FAA and Hollywood, progress?

[Tuomas P.]

On our news today, six Hollywood production companies allowed to do unmanned aerial photography. Area must be closed for general public. Max flight time 30 mins below 120 m AGL. Any more info on this?
Tuomas / Finland, Europe

 

[Ronan]

Bunch of us are chatting about that on other forums.

Basically people are laughing because:
FAA still thinks it can regulate something they haven't put legalities on.
Hollywood is a MAJOR user of drones and have been for at least 5 years.
5+ years of FAA working on it and only 6-7 companies to show for it... splendid, i'll get my 'approval' by 2050 at this rate...

 

[stevemaller]

http://forum.freeflysystems.com/ind...exemptions-being-filed.4402/page-2#post-52805

Here is a post on the matter. Very unsettling.

I’ve written up a Rather Good Guide® to the Exemption document along with some comments as to what it would mean if the contents of the FAA’s exemption were to apply to all commercial sUAS operations in the USA.

My main web site, rathergoodguides.com is down right now (because Apple’s not yet come up with a fix for the Shellshock exploit), but you can download it for free at https://gumroad.com/l/rggfaa001

There are some doozies in there apart from pilots having to have a manned aircraft pilots licenses, a current class III medical and passing a biennial flight review for the aircraft for which they hold the license. That would mean for me that I have to get a Class III medical, and then re-up my certification for gliders, even though I want to fly a Cinestar commercially.

Also, as you will see if you download the document, the sUAS has to be able to abort a flight if it encounters unexpected obstacles. Not quite sure how it will do that.

Also, it has to return to home if there’s a loss of transmitter signal or if it loses the GPS signal. Errr…..how can it return to home if it loses the GPS signal? It must have some form of inertial navigation system, I suspect.

Anyway, download and enjoy.
Andy.
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[Old Man]

A biannual for type of aircraft being flown, or more specifically, a multirotor. that should prove interesting. The law, such as it is, is literal so recurrency in a full scale would not meet the applicability requirements. To conduct a biannual one has to have a certificated instructor or FAA representative provide the training.

I can't see any reason why a commercial MR operator should not be subjected to the same medical standards as a full scale operator. I find that to be fair and reasonable for someone that would be flying near people. The standards are not that difficult to meet and subjecting oneself to the exam might well end up saving their life if conditions were present they would not have learned about otherwise.

I would expect the return to home requirement upon loss of GPS will get modified to add, "or immediately land at the current location" relatively soon.

 

[Av8Chuck]

I have stayed away from discussing this recent ruling to try and get a better understanding of what this really means to people who want to own and operate a sUAS business.

For the moment, with the exception of those that received the COA it doesn't appear that this ruling has any effect on the rest of us in the sense that the FAA claimed it was against the law on Wednesday and they're claiming that its still against the law on Friday. As far as I know they have not provided any way for a sUAS business to comply with any regulation that would permit its existence. As a pilot I have to take a biennial to fly my plane, but every year I have to take a driving test at the airport so that I can drive my car to my hanger to fly my plane? The FAA is full of these sorts of stupid rules that make no sense, I don't expect that trend to change anytime soon.

The reason I bring that up is in context of the medical requirement in this ruling, you can fly a plane without a medical but not a multirotor:

• The Sport Pilot rule allows a pilot to fly light sport aircraft without the need for an FAA medical certificate. However, a sport pilot must hold at least a current and valid U.S. driver's license in order to exercise this privilege. The only exceptions are for operations in a glider or balloon, which does not require a driver's license….
• For the sport pilot certificate, you must be at least 17 years old (or 16 years old if you are applying to operate a glider or balloon).
• Be able to read, speak, write, and understand English.
• Hold at least a third class medical, or hold a current and valid U.S. driver's license for operations in light sport aircraft other than a glider or balloon.

 

[Old Man]

You can indeed fly without a medical, but not commercially. We should expect a level of continuity with current commercial standards. The extent is the question. I do agree, at the moment there is no law, but some have positioned themselves to assure continuance when things become law.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[kloner]

if somebody thought some companies filling a 333 was gonna change the laws over night, they were sorely mistaken..... medicals aren't that hard to pass and if somebody can't, it's for hearing, vision or risk of diabetic shock,,,, i personally wouldn't want somebdy flying anything near me with such a condition....

whats the third to last paragraph say here?
http://aviationweek.com/business-aviation/faa-approves-uav-use-moviemaking

 

[oculi caelum]

http://forum.freeflysystems.com/ind...exemptions-being-filed.4402/page-2#post-52805

Here is a post on the matter. Very unsettling.

