DJI Removes US Drone Flight Restrictions Over Airports, Wildfires (theverge.com) 52
Chinese drone maker DJI has removed software restrictions that previously prevented its drones from flying over sensitive areas in the United States, including airports, wildfires, and government buildings like the White House, replacing them with dismissible warnings.
The policy shift comes amid rising U.S. distrust of Chinese drones and follows a recent incident where a DJI drone disrupted firefighting efforts in Los Angeles. The company defended the change, saying drone regulations have matured with the FAA's new Remote ID tracking requirement, which functions like a digital license plate.
The policy shift comes amid rising U.S. distrust of Chinese drones and follows a recent incident where a DJI drone disrupted firefighting efforts in Los Angeles. The company defended the change, saying drone regulations have matured with the FAA's new Remote ID tracking requirement, which functions like a digital license plate.
cruisin for a bruisin (Score:2)
DJI is cruisin' for a bruisin'.
The headline is misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
The new software warns the operator that they are in a restricted area, but allows the operator to decide what to do. This is consistent with aviation philosophy that the pilot is in command and is responsible for their actions
Re:The headline is misleading (Score:5, Interesting)
These are toys that don't need a license that requires hours and hours of training. If DJI wants to press their luck with being banned outright, good for them.
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But that philosophy is made with the assumption that the pilot or a person is on board.
Precisely, and even that's not a 100% deterrent for undesirable behaviors. Plenty of examples on how that's failed in history.
These are toys that don't need a license that requires hours and hours of training. If DJI wants to press their luck with being banned outright, good for them.
I don't know how other markets/nations feel about geo-fencing but this could be a damned-if-you-do kind of situation. If they have geo-fencing to make the FAA or some other American three letter agencies happy then that could mean losing elsewhere as they are opposed to the technology. Even if the technology is only enabled on a market by market basis there could be some concern t
Re: The headline is misleading (Score:2)
Hell yes! (Score:1)
If we want geo fencing to be mandated we should pass a law to do so. Right now the geo fence feature is a legal liability for DJI. If it doesn't work correctly, the pilot can blame DJI. This puts the accountability on the pilot, where it should be.
Hell yes!
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Congrats on the dumbest post of the day.
No one, I repeat no one wants a Bubba Ho-Tep wanna-be to jumping out of his truck with a toy drone.
Most of the firefighting crews in the USA already has there own drones with trained pilots.
LA is a different matter as that communist state is retarded.
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Or the idiot with the drone crashes into a fire fighting plane, damaging the wing and grounding it for a week while it's repaired.
Meanwhile it can't drop water on the fire.
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But that philosophy is made with the assumption that the pilot or a person is on board.
Precisely, and even that's not a 100% deterrent for undesirable behaviors. Plenty of examples on how that's failed in history.
This isn't a binary situation where a deterrent is either 100% effective or its useless. A regulation assuming that someone doesn't want to intentional put themselves in danger is generally pretty effective. With a drone that aspect is gone though so its a reasonable stance to subject drone operators to some rules that an in-person pilot may not have to adhere to.
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This isn't a binary situation where a deterrent is either 100% effective or its useless.
I agree, my intent was to emphasize that point.
A regulation assuming that someone doesn't want to intentional put themselves in danger is generally pretty effective. With a drone that aspect is gone though so its a reasonable stance to subject drone operators to some rules that an in-person pilot may not have to adhere to.
Would not the potential loss of the drone be at least some of a deterrent to doing something stupid? I'd think so. Not the same kind of deterrent as the pilot in the aircraft but still a deterrent. It doesn't have to be 100%, it just has to be effective "enough".
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Yup. For every drone that somebody flies in restricted airspace in the U.S., there will probably be a hundred flying in restricted airspace in Russia near the border with Ukraine. Just saying.
Re:The headline is misleading (Score:5, Informative)
Not really.
Not really.
https://www.faa.gov/uas/commer... [faa.gov]
In fact, in the US you can fly an ultralight (under 254 lbs not including pilot or safety gear) with no license or training at all if you're dumb enough. But you require one for any drone over 250 grams.
DJI's new policy is consistent with the law in most places, including the US, and is also consistent with what American drone makers do. Their old policy seems to be kind of an over-restriction made in response to US government threats. It doesn't seem to have worked.
