Amazon Proposes Dedicated Airspace For Drones 142
An anonymous reader writes: Amazon has published two new position papers which lay out its vision for future drone regulation. Under Amazon's plan, altitudes under 200ft would be reserved for basic hobbyist drones and those used for things like videography and inspection. Altitudes between 200ft and 400ft would be designated for "well-equipped vehicles" capable of operating autonomously out of line of sight. They would need sophisticated GPS tracking, a stable data uplink, communications capabilities with other drones, and sensors to avoid collisions. This, of course, is where Amazon would want to operate its drone delivery fleet. From 400ft to 500ft would be a no-fly zone buffer between the drone airspace and integrated airspace. Amazon's plan also makes room for "predefined low-risk areas," where hobbyists and other low-tech drones can fly higher than the 200ft ceiling. "Additionally, it is Amazon's view that air traffic management operations should follow a 'managed by exception' approach. This means operators are always aware of what the fleet is doing, yet they only intervene in significant off-nominal cases."
Amazon doesn't understand helicopters (Score:5, Insightful)
That all sounds great, except that helicopter often operate at less than 500 feet above the ground.
What happens when EMS is flying at 300ft and crashes into their delivery drone?
What about law enforcement? Powerline and pipeline patrol? Aerial photography?
All of these things can and do happen at less than 500ft above the ground.
In the North East, they even harvest Christmas Trees off the side of the mountain using helicopters, and that is well under 500ft.
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I wonder how they handle all those cases with respect to activities such as:
1) RC model airplanes
2) Model rocketry
3) Sporting (think golf, skeet shooting, baseball)
all of which may involve objects exceeding 200 ft but below 500 feet. Whatever do the poor misunderstood helicopters do?!?
Re:Amazon doesn't understand helicopters (Score:5, Informative)
1. RC Planes are actually quite rare, but I've nearly hit them before.
They generally fly from known airfields however, so you do learn where they operate from. From time to time, people do stupid stuff and fly them where they shouldn't.
2. Model rockets are even more rare than RC Planes are, and they tend to go a LOT higher than 500ft. They are normally only launched from specific known locations and ATC is made aware of this before hand.
3. A golf ball is unlikely to bring down a helicopter, it would be a one in a billion shot. Even if it hit it, it lacks the mass to do real damage. The drones that Amazon is talking about will be big enough and heavy enough to bring down some helicopters.
Baseballs and Skeet-shooting generally don't happen over 200ft either, and only a complete idiot shoots a gun into the air when helicopters are near, and helicopters are NOT quiet. There are also only a few outdoor gun ranges around here, I know where they are and wouldn't fly over one anyway.
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Thanks for nothing Roy Scheider [wikipedia.org]
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The drones that Amazon is talking about will be big enough and heavy enough to bring down some helicopters.
Unlikely. I'd expect that 99.9% of helicopters "brought down" by a drone will be from boom strike (or other "pilot error") from the pilot's reaction to seeing one, not the impact itself. How would a dron differ significantly from a bird strike? A larger bird would be similar in weight to a drone, and with similar speeds. Does every hawk strike kill the helicopter?
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Re:Amazon doesn't understand helicopters (Score:4, Funny)
An African bird, or a European bird?
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Around here, RC Planes generally do NOT fly from airfields. The mostly fly form large fields or industrial zoned parking lots. Usually on weekends.
Certainly no reason to suspect drones flying around industrial parks on the weekends, eh? Nor anyone flying a kite t the park or the beach, right? Drones will spot the kite string fine of course.
Drones are going to have to be pretty clever to avoid the kites at the beach while they count the crowd, offer real-time surveillance to the authorities, or tow arou
Rocketry pierces both these levels all the time (Score:2)
Our club routinely gets 5,000-15,000 foot waivers for medium-to-high-power launches, and it doesn't stop nimrods from flying over the launch area in general aviation aircraft.
Low-power sport rocketry (think the little Estes hobby-shop rockets) can hit the 2,000 foot level without too much sweat.