My main web site, rathergoodguides.com is down right now (because Apple’s not yet come up with a fix for the Shellshock exploit), but you can download it for free at https://gumroad.com/l/rggfaa001

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I'm pretty new to the field of copter flying and movie making so I've been waiting for the Feds to make a move. This doc (you enter zero bucks in the amount to get it as a freebie) really nails it. Doozies is the word for it. There's NFW that anyone -- not even the movie makers can go with these requirements -- there's stuff that plain doesnt make sense. Well worth a read -- I'm not sure who the author is but, man, he nailed it.

I agree with Ronan, though. Closing the barn door after the horses bolted!

 

[jdennings]

The RTH requirement without GPS just goes to show how unprepared and ignorant they are, and what a joke this all is. The FAA apparently is doubling down, attempting to set some sort of precedent after losing in court and being struck down by a federal judge ...
Meanwhile, in the "let's pretend we have the authority to set the stage and make a precedent" department, http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-faa-wont-tell-its-drone-test-sites-what-to-test.

I can only hope the upcoming lawsuit by Amazon, AMA, 3DR and others can remind the FAA that this government agency is not above the law, and that we are still in a democracy where congress makes laws, not FAA officials pretending to do so and going about it ad-hoc ...

Kudos to Kloner for gaming their own game, though ...

 

[R_Lefebvre]

Does it sort of seem like the US is kind of going the way of Canada? No rigid technical requirements to gain some sort of airworthiness (either machine or pilot), but instead every single job is a case of apply for exemption, and wait for permission, hoping the permission comes in time to meet clients needs?

 

[Ronan]

A biannual for type of aircraft being flown, or more specifically, a multirotor. that should prove interesting. The law, such as it is, is literal so recurrency in a full scale would not meet the applicability requirements. To conduct a biannual one has to have a certificated instructor or FAA representative provide the training.

I can't see any reason why a commercial MR operator should not be subjected to the same medical standards as a full scale operator. I find that to be fair and reasonable for someone that would be flying near people. The standards are not that difficult to meet and subjecting oneself to the exam might well end up saving their life if conditions were present they would not have learned about otherwise.

I would expect the return to home requirement upon loss of GPS will get modified to add, "or immediately land at the current location" relatively soon.

Because no one else requires it. The FAA isn't so special to demand all kind of non-sense from law abiding US citizens.

What's next? Medical exam for driver's? Give them an inch, they will take a mile.

I still fail to see how flying a full scale airplane is the same as flying a small UAV. I can understand needed to know similar safety things, but as for learning to fly a full scale airplane, putting my life in danger, the life of the instructor, using a large chunk of my money (cheapest i found was around $3000) is suppose to make me a better commercial UAV pilot vs the hobbyist at the park/beach/backyard/street with the same UAV.

Personally i'm healthy as a horse *knocks on wood* and my glasses corrects my vision to perfect. Still no excuse to have this bs accepted.

Does it sort of seem like the US is kind of going the way of Canada? No rigid technical requirements to gain some sort of airworthiness (either machine or pilot), but instead every single job is a case of apply for exemption, and wait for permission, hoping the permission comes in time to meet clients needs?

Hope not, this new law is the reason why i moved out of Canada! The local branch took on average 2-3 weeks to give the A-Ok for EACH 'mission'. You can't run a business like this. It was much better before, sign up for permission for a year, then do it again the next year.

 

[scotth]

My take on it is this.. if you derive the majority of your UAV income from working on closed sets, then it is a definite win to be part of the exemption. However, by applying for an exemption, you have acknowledged that you need one. So if down the road you wander off and do a job that does not adhere to your FAA approved manual, and the FAA finds out about it.. you are probably going to get a 10 day letter of investigation and subsequently lose your exemption. And as an added bonus the FAA is likely to also suspend any pilot certificates that you may possess. This is how they operate, at least at the local level.

Going through this arduous process to obtain the exemptions was no small effort. It's a good step toward eventually building a set of regs that make sense for the rest of us, and I appreciate the ones that have gone through it.

