just silly. The point of the spotter is so you can figure out where it went if you lose control (presumably, to take responsibility if it crashes into something important and does some damage). Anyone flying FPV is going to know exactly where the RC aircraft was when they lost control (and modern ones will return themselves home if contact is lost like that).
They need to focus more on regulating features instead of “what and where”. If every RC aircraft has to have a return to home feature that would make more sense than something super ambiguous like, “don’t fly above people.”
Agreed, I have no desire to fly near airports or over 400ft. I’m just flying my FPV quad in my backyard, no other person in sight, and they worry about my 260g drone and not my 240g drone, it’s overlooking much more important things like how you use it and its features, as you said.
The “what and where” requirements are easy to enforce. If a drone goes out of control and strikes a person, it was clearly in violation of a rule against flying over people.
“Return home” is a good start, but it is not enough. The feature set also has to include “see and avoid”. If it can decide to “return home” directly into the side of a manned balloon, it is not safe enough for unrestricted autonomous operation.
I say this as a balloon pilot who has observed drone pilots operating in the vicinity, and even attempting to land on top of a manned balloon.