SamaraMedia
Active Member
Great job Chuck! Inspirational work by all that contributed, thanks for sharing.
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Promoting Commercial sUAS.
- Thread starter Av8Chuck
- Start date
Great job Chuck! Inspirational work by all that contributed, thanks for sharing.
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MombasaFlash
Heli's & Tele's bloke
Well done Chuck. That's some jazzy editing!
FlyGirl
Member
I think everyone is waiting for the FAA's proverbial shoe to drop.... That and see what the various lawsuits that have been filed against the FAA's "intrusion" brings.
Buzz_Roavr
Member
I see reps from the FAA are attending the UAV show in London later this month. After some tips maybe?!
FlyGirl
Member
I hope so.... Seems like you guys across the pond got it right.
MombasaFlash
Heli's & Tele's bloke
They say be careful what you wish for. The CAA might have a certification system in place but it is an expensive, drawn out and tiresome process. It would be wishful thinking to imagine that it isn't going to keep getting even more tiresome and regulated.
Old Man
Active Member
The key to all this is not to wait for someone else to make the rules for you, especially someone that has no experience or interest in what you do. One makes something happen or they sit back and accept what happens through their apathy. Harsh words but proven accurate so many time in the past.
There is a very large group of experienced professionals that are fully capable of banding together to determine what would work, work well, and be written in a manner that would fit within existing regulations while expanding existing regulations to better identify and qualify specif types of aircraft for specific purposes. That same group of people have the ability to establish reasonable and safe certification processes while developing minimum equipment lists.
Who are they? You, me, parts and system dealers, manufacturers, hobbyists, the AMA membership, all aerial cinema companies, commercial pilots with diversity in full scale and hobby grade flight operations. Everyone new regulations could touch will be touched in some manner. Some more than others, but nobody is an island unto themselves in this game. To sit back and wait is the same as saying we are willing to relegate our futures to the decisions cast by those with vast sums of money already invested in the process development. Most don't have any idea just how tenuous our position is at the moment.
An effective organization would of course have to be political at some level in order to communicate with politicians, but having people simply join together to initiate discussion for wants and desires is where things start. From there the numbers game is what the government sees, especially when accompanied with economics. None of this needs to be hard but would be time consuming at various levels. From a strategic standpoint the best way to lose is to do nothing.
There is a very large group of experienced professionals that are fully capable of banding together to determine what would work, work well, and be written in a manner that would fit within existing regulations while expanding existing regulations to better identify and qualify specif types of aircraft for specific purposes. That same group of people have the ability to establish reasonable and safe certification processes while developing minimum equipment lists.
Who are they? You, me, parts and system dealers, manufacturers, hobbyists, the AMA membership, all aerial cinema companies, commercial pilots with diversity in full scale and hobby grade flight operations. Everyone new regulations could touch will be touched in some manner. Some more than others, but nobody is an island unto themselves in this game. To sit back and wait is the same as saying we are willing to relegate our futures to the decisions cast by those with vast sums of money already invested in the process development. Most don't have any idea just how tenuous our position is at the moment.
An effective organization would of course have to be political at some level in order to communicate with politicians, but having people simply join together to initiate discussion for wants and desires is where things start. From there the numbers game is what the government sees, especially when accompanied with economics. None of this needs to be hard but would be time consuming at various levels. From a strategic standpoint the best way to lose is to do nothing.
FlyGirl
Member
I didn't sit back.... I commented on the government website regarding the FAA's interpretation and I am a member of the AMA as well as support their efforts to reverse the FAA's interpretation. They are my organization. I'm a hobbyist, not a professional. I've done what I can do.
Av8Chuck
Member
No you can do more. That sounds pretentious but it isn't. You are doing more by participating in these sorts of conversations. Not everyone has the same level of interest so they won't necessarily participate at the same level as others, however its not the members of this community that differentiate between professional and hobbyist, thet's the FAA. I value the the opinions of all who want to fly for whatever reason they choose to fly.
