Well, that was a long time coming. Kudos to this guy.
@Orion_Thrower note that I’m not saying that we should have no regulation, but the way it was done was very strong fisted, and badly thought out. More importantly treating 500g foam planes as lethal objects that require up to 3 years in jail if you don’t register to fly one, is a total joke, but that’s what they’ve done anyway.
Multi rotors full of metal/carbon, and other stuff that hurts and doesn’t glide at all should not be categorized the same as RC planes of reasonable size/weight (yes, there are 54lbs RC planes, and those are also dangerous)
@Eoin_Ross , you make a valid point, but I think they could have done better. Honestly, they didn’t even have to include RC planes, as far as the public is concerned, they’re not even drones.
@Orion_Thrower thanks for your post, pretty much all good points. The only point you may be wrong on is forest fires.
- planes can fly lower than 500ft AGL to drop fire retardant. So far, pilots have been worried about not having a rogue drone go through their windshield (likely worse scenario, hitting other parts of the plane would create expensive damage, but be super unlikely to be fatal).
- there are helicopters doing fire fighting, and those are much more at risk of being damaged by a heavy multirotor (compared to a plane)., They too can fly at low altitude.
All this today, please don’t fly any UAVs into a fire TFR unless you’re actually part of the firefighting effort and working with the area controllers.