I'm tired of seeing available airspace disappear every time I turn around. The fields in which I launched as a kid are completely off-limits - noplace in the close-in metro DC area can you launch a model rocket legal
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I totally get your frustration...
Keep in mind that the places you likely can shoot the rockets from is Class G airspace. It is uncontrolled, so no one is talking to ATC.
Yes, there is a NOTAM, and yes, pilots are supposed to read them, but many don't. Part of the problem is there is so many of them that they become white noise after awhile. They also aren't in a very human friendly form and if you input a flight plan, you often get back 50 or more of them, many of them repeats over and over of stuff you'v
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Anyone who says they read every single NOTAM every time before flying is lying to you.
Total utter bullshit. I read every notam associated with my anticipated flight. Everyone who doesn't should chop up their pilot's certificate and mail it to the local FSDO.
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Total utter bullshit. I read every notam associated with my anticipated flight.
No you don't. It would take you an hour or more to read them all for many flights, maybe more.
This is a list of the current NOTAMs for a simple flight from Dallas to Austin. There is zero chance that you read all that before such a flight.
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Data Current as of: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 23:43:00 UTC
DFW DALLAS/FORT WORTH INTL !DFW 07/584 DFW TWY F EDGE MARKINGS BTN TWY A AND TWY WQ EAST SIDE NOT STD 1507292112-1509302359 !DFW 07/582 (KDFW A7460/15) DFW TWY R BTN APCH END RWY 31R AND TWY P CLSD 1507291813-15082923
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No you don't. It would take you an hour or more to read them all for many flights, maybe more.
Perhaps you need to learn how to select NOTAMs.
This is a list of the current NOTAMs for a simple flight from Dallas to Austin. There is zero chance that you read all that before such a flight.
I do, and you can easily skip 80% of those based on the first few characters. There were only a few relevant ones in your long list, mostly crane obstacles.
For my VFR flight, I don't care about lights being U/S, SID/STAR issues etc, so I skip reading the entire NOTAM as soon as I see the subject. But that does not mean I don't check the NOTAM for relevance to my flight. I know a guy who flew right into a presidential TFR, and shit like that won't happen to
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Perhaps you need to learn how to select NOTAMs.
Perhaps you need to learn how to not lie...
Either you fly 4 times a year and you spend more time preparing for the flight than the duration of the flight, or you're lying.
That was 7 pages of NOTAMs, for a short simple flight.
Try pulling it up for a flight from Texas to Florida with several fuel stops, you'd be reading all morning.
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Our club routinely gets 5,000-15,000 foot waivers for medium-to-high-power launches, and it doesn't stop nimrods from flying over the launch area in general aviation aircraft.
That's because you get a waiver, not a TFR. GA is allowed to fly in airspace where there is no restriction and it's up to you to avoid manned aircraft.
Now, if you get a TFR for your hobby and someone still flies in there, you have the right to complain.
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We're fortunate that our usual LCO is also a private pilot of many years experience - he's sensitized to planes in the nearby airspace, and exercises an abundance of caution.
His example has helped bring the other LCOs along quite a bit.
Most RC model aircraft are not drones (Score:2)
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Thank you for being a responsible RC pilot. We need more people like you!
Re:Amazon doesn't understand helicopters (Score:2)
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How about this case: The airspace above private property is private up to 500 ft, according to the FAA. If Amazon wants to do drone delivery, they will have to either stay above public land or above 500 ft until they reach their destination or they will be at risk of lots of counts of trespassing.
It isn't nearly that clear cut...
Many people want a simple black and white answer, and it never really is that simple...
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I wonder how they handle all those cases with respect to activities such as:
1) RC model airplanes 2) Model rocketry 3) Sporting (think golf, skeet shooting, baseball)
all of which may involve objects exceeding 200 ft but below 500 feet. Whatever do the poor misunderstood helicopters do?!?
