GUTC responce to FAA’s Interpretation of the Special Rule for Model Aircraft

With reference to the use of "First person view" devices. These devices are of most beneficial for persons who are most used to flying manned aircraft. They are accustom to flying from the point of view of the aircraft. It is well known within the RC hobby community that person with actual flying experience have the most challenges especially while landing RC aircraft.

Private property rights: In the event an RC/Hobbyist is flying over their own property or over another's private property with expressed written permission they should be allowed to fly using "First person view" devices and use these devices for commercial applications.

Safety: Safety is the primary excuse for restricting the use of unmanned aerial system for commercial applications. If the FAA has deemed hobby RC flight is safe than it should be deemed safe enough for commercial use, especially on private property.

The FAAs jurisdiction over commercial operations is for commercial transport where human beings are passengers or crew. In the event of autonomous flight of aircraft with human passengers or crew such as the Osprey used by the military where take off and landing is totally autonomous because it was found to be safer than the pilot and copilot coordinating with each other during landing and take off. In the event of the use of human passengers and crew, I believe that the FAA should have safety oversight of the autonomous mechanisms to be implemented. 

Hobby Lobby Case

Hobby Lobby Case

I mentioned that this Hobby Lobby Case might have something to do with the FAA suspending the approval of Commercial UAS operations. Well if it didn’t it will. If Hobby Lobby were a publicly held company it would not have been able to exercise its first amendment rights but because they are not a public company, that makes the company property of the owners and theirs alone and as property owners they have the say in what goes on, on their property. Just like a farmer or a rancher. The same right apply when it comes to using equipment, like a Drone/UAS.

FAA takes on city realtors using drones

FAA takes on city realtors using drones

The right players playing this game the right way

Get in the game!

This whole domestic UAS industry is very fragmented and all over the board. The FAA is like the poker player who comes to the game late and trying to learn on the fly, trying to implement their own rules and holding up the game. The big players let them do this because it is making everyone else frustrated enough to fold. If you have enough chips it isn’t hard to figure out what’s in every ones hand but everyone is waiting on the new guy to deal and that is the FAA. The chips are out there but they are not on the table. Everyone is waiting for the FAA to deal. There are not only investors sitting on the sidelines but end users that don’t even know they are in the game. The backend game for the high rollers is setting the FAA up so everyone can play. I am not a conspiracy theorist but it is plain to see that this game is “Favorites” right now.

While the high rollers are coaching the FAA to deal them the high cards, the real players who don’t even know they are in the game yet need coaching because they are really holding the high cards. The high rollers have week hands and they know it. I have been saying “It’s like the story of the emperor’s new clothes” but it is really just like a poker game. The established players are bluffing and if they can keep everyone else from getting in the game until they get the high cards from the FAA, they will win. The established UAS professionals are playing penny ante when they have the skills to beat the high rollers. The one guy who can break the game loose is attorney Brendan Schulman but he knows that what he has the ability to do is going to make a lot of people a lot of money and I assume that he wants to make sure that he is adequately compensated for it.

We need to turn this game into a team sport

If this case were to be turned into a class action law suit that is where Mr. Schulman would get the compensation he is looking for. I am going to recommend that the members of RCAPA file a class action law suit and have Brendan Schulman do the filing. I recommend that every UAS and drone pilot and professional become a member of RCAPA and for RCAPA to join forces with the MAPPS organization. MAPPS is the hub of disciplines that commercial UAS operations is perfect for. They have photogrammetry and geospatial professionals and experts who may not know it yet but they want commercial UAS operations to in the National Airspace and they want it at a competitive rate. This is where the high rollers hand is week. They know they are overpriced for the market. Just one example is the Scan Eagle vs the Cyclops. They both have about the same 5lbs technology payload capability and four hours duration of flight but the Scan Eagle system is over a million dollars with the base price for the airframe at $175,000. The Cyclops’ base price is $5,400. This is where the “Emperors’ new clothes” analogy fits. The domestic market isn’t going to pay those inflated rates. These high rollers are jumping over dollars to get to quarters anyway. The money is in “The law of large numbers” the cellular companies have it figured out, give away the cell phones and charge for the service. Oh, these service providers aren’t going to pay for overpriced technologies either and they are more likely to buy a UAS/Drone company like Google did with Titan or lease the services. The FAA will make a lot of money through UAS pilot and airframe certifications, a subscribership to a web-site porthole for commercial UAS pilots to upload their mission tasking. They just need to make sure that they don’t use the same web-master that worked on the Affordable Care web-site. IPS/NexGen has the right management system to do exactly this as well as the situational awareness solution that solves the sense and avoid dilemma.

