Drone News: 21 October 2022 (90 million safe flights!)

[@MCsCreations]

"How can I make your life more difficult today?" - Bureaucrats. Thanks for the news, Bruce! 😊 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

[@gmivisualsjason3729]

Some very good information and your "almost a rant" video

[@sylvanlight120]

Yup, keep 'em coming Bruce.

[@jaysonrees738]

I'll give them the same respect that they give me. Currently, they give me none. My only rule now is "Don't bother anyone." As for the GPS loss, perhaps they should ask us hobbyists how to fix this. Would be fun to tell them to figure it out themselves.

[@matejbludsky8410]

Answer is inertial navigation .. np gps needed

[@TheMadmacs]

the thing about fpv most people don't get is, we are mostly aviation fans, usually a lifelong love of all things aircrafty, i knew what a landing vector was 40 years ago, i love airplanes. wouldnt dream of endangering one in any way.

[@NB-mn4tv]

I think its sad that my flying planks are grouped into the "drone" category. These planks have been flying since the 70s i really think they should be grandfathered in to Fly anywhere without BS!

[@PiDsPagePrototypes]

Nah Bruce, ya got the numbers wrong on the low end, thats 90 million DJI Product Flights Only. None of the drones form other companies or home built hobbyists, meaning that in the counted airspace there were many more flights uncounted. DJI have a strong presence in commercial use, but recreational, they're small potatoes. You could safely triple that number IMHO.

[@scooterfpv8864]

👍👍 Darn skippy!!! I bet $500 not more than one or two of those appointees even know how to fly a multirotor... DJI or otherwise.

[@stevendegiorgio3143]

Bruce,that's kind of funny.But that is true.So it could end up that commercial UAS does most harm on people leaving us modelers as the safest flyers on earth.

[@oak3076]

I really appreciate the information. I would like to know in the last 7 years how much money in fines the FAA has collected from recreational manned aircraft pilots versus recreational unmanned pilots. Then a comparison of lives lost and property damage done by each. There appears to be a discrepancy.

[@sylvanlight120]

I've just shared this video all over the FAA Facebook page within comments on relevant posts. Spam!

[@henkketelaars]

Hi Bruce. The fact that the FAA starts with several regulations for (hobby)drones is the fact that they are affraid for criminal activaties. That's why remote id and that kind of stuff has come in to our lives. They're trying to disencourage us to fly our drones and/or fixed wings. I have no criminal intend, but i surely think that that's the reason they are making our hobby impossible. Excuses for my English. Kind regards, and keep up your channel(s). Henk Ketelaars (The Netherlands)

[@terminsane]

Ban kitchen knives because someone might use one for a crime

[@tymoteuszkazubski2755]

@@terminsane Some people in UK already proposed banning kitchen knives with pointy tips.

[@FlyingBuzzard]

I disagree, it has ZERO to do with any criminal activity, or safety concerns , or terrorism, or anything else , it is all about the Commercial industry and their $$$ that Congress and the FAA etc are getting for the lower airspace. One Drone Business leader said to the Congress committee, that" the UTM must be created so the Commercial drone Industry can thrive and we must have the NAS 400 feet and below to make it work" that was just stated a few weeks ago when they were having a meeting for the FAA Reauthorization Act again . That said it all . And btw RID was only created to have surveillance on hobbyists so they can be easily identified and removed from the NAS in a particular area IF a commercial interests wants that flight path for their own use.

[@jmiskinis]

Hi Bruce, I saw the video listed, but I have not yet watched it, and I plan to within a few hours. Ninety million flights, huh? In some ways, it reminds me of the McDonald's restaurant signs, when at one time, they used to post the quantity of hamburgers served... :) _John_

[@TheHillsHaveFPV]

I just wanna point out that you can strap a 75 pound lawn mower engine to your back with a 5 inch propeller and paramotor around the sky all day long without a license.