All of these have designated areas in which they can happen. So do drones, but the problem is that people have been using them outside of those confines.
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Are you in the US? Designated areas here are any place not prohibited. I fly all the time at parks as well as shared, private, airfields (with permission of the owner.) Amazon would likely want to build corridors from their warehouse to any potential customer location. That could significantly impact recreational activity. They need to find a solution that doesn't impact current usage or require legislation to protect the interests of the corporation.
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I agree with you, I think, but I think there will be an argument from those not concerned with recreational RC aircraft usage.
So, if I may, please accept that this is not my implicitly my view but is how I think you may need to face this:
Where, in the scale of things, does the importance of recreational use come in? Cars, for example, are quite highly regulated on roads. The air is different in that all of it can, pretty much, be considered a viable transportation route. With an automobile you are limited,
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Your legal driving on public roads is limited, but on private property or designated areas (like racetracks) traffic laws don't apply. Recreational RC aircraft and drones might face similar limitations.
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All of these have designated areas in which they can happen. So do drones, but the problem is that people have been using them outside of those confines.
No, the problem is drones are far, far too useful to operate only in 'designated areas'.
For example, in the not too distant future, instead of that helicopter ambulance flying to help someone out in the middle of nowhere, it could be a drone wired to a VR headset. But that won't be allowed, because 'designated area'.
The current aviation regulation regime is simply unable to deal with the future. Either you ban the future, or you have to change the regulations.
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I don't believe the problem here is with the aviation regulation regime, the hobby quadcopters (I hate the terminology drone because a drone can be anything remote controlled and we are actually talking about quad-,octo-copters here. Also, future quadcopters may not be remote controlled. So, talking about drones here is not really appropriate) aren't advanced enough yet to cope with any regulations that may be put in place and have the required safeguards.
What about first demonstrate the quadcopters can and
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However, it will require more vigilance as one does not know where or when they will be showing up in your field of vision. Anywhere that they are popular will also be an area which has made it illegal to discharge a firearm. I suppose that one could hope the distribution center is in a rural area (seems like a potential outcome) and then move to that area to increase your odds. Grinding for rares has a whole new meaning.
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Perhaps you should define "drone" before launching into problems with "drones", as that includes model rockets, and the RC models.
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By 'Drone' Amazon means the equipment they hope to use to deliver product to their customers. However, if said product includes hobbyist drones or drone components, Amazon intends for the customers to not be allowed to do very much with said drones/components. Also, once they're delivering by 'drone' the cost of returning something to Amazon goes up, because the volume of point-to-point shipping that they don't have direct control of goes down.
Bezos wants it all. The guy looks creepier every time I see h
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By 'Drone' Amazon means the equipment they hope to use to deliver product to their customers.
So the definition of "drone" is "Amazon delivery drone". Aside from being meaninglessly recursive, it's also a definition I expect the FAA to ignore.
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I wonder how they handle all those cases with respect to activities such as: ....
The first two of those activities are forbidden when there are low-flying aircraft operating, are rarely seen, and the 3rd one isn't really a concern at all...
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That all sounds great, except that helicopter often operate at less than 500 feet above the ground. What happens when EMS is flying at 300ft and crashes into their delivery drone? What about law enforcement? Powerline and pipeline patrol?
I think the 'managed by exception' approach mentioned covers that. Given the gps and communications capabilities of the 'well equipped' drones they could automatically be ordered out of the area and/or excluded from the area. As they would would presumable be excluded from airports, infrastructure like powelines, etc.
In the North East, they even harvest Christmas Trees off the side of the mountain using helicopters, and that is well under 500ft.
The 'communications with other drones' mentioned suggests automated avoidance. Perhaps these 'well equipped' drones would listen for standard aircraft transponders, they seem to include such tr
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You aren't acting like a pilot. Define the class before defining the rules around it.
