The FAA has taken notice of the Heathrow incident, Walmart the first to comply.

Posted by Kevin on May 13, 2016 in Humor | 0 comments

Having seen the incident of the Plastic Bag sighting at Heathrow last month, the FAA stepped up efforts to control the NAS.  The latest regulation calls for all plastic shopping bags to be registered and tracked to prevent terrorist floating bags as well as inadvertent bag – aircraft collisions.

The TSA suggests planning an extra 20-40 minutes to your shopping trips to account for Registration number transfer to customers.  The open database of registered names, IDs, address, and the name of first born will be available shortly on the FAA website.  Comments for these new regulations will go through the normal process at the FAA, pending time and money to convene regulation meetings.

Thanks to Rotor Riot for the first photos of an FAA sanctioned shopping bag.

Shooting down any aircraft, including UAVs and other RC planes, is a federal crime.

Posted by Kevin on Apr 13, 2016 in UAV News | 0 comments

John Goglia has a piece on Forbes.com stateing that the FAA has responded to questions about the shooting down of drones.  Citing 18 U.S.C. 32, the FAA has confirmed that shooting down a Drone or any other aircraft is a felony.  This statue goes on further and prohibits interfering with anyone “engaged in the authorized operation of such aircraft”.  This means that threatening a drone or drone operator could put a person in jail for 5 years.

While the FAA says that it is a federal crime to shoot down aircraft, they have not stated when they will start prosecuting those that are shooting down UAVs

Racing Drones in Boise

Posted by Kevin on Mar 18, 2016 in UAV News | 0 comments

Here is a fun article from the Idaho Statesman.  It covers the “new” sport of drone racing.  It has an angle about getting kids involved and how much they enjoy it.

Is a UAV on your, or your child’s Christmas list?

Posted by Kevin on Oct 30, 2015 in Gen-Info | 0 comments

Christmas is coming up, and UAV sales are projected to break previous records. The Drone Pilot Zone has a great article that breaks down the safety factors of UAVs, and gives you a list of drones in 4 different classes, from safest (most user friendly) to most dangerous and should be looked at by people that understand how to operate UAVs safely, because these can potentially cause major harm. I’d highly recommend checking this article out if you are shopping for a UAV for the holidays.

Mandatory registration for all UAVs and RC aircraft?

Posted by Kevin on Oct 20, 2015 in Gen-Info, UAV News | 0 comments

Yesterday, the US Department of Transportation held a press conference outlining new rules that they and the FAA want to implement. These rules would make it so that all UAVs (Hobby and commercial) as well as other hobby aircraft will need to be registered with the FAA. There are a lot of questions with this, and the obvious is about hobby use. Right now, hobbiests do not need to register their aircraft. The process to register an aircraft is very time consuming, and involves many carbon copies… yes, in 2015 they still do not have an electronic means of document submission.

There has been some good commentary about this press-release and proposed new rules:

• 8 Questions Raised by the USDOTs Decision to Register Every Drone in the US also from Aeriographer.com.
• What’s your objective opinion about the Department of Transportation’s announcement that they are forming a task force to essentially create a UAS registration process? from Droneu.com.
• The Problems with Mandatory Drone Registration by Jonathan Rupprecht on jrupprechtlaw.com.
• AMA JOINS DOT TASK FORCE ON UAS REGISTRATION from the AMA Website. They say that they are going to work on having differing rules for small hobby and toy drones.
• U.S. To Require Registration Of All Drones; Hobbyists May Pose Legal Conundrum by John Goglia on Forbes.com. This is a really good read.

Litchi app for DJI UAVs

Posted by Kevin on Sep 8, 2015 in Application | 0 comments

Just found a new app called Litchi. This is an app for DJI UAVs that features several methods of flight beyond basic control. This gives you follow, circle, and waypoint missions. It supports the P2 Vision, P2 Vision +, Phantom 3, and Inspire 1.

The first commercial paper airplane UAV has been certified for commercial use.

Posted by Kevin on Aug 28, 2015 in UAV News | 0 comments

PowerUp 3.0 from PowerUp Toys – Image from PowerUp Toys

John Goglia broke the news on Forbes that the FAA has certified a paper airplane for UAV operations. The PowerUp powered paper airplane has a 180′ range and and a 10 minute flight time. Unfortunately, the individual that got the 333 exemption is not legally allowed to fly it commercially, since his helicopter pilot’s license is out of date.