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Note that the toy that grounded an air tanker in LA last week was a DJI drone that wouldn't be covered under drone legislation (weighs less than 250g). AND using the old software.
In the end, it's a helpful tool to stay legal. Nothing more. If you want to break the law you probably could. That drone pilot in LA who flew that drone into the air tanker w
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So it allows someone operating in bad faith to willingly disregard regulations that are there specifically to prevent endangering life of other pilots and air passengers.
That sounds like an update that absolutely needed to be released, and in no way invites someone to do the worst possible thing with a (relatively) cheap drone.
I look forward to a news report of a 767's engine ingesting a drone during takeoff and crashing / killing everyone on board.
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Someone in bad faith doesn't need DJI and it's drone that is broadcasting a license. Why spend that kind of money when you can do it at a fraction of the cost?
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The problem isn't terrorists, it's idiots flying drones in dangerous places. Like that one that forced the fire-fighting planes to be grounded.
Re:The headline is misleading (Score:5, Insightful)
DJI is the only manufacturer that enforced no-fly zones. None of the others have ever done that, including domestic companies.
In all the years of drone hysteria, there is only one documented case of a toy drone colliding with a full-scale aircraft, and that was just last week. Before that, every single reported case turned out to be bogus, some egregiously bogus. Besides that, the FAA solved the problem with requiring drone licensing, tail numbers, and radio id, right?
There are several model aircraft clubs that meet at and fly from small airports with permission. So a blanket technological enforcement of a no-fly zone near airports is a bit of over-reach.
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So it allows someone operating in bad faith to willingly disregard regulations that are there specifically to prevent endangering
Someone operating in bad faith always could. DJI ALONE put in place restrictions hard-enforced by the software. None of the other drone makers did, And it's evident that DJI's extra care did not pay off, since US is in the process of banning them anyways regardless of their efforts. It doesn't make sense for them to undertake the extra effort the US-based drone manufac
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> someone operating in bad faith
This is what Bruce Schneier calls a "Hollywood movie plot threat".
Can we imagine it?
Yup, absolutely.
Is there already third-party DJI firmware available that can be easily installed without any restrictions?
Yup, that too.
So if we analyze this, the people with bad intentions would already be causing this havoc we can imagine.
If there's an actual risk it's dummies who have no ill will but don't know any better.
But we also let them drive the kinds of vehicles implicated in the
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So it allows someone operating in bad faith to willingly disregard regulations that are there specifically to prevent endangering life of other pilots and air passengers.
It is entirely possible for drone owners to register their drones, file a flight plan, and obtain permission to fly in controlled airspace. I doubt that DJI's software has any way to know whether you have permission from the FAA (there are multiple ways to get that permission, including prior written agreement with the ATC by snail mail), so lockouts likely prevented a lot of authorized flying and not-authorized-but-clearly-safe flying, too, not just legitimately dangerous behavior.
The FAA rules for restri
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You should watch some disaster investigation TV; quite a few are due to the electronic controls overriding the pilot.
Pilots of large aircraft were reduced to an advisory position quite a while ago. Everything is fly by wire, with limits and input responses imposed by software.
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Traditional aircraft very different than drone (Score:2)
The new software warns the operator that they are in a restricted area, but allows the operator to decide what to do. This is consistent with aviation philosophy that the pilot is in command and is responsible for their actions
That philosophy is for "real" pilots. A person who has their ass in a seat on that aircraft, in particular an aircraft that might have passengers. And lets not forget a pilot who has gone through government approved training and is government licensed to be a pilot in command of an actual aircraft.
That is very different than a drone operator. Even a licensed one. A friend spent a weekend getting a drone license. Other friends spent several months in ground school and several more months in flight trainin
Are they looking to be banned from sale in the US? (Score:2, Insightful)
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Then they'd have to ban every other competitor to DJI too, as none of them force restricted airspace and never have. For the last 10 years DJI was the only manufacturer making it almost impossible to fly in restricted airspace.
The FAA could. A dumb-fuck has already caused problems by damaging a plane that was fire the LA fires -- I'd really rather the FAA not wait until one damages a civilian plane and kills everyone on board.
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Then they'd have to ban every other competitor to DJI too, as none of them force restricted airspace and never have.
Nonsense - are you unfamiliar with how government works?