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I define drone as an autonomous craft with subsets of partial and total autonomy. I define the rest as remote control aircraft with subsets of hobbyist's and professional and that is defined by use. I define model rockets as, simply, model rockets but I expect there to be guided and unguided in the future if not already being done. There may be additional subsets or clarification needed for legal definitions. One important thing to keep in mind is that recreational devices always get a back seat to business
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First, great point!
My first answer is ADS-B [wikipedia.org] (both IN and OUT) required for all automated drones in Amazon's proposed "industrial" style airspace from 200ft to 400ft AGL.
Since their proposal is already assuming a level of sensors and communications, this seems to fit right in there.
Part of the mandate is that all drones yield to all human aircraft, with a min standoff distance of ....? You sound like a pilot, you tell me what is fair.
Pilots that want an extra measure of control could have on-board ADS-B-In,
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My first answer is ADS-B (both IN and OUT) required for all automated drones in Amazon's proposed "industrial" style airspace from 200ft to 400ft AGL.
ADS-B is wonderful, for those aircraft that have it. Most helicopters don't have it and nothing requires it until 2020, and even then that is not for all aircraft.
Installing ADS-B on small aircraft is expensive, mandates are expensive. Are you going to tell the guy who has a $100k personal helicopter that he has to spend $5K to install ADS-B so that Amazon can have delivery drones?
What about the company that has 10 training helicopters, that would be a $50K bill they didn't need, so Amazon can have drones
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I wasn't suggesting the heli's have a mandate for ADS-B, but that the drones do. The devices that are wanting to make the changes should start with the technology to do it with the least disruption.
Those helicopters without ADS-B would be reliant on whatever collision-avoidance technology is on the drones and their own eyes. As I said, the drones should never be 100% reliant on any single form of collision-avoidance, so I expect at least 3 (ADS-B, optical, IR, and laser perhaps?).
If a pilot doesn't want the
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It is worth noting that few helicopter pilots own the aircraft they fly, thus get no say in what goes into the helicopter.
Companies that are not required to install such equipment rarely are going to do so, what is the benefit to the bottom line?
It is also worth noting that ADS-B only really works well with other aircraft that also have it. Having it on the drone doesn't do much if the helicopter doesn't also have it. At the altitudes being flown, the helicopter often doesn't show up on the FAA RADAR (whi
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EMS has to reimburse Amazon for damage to the drone and reimburse the customer for the lost package. Easy.
Cute reply... lets try reality...
Drone is 25lbs, 5lb package, 20lb drone with engines and fuel. It brings down EMS helicopter killing 4 people on board and 2 people on the ground...
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Do you think that matters a great deal to those who authored the proposed regulations? Amazon is going to reserve the right to sue the parties involved, or their estates, for damages. I happily pay more for things I can get locally for a variety of reasons. Antics of the large businesses is one of those reasons. Another is I see no reason to lower society as a whole because I am unwilling to pay more. Being greedy is going to be our ruination and that applies to the consumers as well as the suppliers.
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Do you think that matters a great deal to those who authored the proposed regulations? Amazon is going to reserve the right to sue the parties involved, or their estates, for damages.
Sue away, they'd not likely find very many supportive juries.
On the other hand, Amazon is a nice target for lawyers suing on behalf of people killed by their drones.
The drones don't even have to hit an aircraft, even a large bird might take one out of the sky. When the drone falls on someone and kills them, the lawsuit will be expensive.
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I am afraid I do not have that much faith in the justice system or the average person sitting on a jury any more. :/ On the other hand, I had not thought about a bird taking out a drone. That adds a new and novel way to think about things.