[@matejbludsky8410]

Another reason why I don't touch anything with dji

[@tymoteuszkazubski2755]

Bruce there are multiple ways of handling GPS loss. 1) Quality IMU provide good enough data for a meaningful amount of dead reckoning 2) Optical flow can be used to significantly reduce position drift encountered in inertial navigation to the point where rather cheap IMUs are viable for navigation 3) Optical navigation is a thing and since for example Wing drones land on visual markers it is not that hard to implement visual-inertial odometry that with use of maps can maintain position information indefinitely.

[@xjet]

Yet the Wing drone landed on power lines 🙂 Also, in all the FAA's hand-wringing and regulation I've seen no requirement for delivery drones to have any of these backup systems -- they're far to busy forcing RID on the hobby.

[@tymoteuszkazubski2755]

@@xjet Risk mitigations are operation specific and required mitigations are not explicitly enumerated in any aviation regulations I know of. Neither I nor you know what risk mitigations are included in permits Wing and other drone delivery companies obtained. Powerline landing caused no damage to property and limited disruption to services.

[@xjet]

@@tymoteuszkazubski2755 I think that if you were one of the 2,000 households affected you might not agree with the claim that there were "limited disruption to services".

[@koalatails5711]

Sounds like Tymoteusz is a Google Wings Executive.

[@tymoteuszkazubski2755]

@@xjet IIRC power to most of the affected households was restored within an hour. Significantly less than what would be allowed if a power company needed to do any planned or unplanned(fixing a malfunction) maintenance. If it was a tree branch or kids playing stupid games it wouldn't be talked outside local media if at all.

[@hradynarski]

So whats the plan? How we protest?

[@garypeterson9083]

Regulators are an interesting species. They determine the rules of the road and none of them has ever flown a drone. They have an uncanny abilities to believe in anything but facts. They do not ever believe they are wrong and wouldn't admit it if they were. This takes a lot of work to be trained with these abilities. What ever happened to reality?

[@MrDoneboy]

Thanks, Bruce. When did the government asscolwns ,get so involved in drones and model rocketry, where we have to have insurance to fly our crafts?

[@dcus55]

Isn’t the insurance the reason so many drone pilots are AMA members even though AMA acts like their membership only flies planes? And congress got involved when they realized drones could be used as weapons delivery systems, as can cars, trucks, planes, bicycles, boats…or maybe it was just the cash from all these organizations trying to catch the next fad?

[@xjet]

@@dcus55 My response to the "weapons" claim is: A drone without a bomb is just a drone. A bomb without a drone is STILL A BOMB If the regulators are worried about people putting bombs on drones they don't have a drone problem, they have a bomb problem. Deal with the actual problems first! 🙂

[@JohnnyFaber]

@@xjet Same with gun control. Bottom line is the folks with the money and power are threatened by these little quads, no matter how small. The FAA is just another politically weaponized agency. And the politicians palms are greased by corporations. Our hobby has been walking dead for years..we just haven't seen the reality yet. Wait until Google and Amazon have an incident where their corridors are blocked by hobbyists.

[@dcus55]

@@xjet Yessir, security concerns are all a smokescreen… lots of other more dangerous things in the world. Follow the money.

[@tymoteuszkazubski2755]

@@xjet Drone with a bomb is significantly more deadly than the same bomb without a drone. I won't be giving out anything more specific than that for obvious reasons but it should be obvious why.

[@tymoteuszkazubski2755]

DJI drones are not representative of neither hobby nor industry in terms of safety as they have limited applications and DJI makes significant efforts to idiotproof their products.

[@gke3800]

The answer to most of your questions Bruce is "America" and our sheep will blindly follow :(.

[@TheMadmacs]

choctaw.... choctawww... nothing else i just like saying choctaw...... choctawww

[@HVM_fi]

I bet that drone that have lost it's GPS (or other GNSS) works better than helipilot in fog, Bruce.

[@jetrg12]

In case of gps loss it could just RTH as do our rc planes/quads when they lose control signal

[@Stambo59]

How is it gonna RTH without GPS? It will not know where home is.

[@terminsane]

RTH requires gps tho

[@jetrg12]

@@terminsane there exists non-gps solutions for navigation

[@Stambo59]

@@jetrg12 Yes there is but RC aircraft can't read maps. 🙂

[@iforce2d]

@JetRG What kind of non-GPS solution does your rc plane/quad have?