Is the drone war lost?

[PMaughan]

Is it time to move on and not worry about the d word anymore?

I'm still fairly new to the world of pro AP but every single one of my clients so far has wanted to hire a drone, not a UAV, RPAS or whatever. Holding back the tide of common parlance is a hard task.

Is it really all that derogatory? Sure when you're talking about the military aircraft but people can differentiate between those and our domesticated variety can't they?

Anyway, interested to know what people think.

Cheers

Pete

 

[radiomikey]

Agreed. I don't like the word but nobody knows what the hell you're talking about if you use anything else.

 

[Carapau]

I spent ages trying to avoid using drone but people always remained quizickle until I said 'you know, a ... drone' and the response I always got was 'cooool, how high, how far, how much and how fast' I then realised that the only people who seem to think that 'drone' is a bad word is those of us who use them! Language is an ever evolving thing. Think about it and jets. When jet engines first came out everyone thought is was purely a military thing. Not any more. Drone has moved on and I think even the media get that too now. For me I now use the word as my prefered choice; people just better understand it, I mean what the hell is an RPAS to someone outside the industry. Language is all about communicating and with 'drone' now a very recognisable term with the public and not just for military use, then why not use it?

 

[R_Lefebvre]

Yep. I hate the word drone too, and fought against it. But, it's done, we lost. Even when I used the very clear and descriptive term "Aerial Robots" people still did not know what it meant. They'd think like "So, you have like Johnny5, riding on a drone?"

 

[Ronan]

Agreed. I don't like the word but nobody knows what the hell you're talking about if you use anything else.

Exactly.

I noticed less people are bothered by the 'd' word, and it seems to be mostly us bothered by it, due to the bad media press and the militarization of the word drone.

 

[PeteDee]

I really don't care so much about stupid people calling them drones I do tell them to pull their heads in when almost all of them assume they are only can be used to purve on someone, yes of course why else would I ever have one???