I do not see anything good coming from this. When I first read about Amazon wanting to use drones I had assumed it was a joke or that they meant to get stuff to a distribution site and were talking about large drones in the future. I never read the article because I felt t
Inadequate Buffer (Score:1)
100 feet of buffer is inadequate. How the hell do you measure your AGL when you're flying? You either use a radar altimeter ($25K installed on an airplane worth $20K) or you use the baro altimeter, which has an acceptable calibration error, plus the local altimeter setting (atmospheric pressure) which has an error band, and there's error because you're not right over the reporting station. 1000' is the minimum instrument separation. Bezos just wants to steal a band of airspace. I say give him 0' to 10' AGL,
15-25 (Score:4, Interesting)
100 feet of buffer is inadequate. How the hell do you measure your AGL when you're flying? You either use a radar altimeter ($25K installed on an airplane worth $20K) or you use the baro altimeter, which has an acceptable calibration error, plus the local altimeter setting (atmospheric pressure) which has an error band, and there's error because you're not right over the reporting station. 1000' is the minimum instrument separation. Bezos just wants to steal a band of airspace. I say give him 0' to 10' AGL, just like a UPS truck.
No, but how bout you give him 20-30' so long as he stays over a road, and limit windspeed and weather conditions he can operate in? Sink a billion or so into detecting wires and other obstacles over roadways. Now you've got a second level road and he's flying higher than vehicles but lower than aerial vehicles. It's inefficient compared to full use of airspace but still faster than regular traffic.
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The point is that the 100 foot buffer is quickly and effectively erased by the acceptable margin of error. And at airspeed, 100 feet of altitude is quickly gained or dropped.
About your 20-30 feet, how do you expect an aircraft to actually stay within those 10 feet? And by "staying over roads" you do realize that you're not only drastically increasing the likelihood of a life-ending accident, but you're also making it practically impossible to obey the rules? Roadways are very narrow and just a little bit of
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Correction: if the intersection is 30 feet wide that would be a 15-foot radius for that turn.
Cable System (Score:3)
Acceptable margin of error for the identified height detection methods, whereas you could use simpler height detection methods if you were closer to the ground.
As to complex ideas, I fully expect there are lots of legitimate challenges to my proposal that may make it unworkable or that may challenge existing assumptions. That's fine; that's why we propose ideas. So other smart people can tear them down and propose *better* ideas. Or can have their assumptions challenged, like asking questions about how w
Re:15-25 (Score:4, Insightful)
About your 20-30 feet, how do you expect an aircraft to actually stay within those 10 feet?
At those heights, ultrasonic with baro and gps for comparison. I expect aircraft to stay within those 10 feet because they already do quite reliably. We're not talking about some multi-tonne flying semi-trailer here. Small aircraft have less momentum and faster response times and are quite good at compensating for a wide variety of conditions compared to larger ones.
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True. Thunderstorms come up quick enough to beat your drone home.
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20 to 30' over what? The ground or the road surface? This is an important distinction to make - see the Skyway in Buffalo, NY for a good reason to make this distinction.
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Good modern GPS implementations (which often include information from multiple constellations and other sources like wifi and cellular towers) can provide altitude with far better than 100' of accuracy. They are not particularly expensive.
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The whole point of this, though, is integrating something new that works radically differently from existing aircraft. If other technological mechanisms can provide sufficient accuracy, why can't they be used?
It's not like they need to solely rely on AGPS either. Consumer IMUs have been advancing at a rapid pace (there's huge amounts of money being dumped in them due to gaming, VR, and mobile phones), and are capable of high accuracy when combined with an external reference. You can also use laser ranging,
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I'm proposing that the drones be equipped with this to keep them out of the buffer area, not that the actual airplanes. Airplanes operating over cities are already required to operate 1,000 feet above the highest nearby obstacles, placing them far above any drones. Helicopters would be another story, but they are allowed to operate under your proposed 10 foot cap, so that's kind of already a thing.
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Baro measurements are accurate to about 5' at these altitudes. A $0.20 chip and $2000 for the lawyers to haggle over the language you have to click through when you set it up in the plane.
I fly to 6000' with rockets and you know who the idiots are? The pilots. We put out a NOTAM with our coordinates and recovery space, notify all local FAA towers and get legal waivers for all flights. And in the middle of nowhere, where we fly, we get no less than 4 light aircraft fly right overhead at less than 1000' - som
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Baro measurements are accurate to about 5' at these altitudes.
