What the FAA are proposing in that document is an alignment of regulations that will clarify model v preofessional use. It is setting the background for the FAA to introduce a system similar to that which is currently working very well in the UK as I see it. I therefore see nothing wrong with what the FAA are proposing here, in fact quite the opposite. Regulation is required in order to maintain a safe environment- imagine if there was no regulation of the roads? No one complains that they have to drive on the right hand side of the road do they- because it allows safe use of the roads.
There's a couple of very good points in several of the posts above. Addressing, from my perspective, Carapau's post, is what the FAA is trying to do will not effectively nor accuratly represent a very small class of remotely piloted aircraft that are significantly limited in range and/or duration. The rules are being written in a manner that represents aircraft as they have been for the past 50 years. Essentially treating RPV's like they had a person sitting inside of it handling a flight of hours and hours in duration, flying from one civil airport to another. These regulations will for all intents and purposes completely block people like us that are trying to make a living using aircraft designs that have never been a part of history, using technology that in large part originated with the hobby industry which later expanded to military use. The military is pretty much exempt from civil regulations while the hobby industry doesn't exist from the government perspective.
OTH, hobbyists have fallen into the trap of not seeing the forest for the trees. One doesn't like FPV, one doesn't fly commercially, another only flies at tree top level, etc., so each fails to see how the total regulatory package WILL at some activity level, impact what they are already doing or want to do in the future. So they are not responding to the pleas for help and rebuttal. The larger issue is how to get everyone to see the larger picture. The AMA is focused on those topics that impact themselves. To protect the hobby in turn protects their organization and staff positions. The commercial side has few concerns for the hobby side so we end up with a dividing line that prevents the two sides from working together, and in some cases creates a larger divide which prevents any potential useful networking.
Av8Chuck brought up some great points in other threads wher he mentions we (commercial operators/operations) don't have representation with government entities. We see corporations like Amazon making noise about using FPV for deliveries or whatever but we recognize their comments are more about obtaining free advertising, not promoting the type of aircraft. Corporate aerospace is well represented at their level, which is substantiated by the original formation of the ARC committee and the current push to clear airspace for their products. So why haven't we, as a group of multirotor professionals, form our own political group? No, we don't have a lot of money as individuals but as a group we present a larger image of who we are and what we do.
Candidly, there's a group that is networking within political circles and corporate aerospace entities that are studying the use of multirotors and similar to carry smaller versions of their larger specialized payloads. I don't think they can carry the water for everyone without at least a large portion of those concerned getting involved at some level and/or association. Long story short, we need to form our own PAC, and that needs to be done using people that well understand the system as it currently functions.
Your thoughts?