So part of the key to being a part of the regulatory process is simply evangelizing for our rights to do this, however YOU want to define THIS. This is not about conformity, we don't have to be the same but we all certainly share a common interest, as a community we should not allow the FAA to divide or categorize us.
Agreed, first they divide and then they conquer. Slam the commercial users with non-sense, and then go after the hobbyists.
Let's remind the FAA who they work for, this has gotten out of hands between the illegal practices of the FAA and the lies fed to the media.
Wasn't there a police officer that told someone he couldn't fly his 'drone' in his own backyard!? Sub 500mm little quad, used as a hobbyist, in his own personal airspace, on his private property. Talk about making it easy but no... all this non-sense has gotten to the general population and the officers in charge of keeping the peace!...
Next thing will be one of us, handcuffed, for shooting a commercial or doing an inspection because the police is sure it's illegal since the FAA keep's lying to everyone about it... Who pay's the bail when that happens until things are cleared out in a hearing?...
filmfly
Member
I'm glad to see people are engaged in this discussion, and I hope more will join. It seems clear that the motivation is there amongst our community. However the problems we have with the FAA and with our public relations won't be solved by getting upset at them; what we will need is a dialogue with them to bring our interests to the table, and to show them how seriously we take these issues. Otherwise we are just a bunch of unprofessional amateurs in their eyes.
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Agreed, but how do we go about doing that? The AMA got slapped in the face with the latest interpretation by the FAA, so it shows a large organization like the AMA means absolutely nothing to the FAA. Heck... apparently a ruling in court doesn't mean anything either...
Someone has Congress cell number?...
Racerx1962
Member
The FAA does NOT write the laws, that's the duty of our legislators. Here is the link to the Subcommittee on Aviation... http://transportation.house.gov/subcommittees/subcommittee/?ID=107417. Check to see if any of the members are your representatives; and if they are, hound them with calls, letters and emails. But if you really want to get their attention, you'll need a sack full of cash. Unfortunately, that's how Washington works.
Old Man
Active Member
FlyGirl,
Thank you for your efforts in making your voice heard with the FAA, and here. You obviously understand that freedom to pursue an activity is not something that should be limited to people that do it for free and not people that do it for pay. A rather course description of activities and no disrespect intended, simply lack of better descriptions. Although not alone in your efforts I'm sure sometimes it feels that way. I think a great many on the professional side support the hobbyists and understand the common threat we share. You demonstrated something I was trying to get across in my earlier post; our common interests in our oh so similar activities. Without the hobbyist there would be no sUAS industry because it was from the RC modeling community that a very large portion of sUAS products have been derived. Many common hobby products are still employed in military grade unmanned aircraft. At another level one of the most successful EO sensors was derived from the simple consumer grade Handycam. What I'm saying is that without hobbyists from several genre's (modeling, photography, electronics) the government and large aerospace would not be in a position to be leveraging as they are now.
I was part of the hobby side of model aviation for a good number of years before becoming involved in, at least my case, the semi pro side. OTH I've been involved with the sUAS side for a long time and since the initiation of the ARC committee have been privy to some of what has been taking place behind the scenes, which reinforces the commonality between the aerial professionals and the hobbyists. To divide the commercial and hobby sides is a must from a legislative stand point. If together the public body becomes a significant portion of the population which makes politicians become concerned about their next election cycle. Most of them think no further than that.
If commercial sUAS becomes burdened with over zealous equipment certification and regulation the cost of those certifications will rapidly trickle down to the hobbyist. If manufacturers have to spend big bucks on product certification will they market those same products at two price points or pass the costs of certification on to all that would make use of them? This is something that was discussed between modelers working for large sUAS companies back near the beginning of the ARC discussions, with the consensus being that hobby prices will become unaffordable for the casual modeler.
If we can come together as a common voice, even while maintaining our professional and amateur diversity, we could make a tremendous impact on the regulatory processes now in play. Pressure should be applied to the politicians that influence the law, in a logical and professional manner, so that when the FAA staff presents their version of what they believe should be there will be room for modification and improvement due to outside political pressures.