The altimeters in the light airplanes aren't that accurate, and that is assuming they are even set correctly in the first place.
I fly to 6000' with rockets and you know who the idiots are? The pilots. We put out a NOTAM with our coordinates and recovery space, notify all local FAA towers and get legal waivers for all flights. And in the middle of nowhere, where we fly, we get no less than 4 light aircraft fly right overhead at less than 1000' - some even doing multiple passes - just to see what we're doing.
Are you launching in Class G airspace? Those airplanes don't have to talk to ATC, nor do they have to stay out of your way. Rather, you have to stay out of theirs.
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Baro measurements are accurate to about 5' at these altitudes
Not in an airplane. Only when calibrated and stationary and there is no change to air pressure occurring. So basically no where outside of a completely controlled/sealed lab.
In the real world a gust of wind can give you enough of a pressure differential (not from the wind itself, just the actual static pressure change) to sway your measurement hundreds of feet. They are also sensitive to light and heat, and you can easily sway 20-30 feet from just moving the drone from a sunny area to a shaded area.
A la
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100 feet of buffer is inadequate. How the hell do you measure your AGL when you're flying? You either use a radar altimeter ($25K installed on an airplane worth $20K) or you use the baro altimeter, which has an acceptable calibration error, plus the local altimeter setting (atmospheric pressure) which has an error band, and there's error because you're not right over the reporting station.
Well, if you had a good GPS receiver and sufficiently detailed topographic maps on board you could also guesstimate AGL that way--but I agree that it's still a dubious and non-robust approach. And your radar altimeter doesn't have to run $25K if it only needs to work up to a few hundred feet and only be "hobbyist" or "drone" rated.
But really, forget measurement--that's probably not even the biggest problem. I suspect that it would be very technically challenging for these craft to physically maintain t
Next item on tonight's news... (Score:3, Insightful)
I hate what the US have become, it is such that everything is considered "potentially dangerous", and thus need to be banned and/or operate in "controlled" area. Drones accident will happen, just the same way car accident happens, planes accident happens, or even accidental discharge happen (gun are as much subject to mechanical failure as anything else).
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Government bashes free speech, and then some private agent comes with the wonderful idea of "free speech zone". I hate what the US have become, it is such that everything is considered "potentially dangerous", and thus need to be banned and/or operate in "controlled" area. Drones accident will happen, just the same way car accident happens, planes accident happens, or even accidental discharge happen (gun are as much subject to mechanical failure as anything else).
The government engages in unreasonable overreach, therefore all laws are bad? Do you think the world would be a better place if there were no laws related to the operation of automobiles? No signals, no stop signs, no right of way rules, etc? What is your point here?
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You are misquoting me. I never said all laws were bad, I'm just pointing out government overreach. As for your example, it's silly. The road system is similar to the Internet, yet, governments don't regulate how Internet communication are to be made. Everything we have now has been mostly driven by the private sector. There is a few rogue corporation, but globally, everybody cooperate to build what is the best code of conduct (which is pretty much what the rule of the road are, a code of conduct). The existence of this code of conduct (and strong enforcement) does not forbid people to violate them. Heck, when I drive the speed limit, I am generally at the head of a trail waiting to pass me. Nobody respect the law by the book, but they violate the law in a "common sense" fashion. If the limit is 50 on a wide 4 lane highway an a sunny day in the middle of nowhere, nobody's gonna drive 50. If your argument is that people are stupid and cannot follow a code of conduct, then you are patronizing them. Even the most stupid individuals are not doing burnout and donuts in dense urban area. They do it on country roads or abandoned parking lots.