Everything is easy when you know the answers

The Unmanned industry is going to be a boon once the FAA lets the game get started. Everyone is so head down in their own technology’s they are missing the big picture. I hope this post clear some of the fog.

 

DJI Phantom and GoPro film fireworks

DJI Phantom and GoPro film fireworks

4th of July fireworks from West Palm Beach

Dorne capturing fireworks video from the air in West Palm Beach

Which is a greater infringement, commercial use of drones or the FAA's overreach?

Which is a greater infringement, commercial use of Drones or the FAA’s overreach?

Right here from the start, I am not an attorney so consult with an attorney if you plan on taking any action on what I am writing about in this blog. Three years ago I had a couple of conversations with Jim Williams from the FAA Unmanned Division. At the time it was put out that commercial operations of unmanned aerial systems would be authorized as long as the business owner himself were operating the device. As a California licensed Real-Estate/mortgage Broker, insurance and securities licensed agent I knew a little bit about property and business ownership and I called Mr. Williams and let him know that under the law a business owner doesn’t have to drive or even own trucks to run a trucking company or a charter airline company either so I asked “Where is the law that requires a business owner to operate the equipment used for his business? Can’t he contract operators to do that?” He got stymied and asked me to call him back and I did and he then agreed that lease ownership would in fact be considered ownership and he informed me that the UAV pilot would have to be an employee of the company and I asked “Can they be a contract employee?” He again became flustered and I could never get him on the phone again after that. Then is came out the FAA would suspend all commercial use of Unmanned operations.

At the time I was trying to sell a system, I worked for that company for a year and a half and then I became an independent contractor, lining up contracts for Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). I talked with all kinds of people in Ag consultants and crop scientist, surveyors and stumbled unto applications for oil and gas exploration and food safety that I never knew about. Then after a year I lost the consulting contract for the major reason, the FAA still wasn’t allowing for commercial UAS operations.

I’m not alone but there are still commercial UAS operations going on. How are they doing it? I had a conversation with an industry professional who was also a Police helicopter pilot. He told me “They FAA came to my house to shut me down, they were wearing suits, they looked like the ‘Men in Black’. They told me that they were shutting me down. I asked them if I could talk with them with my attorney present and they agreed. Then we sat down with them and discussed how there is no law banning the commercial use of UAS and if the government were going to shut me down then they needed to pay me at years lost wages which I figure amounts to $250,000. They sat there silent. I’ve got the best law firm in the country. If you need any help, let me know.”

There have been two rulings early this year one judge hearing a case in Georgia dealing with a tethered quad-rotor where the local FAA gave authorization and the Federal FAA tried to get them to resend it but they wouldn’t do it in writing so they went to court and the judge ruled that the FAA doesn’t have the authority to recant their own authorization. Now there is the 1981 guidelines for hobby craft but that wasn’t a law either, just a guideline and it does say “Commercial use is unauthorized”. The second ruling was for the foreign UAS pilot filming in North Carolina where the judge ruled that “The FAA cannot enforce laws that haven’t been written yet”.

Since then a UAS pilot who has been doing search and rescue missions for ten years has taken the FAA to court with same attorney who received the favorable ruling in the North Carolina case, which is in appeal. The attorney Brendan Schulman is no dummy, the FAA is trying claim precedent “Chevron deference” where the EPA claimed authority to fine Chevron in the name of public safety where congress hadn’t passed legislation one way or the other because they don’t have the scientific understanding enough to determine if there is a danger to the public so they defer to the government agency that oversees that industry. Well neither the EPA nor the FAA has the right to regulate commerce. By FAA publishing their guidelines for RC use of unmanned hobby flight they have basically established the commercial rule for UAS. Chevron deference or not, if it is safe enough to do as a hobby or recreation it is safe enough to do commercially.

I do like the pilot in charge where a licensed pilot is accountable for commercial operations, so if someone is flying over private property without authorization, someone has their license on the line. The pilot in charge doesn’t have to be the pilot but they are accountable for their UAS pilots’ actions and training. I think it would be an awesome business for some of these airline pilots to make extra money. They could hire out a bunch of military UAV pilots, train them and establish operational procedures, emergency protocols and operational responsibilities to be briefed before every mission, just like they do in the military, for everything.

All of this ado about sense and avoid technology, isn’t necessary as long as the mission is planned and the plan and procedures are adhered to. No as someone pointed out in a blog “If commercial airliners are flying below 400 feet, it’s not the UAS pilots fault if they collide.” If in the event that they start automating commercial airlines like they do the military’s Osprey, then I think sense and avoid should be required.

This is just common sense.