 

[scotth]

if somebody thought some companies filling a 333 was gonna change the laws over night, they were sorely mistaken..... medicals aren't that hard to pass and if somebody can't, it's for hearing, vision or risk of diabetic shock,,,, i personally wouldn't want somebdy flying anything near me with such a condition....

There are plenty of ways to flunk a third class medical that should not have any bearing on your ability to safely operate a UAV. We're not flying passengers here. Self certification should be sufficient. And in 35 years of flying I've seen more than a few pilot friends with valid medicals drop dead at home.

 

[kloner]

i was permanently disabled for 8 years with three fused joints and passed one.

I'll bet the final ruling depending on what your trying to do might not include all that, but that's years away. From a professional standpoint as someone that is looking to hire people to operate these and with the "privacy" laws we have in the constitution i have no other way to know if a person is healthy like they say on an app and would rather see it on a piece of paper from there doctor.

 

[scotth]

i was permanently disabled for 8 years with three fused joints and passed one.

I'll bet the final ruling depending on what your trying to do might not include all that, but that's years away. From a professional standpoint as someone that is looking to hire people to operate these and with the "privacy" laws we have in the constitution i have no other way to know if a person is healthy like they say on an app and would rather see it on a piece of paper from there doctor.

Assuming you can see and hear, your blood pressure and urine check are the big deal breakers on the 3rd. However on the application itself, as you know, there are plenty of places where you can 'forget' about things like drug use, etc. Speaking of that, the urine test does not look into illicit drug use at all. I would be more concerned about a 'high' pilot than a lot of other things. I have to submit to random drug testing as a part of a 135 operation I'm involved in. If you're gonna hire someone to fly for you that would seem a logical thing to do as well. at least as part of the screening process.

 

[kloner]

the drug test is handled at the business level and is about the only right you have as a business owner to look into yourself.... well that and the local 600 wants to see the same thing...

 

[Old Man]

A commercial driver does have to subject themselves to a medical examination. That medical is virtually the same as a Third Class aviation medical, which in aviation parlance is what qualifies one to start out as a Student Pilot and graduate to Private Pilot. It's not that rigorous. If they were serious they would step up commercial operators to a Class II medical, which I would support. A propeller spinning vertically or 3 to 12 spinning horizontally, either way I don't want to be anywhere around when some operator that avoids personal responsibility and falls over flat from some easily detectable medical condition while they have an aircraft in the air.

I do not understand why people that want to make money from aviation, specifically aerial photography in one from or another, believe they should be exempt from some of the rules true aviators have to abide by. The vast majority of them are there for flight safety, both yours and that of other operators. If we are going to play in the big sky playground we should be cognizant of how that playground functions. We should be able to communicate effectively, make use of aeronautical charts and understand the graphics, and know what to do and how to do when we are in a condition that would involve a full scale aircraft.

There is so much more to safely piloting anything than just pushing the sticks around and pointing a camera. When we stepped into big boy shoes we should have understood the playground became considerably more sophisticated.

 

[Ronan]

A commercial driver does have to subject themselves to a medical examination. That medical is virtually the same as a Third Class aviation medical, which in aviation parlance is what qualifies one to start out as a Student Pilot and graduate to Private Pilot. It's not that rigorous. If they were serious they would step up commercial operators to a Class II medical, which I would support. A propeller spinning vertically or 3 to 12 spinning horizontally, either way I don't want to be anywhere around when some operator that avoids personal responsibility and falls over flat from some easily detectable medical condition while they have an aircraft in the air.

I do not understand why people that want to make money from aviation, specifically aerial photography in one from or another, believe they should be exempt from some of the rules true aviators have to abide by. The vast majority of them are there for flight safety, both yours and that of other operators. If we are going to play in the big sky playground we should be cognizant of how that playground functions. We should be able to communicate effectively, make use of aeronautical charts and understand the graphics, and know what to do and how to do when we are in a condition that would involve a full scale aircraft.

There is so much more to safely piloting anything than just pushing the sticks around and pointing a camera. When we stepped into big boy shoes we should have understood the playground became considerably more sophisticated.

Because we are not flying full scale airplanes or helicopters, period. If I wanted to do that... I would go get a full scale license and rent/buy an airplane/helicopter.

Again, look at other countries that have successfully integrated UAV's! The US/FAA isn't on some cutting edge technology that's only viable/affect them!