Clearly you have not driven in a country were traffic laws are not enforced. You should try it sometime, it's very exciting. So, yes, police in the US can be lenient about a few miles an hour over the speed limit, and that's a good thing. But if you think people more or less follow the rules of the road because of some naturally evolved "code of conduct", then you are seriously confused. You remind me of people I know that argue that the reductions in river pollution and smog that followed the creation
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Re:Next item on tonight's news... (Score:5, Informative)
Slaughter of personal freedom? For nearly 150 years after the establishment of the United States, people were regularly put in prison for handing out pamphlets (think birth control or union advocacy). Free speech as we enjoy today was invented out of whole cloth by SCOTUS in the 1930s. For most of our history any speech which could plausibly cause civil unrest was considered legitimately subject to suppression by the state. Sort of like the rational basis test used today, which is the least restrictive judicial constraint on government power. By contrast, most state actions involving police powers were considered beyond the purview of judicial restraint, so any kind of test would have been considered quite strict.
Until only several years ago, the Second Amendment to the US Constitution was _never_ considered a personal right as a matter of law. At the beginning of the 20th century, many states had stricter licensing laws regarding hand guns than they do now. In the 1800s anti-knife laws were all the rage, and states out-right banned bowie knives.
For a thousand different reasons, you have much more freedom now than you ever did in this country. The only thing that has really changed is that enforcement is much stricter and penalties are insane. The rise of the regulatory state has created armies of law enforcement, and anti-discrimination laws mean that good-old-boys don't get a wink and a nod from the sheriff as much as they used to when violating the law. At the same time irrational public fear of crime (not unrelated to your own irrational fears) have caused penalties to skyrocket. The laws haven't changed so much as they're much more _ominous_.
Learn your history, and especially your legal history. I did. At one time I was beginning to become as outraged as you. Then I decided to learn history and learn the law (I actually took a break mid-career for law school). Quit your whining.
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So is 200' good enough or not?
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Every sentence in that post is complete BS. It sucks that it got modded to 5 so now I have to go searching for references to refute it.
I'll pick the gun control one since that is easy:
Until only several years ago, the Second Amendment to the US Constitution was _never_ considered a personal right as a matter of law
Easiest hit: Wikipedia on early commentary on the second amendment [wikipedia.org]. Another one is U.S. Supreme Court Cases on the second amendment [firearmsandliberty.com]. There is plenty of commentary regarding the second amendment's status as a personal right within 10 years of it's writing. Case law goes back to the 1800s.
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http://www.remington.com/pages... [remington.com] (emphasis *not* mine)
DESCRIPTION OF THE HAZARD: Remington has determined that some Model 700 and Model Seven rifles with XMP triggers could, under certain circumstances, unintentionally discharge.
Obvious flaws (Score:3)
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never heard of glide slope, eh?
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What zones to they recommend reserving for pistol-equipped drones?
Never more than 1mm from the hand of the operator.
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Obviously this would follow regular air traffic regulations where there are staggered altitude exclusion zones around airports, national security sites etc.
http://nevhgc.net/images/Airsp... [nevhgc.net]
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Sure, and the airspace over a designated Amazon warehouse could be drone-only to 400' for all I care. However, if Amazon is making a delivery to me, the drone is going to be below 200' around my house (at least the six jars of key lime marmalade I ordered are going to have to go from 200' to 0' safely), so that's a lot of airspace below 200' Amazon's going to want to use.
Dedicated Airspace for Drones? (Score:2)
How about over ISIS
No landings (Score:2)
Another Corporate rape of the commons (Score:4, Insightful)
This is another in a long line of corporate taking.
They want to take a huge swath of public space (the space between 200 and 400 feet across the ENTIRE UNITED STATES) for free, for their benefit and the benefit of the rich who can afford to pay for this-hour delivery, and deliver nothing back to the vast majority of the population.
screw'em
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for their benefit
And for YOUR benefit, if you have enough discipline to run your own business that happens to use the same type of technology. I suppose you consider the wireless connectivity you use every day to be a "rape of the commons" every time you connect to a web site that runs advertising in order to pay for their operations? Rape! Rape rape rape! Eeeeevil businesses doing things like ... delivery antibiotics to your hospital. Rape rape rape!