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Well, then, why would you expect any sort of logic to be part of this process?
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And that goes to why that brand should be banned, because they have the ability to do it, but they are just looking to cause problems. It's a lot easier to say, "we don't have the ability to do what you want" than, "we can do it, and have been doing it, but we just refuse to do it".
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DJI giving the US the finger (in return) (Score:4, Informative)
The US is sticking it to DJI, and DJI is sticking it to the US in return.
DJI claims, "This GEO update aligns with the principle advanced by aviation regulators around the globe — including the FAA — that the operator is responsible for complying with rules." Hmm, sure. I wonder if this principle applies to DJI drones operating in China. Uh ... yeah.
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Yes, it does. They use the same No-Fly system globally and, AFAICT having flown DJI drones in multiple countries across multiple continents both for work and personal reasons, the defined zones seem to equate pretty closely with the specific country's published guidelines and restrictions on where you can/can't fly drones, which aligns with DJI updating their DBs on request from local authorities as they said they would. e
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Yes, it does. They use the same No-Fly system globally and, AFAICT having flown DJI drones in multiple countries across multiple continents both for work and personal reasons, the defined zones seem to equate pretty closely with the specific country's published guidelines and restrictions on where you can/can't fly drones, which aligns with DJI updating their DBs on request from local authorities as they said they would.
Wait, just to confirm, are you saying that in China DJI drones approaching a no-fly zone will simply issue the same warning which can be easily dismissed and then fly on with no restrictions? Yes, DJI has databases on the no-fly zones, but you're saying that in both the US and China, only easily dismissed warnings are issued and drone can easily enter with no restrictions. Wow! If that's true, considered me tutored, but I'd be shocked if that's allowed in China.
Trusting the drone pilots to do the right thing (Score:4, Funny)
Car Drivers (Score:2)
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How do you enforce the drone rules?
It's not like you can pull a drone over and arrest the driver.
In many cases it's impossible to find the owner, let alone the operator.
Could it be related to always connected (Score:3)
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Could be. DJI is in a tight spot due to nonsensical US demands. Requiring a connection to the Internet is bad. Drones must be connect to the Internet to update airspace restrictions. Uploading data is bad. Drones must upload their location and identification to internet databases. Etc.
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That's just a double bind. Your software must continuously update airspace data to ensure it is up-to-date at all times and upload location data for tracking by authorities. Also, your software must not connect to servers or the internet, because that would mean you are allowing the Chinese government to in theory control the drones and spy on data.
DJI be trolling (Score:2)
DJI be trolling us right now. Why should DJI be compelled to help the U.S. monitor its own air space? They are letting go the reins and letting their devices be controlled by the good people of Amurica. They know the US doesn't trust the CCP so this is proof that these drones will not be restricted or controlled by DJI/CCP.
Almost Nowhere in Bay Area to Fly a Drone (Score:2)
That was never the objection (Score:2)
The privacy objection to DJI isn't that they geofence, though that does irritate some people as you could get permission to fly in some of those areas but there was no way to disable the geofencing.
The privacy objection is that they phone home before they let you fly.
Ostensibly that was for the purpose of updating geofencing, and so it shouldn't still be necessary, but the article says absolutely nothing about it.
Does this change prevent the software from phoning home before you can fly?
Re: That was never the objection (Score:2)
The summary says that the manufacturer replaced restrictions with dismissable warnings. To generate these warnings the devices still need to get the no-fly data. Hence, they still need to phone home. If phoning home is to get that data, of course.
Their Android app is borderline malware (Score:3)
Their Android app is borderline malware. Not because I *know* it's doing bad things, but because whatever they are doing is shady enough that it's not allowed on the Google Play Store, and the installation process is a set of back-alley instructions for sideloading an untrustworthy APK to your device.
I did not know this fact until the recipient of the gift I bought had it out and we were trying to set it up. I decided to use a sacrificial non-critical device to run the app (which is both a controller for the drone as well as a real-time video monitor).
This is one of the first times I find myself recommending an iPhone, only because DJI is understandably unwilling to ignore the platform due to its ubiquity, and thus are forced to play by the Apple App Store rules. This is unfortunate for Google, who I think is on the correct side of this debate, because DJI apparently found the loophole of too popular to play by the rules.