Thank you for your efforts in making your voice heard with the FAA, and here. You obviously understand that freedom to pursue an activity is not something that should be limited to people that do it for free and not people that do it for pay. A rather course description of activities and no disrespect intended, simply lack of better descriptions. Although not alone in your efforts I'm sure sometimes it feels that way. I think a great many on the professional side support the hobbyists and understand the common threat we share. You demonstrated something I was trying to get across in my earlier post; our common interests in our oh so similar activities. Without the hobbyist there would be no sUAS industry because it was from the RC modeling community that a very large portion of sUAS products have been derived. Many common hobby products are still employed in military grade unmanned aircraft. At another level one of the most successful EO sensors was derived from the simple consumer grade Handycam. What I'm saying is that without hobbyists from several genre's (modeling, photography, electronics) the government and large aerospace would not be in a position to be leveraging as they are now.
I was part of the hobby side of model aviation for a good number of years before becoming involved in, at least my case, the semi pro side. OTH I've been involved with the sUAS side for a long time and since the initiation of the ARC committee have been privy to some of what has been taking place behind the scenes, which reinforces the commonality between the aerial professionals and the hobbyists. To divide the commercial and hobby sides is a must from a legislative stand point. If together the public body becomes a significant portion of the population which makes politicians become concerned about their next election cycle. Most of them think no further than that.
If commercial sUAS becomes burdened with over zealous equipment certification and regulation the cost of those certifications will rapidly trickle down to the hobbyist. If manufacturers have to spend big bucks on product certification will they market those same products at two price points or pass the costs of certification on to all that would make use of them? This is something that was discussed between modelers working for large sUAS companies back near the beginning of the ARC discussions, with the consensus being that hobby prices will become unaffordable for the casual modeler.
If we can come together as a common voice, even while maintaining our professional and amateur diversity, we could make a tremendous impact on the regulatory processes now in play. Pressure should be applied to the politicians that influence the law, in a logical and professional manner, so that when the FAA staff presents their version of what they believe should be there will be room for modification and improvement due to outside political pressures.
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Yupp, i know that, you know that, plenty of members here know that.
Seem's some employee's of the FAA forgot that... Media didn't bother to check either...
Av8Chuck
Member
You realize that the FAA has lost every, not one or two, but every lawsuit and FOIA request against it. And it hasn't lost because the people fighting them in court have big pockets, they've lost because we have a constitution and the FAA is violating our civil right to make a living in this industry. The authors of the constitution realized that if any government agency couldn't get laws written the way they wanted that the government was in a position to "regulate" people into complying to their will so they made it illegal to create regulations that are arbitrary and capricious. For example they can't make the condition for citizens to participate in commerce based on some sort of certification that they can't remedy. They can't say that Multirotors have to be certified and then have no way for us to certify them.
So although this is frustrating it's sort of working the way that its designed to work. If we want the process to work faster and be a part of the regulatory process then we need to join together, for us there's leverage in numbers, for politicians there's votes in numbers so if you want to talk to your congress person speak for 20,000 people. AOPA is a good example of how this sort of thing can happen, they have about 635,000 members.
The AMA tried to cooperate with the FAA, with a membership as large as theirs that's not a strategy I would have tried, but they tried and I doubt they're done working this issue.
But this isn't about the AMA or AOPA, its about us standing up for our rights. If the FAA is allowed to make operating MR's commercially cost prohibitive we will only have ourselves to blame.
FlyGirl
Member
Totally agree and it's a valid point Old Man (I feel bad calling you that... LOL! If it's any consolation, I'm an old woman.
) that things trickle down. The less regulations the better. I liked things the way they were following the AMA guidelines. Honestly I don't want to differentiate between the hobbyist and the professional. The only reason I mentioned me being a hobbyist and not a professional above was my choice of the AMA as my community organization. Just curious but, is there an organisation for the professional that is advocating for the professional?
FlyGirl
Member
Amen to this!