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for their benefit
And for YOUR benefit, if you have enough discipline to run your own business that happens to use the same type of technology. I suppose you consider the wireless connectivity you use every day to be a "rape of the commons" every time you connect to a web site that runs advertising in order to pay for their operations? Rape! Rape rape rape! Eeeeevil businesses doing things like ... delivery antibiotics to your hospital. Rape rape rape!
wat?
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You own that space right now.
No, no you don't. And you sure as hell have nothing to do with what's going on at 200, let alone 400 feet.
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You're both wrong. You don't own the airspace per se, in the sense of being able to prevent all others from using it. Rather, what you own is a right to that airspace in connection to your use and enjoyment of the land below. So you have a property interest, but you don't "own it" in layman's terms.
Basically, you can build a building as high as you want. And aircraft flying above your land and buildings must be sufficiently high that they don't constitute a common law nuisance.
Actually, that's not strictly
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Open protocols (Score:1)
Whatever happens the drones should all speak the same language $@@## should mean always mean up never anything else such as down! or squirrel!
It should be legal to use the interdrone net without licence requirement (for the drone itself or drone operators license is ok) for vital communications.
Personally I vote we take half the CB and use it for the drone to drone communications its not crowded anymore and you can't hear anything on it anyway.
My dedicated zone for personal drones would be... (Score:2)
Shemya, AK! Go for it.
I still don't get it (Score:3)
How will this work? At the moment I have an intelligent (more or less) human delivery system and even that one is not capable of reading the instructions at the door about where to deposit the package when nobody is present.
(I have 'no-signing needed' contracts with all the delivery companies)
How about if Amazon first would get the "world wide web" thingie right and deliver every item to every country, my local post administration (Luxembourg) has a lucrative automatic system going on where packets for Luxembourg are delivered to a company in a border town in Germany and France and then sent by truck for 5€ to my local post box the very same day. You just register at their website.
For all those hundreds of thousands of vendors that are apparently unable to figure out the shipping costs to deliver outside Germany or France. The other Amazon countries don't seem to have that problem.
million flights a day would be troubling (Score:2)
There are abuot 87k flights both commercial and private over us skies every day. Since Amazon wouldn't the only drone using company (fed ex , UPS and all other companies) that number could easily go to a million or even ten million. Even if you get five 9s in terms of no-accidents (likely not possible ) that's still 10-100 drones going down a day or 3650-36,500 down a year. All those drones trajectories once they're out of control operate under Newtons Laws . Even if they automatically deploy parachutes (an
Fuck off (Score:1)
No entity with commercial interests or rather: with interests other than those of a democratically elected government or it's air authority organization shall have anything to say on the use of airspace. That's much too important for all of us. Just imagine those dickheads making a proposal for a special delivery lane for their trucks between lanes for cars and bikes on the road... The private sector already has got too much control over the electromagnetic spectrum and such.
To be clear: fuck off, Amazon.
Not again (Score:3)
This is in some ways similar to what happened to the radio spectrum. Large swaths are only licensed to commercial enterprises to broadcast trash while amateurs got squeezed into narrow slices here and there. No. Reserve 200-300 ft along well-defined corridors for commercial delivery services and leave the rest for amateurs.
The stuff I want from Amazon isn't going to be in stock within a 500 mile radius anyhow. I don't need tacos delivered by air.
Motorless gliders can be thrown higher than 200` (Score:2)
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Long ago, when there was an industry making 'office machines', there was an industry association, NOMDA, that by consensus developed a set of regulations and standards that the members, both dealers and manufacturers, adhered to. Mostly. Among the regulations and policies were definitions for such terms as 'used', so that you could be reasonably certain that the typewriter you purchased as 'new' wasn't actually given to a customer as a demo unit, used for a year, given back, cleaned and refurbished, and so
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Industries can in fact police themselves, if there is sufficient motivation and reward.
Unless it's an open membership organization, you just described a cartel.
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Of course it was open membership.