I'm more scared of people racing down the highway in their huge F150/F350 while eating a double cheeseburger. Plenty more of those going around!

I have NO problems abiding by some of the full scale rules, especially about safety, but for the FAA to try and tell me to pay for a full scale license is just dumb and absurd. Our small UAV's are not the same as full scale planes. Just the same a car isn't a tank.

 

[kloner]

the comparison of "people racing down the highway in their huge F150/F350 while eating a double cheeseburger" in my eyes would be comparible to someone on a movie set flying a 55 lbs multi without aviation knowledge.

I still fail to see how flying a full scale airplane is the same as flying a small UAV. I can understand needed to know similar safety things, but as for learning to fly a full scale airplane, putting my life in danger, the life of the instructor, using a large chunk of my money (cheapest i found was around $3000) is suppose to make me a better commercial UAV pilot vs the hobbyist at the park/beach/backyard/street with the same UAV.

Because without knowledge and equipment a ppl has you have no way to know what airspace your in, what pilots with lives in seats are facing and or expecting so you are uneducated to the situation and it becomes unsafe. the day a multi goes through some guys cessna windshield you'll get it. It's not if, but when. Becoming an aviator makes you a whole different person with a whole different respect to whats going on up there. Honestly i had a similar feeling as you Ronin till i've gone through all this training but now i see what there after, it's the attention to details and the understanding what is happening up there. Lets say your in the middle of no where when an airplane has every right to go to 1' AGL and run it at any time for however long, when your flying along do you know what direction to yield and what direction the guy your getting ready to hit is going to go? well that's things you learn in pilot school.

In a professional setting that is a pretty big deal, these aint phantoms, there epic and alexa carrying monsters that fly at 54.9 lbs, there equivelent to the weight of a decent sized dog, or 6 large canada geese. if you think that's a game, go for it and see how it turns out. I personally want the attorneys able to fight for my freedom if that happened to me or one of my pilots and not on the loosing side. It's all fun and games till somebody gets hurt. When you do this for hire and are in the air for 10 hours a day the odds start going against you.this aint 2 packs a week, more like 60-80 flight packs a day.

A lot of schools show prices and is the plane or the trainer only, it takes both and it's usually $10-$12k..... a pro with certification will bring in $12-$16k a day

 

[Ronan]

the comparison of "people racing down the highway in their huge F150/F350 while eating a double cheeseburger" in my eyes would be comparible to someone on a movie set flying a 55 lbs multi without aviation knowledge.



Because without knowledge and equipment a ppl has you have no way to know what airspace your in, what pilots with lives in seats are facing and or expecting so you are uneducated to the situation and it becomes unsafe. the day a multi goes through some guys cessna windshield you'll get it. It's not if, but when. Becoming an aviator makes you a whole different person with a whole different respect to whats going on up there. Honestly i had a similar feeling as you Ronin till i've gone through all this training but now i see what there after, it's the attention to details and the understanding what is happening up there. Lets say your in the middle of no where when an airplane has every right to go to 1' AGL and run it at any time for however long, when your flying along do you know what direction to yield and what direction the guy your getting ready to hit is going to go? well that's things you learn in pilot school.

In a professional setting that is a pretty big deal, these aint phantoms, there epic and alexa carrying monsters that fly at 54.9 lbs, there equivelent to the weight of a decent sized dog, or 6 large canada geese. if you think that's a game, go for it and see how it turns out. I personally want the attorneys able to fight for my freedom if that happened to me or one of my pilots and not on the loosing side. It's all fun and games till somebody gets hurt. When you do this for hire and are in the air for 10 hours a day the odds start going against you.this aint 2 packs a week, more like 60-80 flight packs a day.

A lot of schools show prices and is the plane or the trainer only, it takes both and it's usually $10-$12k..... a pro with certification will bring in $12-$16k a day

Unrealistic since i doubt we will have ten's of thousands of drone's with commercial licenses all over the place.

Also, it's completely fine educating future commercial UAV pilots, no one said it shouldn't be done (it's done everywhere else in the world), but to hold them to the same standards (and price to get that license) as full scale pilot is again, absurd and unrealistic.

Example: France, you pass a general aviation test, then you provide a 'book' to show your expertise of commercial UAV's, safety measure's, processes, etc. After that you go get your license, voila done.