Toys or tools? Drones
 

http://www.agweb.com/drone_zone.aspx

See the videos at the bottom of the page......they are here to stay....

What could you do with one?

Should there be leash laws?

Do you own your airspace? Privacy?

geo

FAA has rules for aircraft flying too low. I'd expect there would have to be rules about drones, too.
In the mean time, I think a drone would be limited by how far a shotgun can reach.
Just think of all the Border Collies out of work while you herd sheep from the breakfast table.

..............The FAA has to publish a set of comprehensive rules , with the 'Rights' of all the various Fed agencies superceding those of the individual ! So , the Cops will be able to fly their drones over private property to surveil the lawless masses and maintain order and whatnot . They'll be very handy when Obama or subsequent office holders declare martial law ! , fordy:shrug:

I've asked different legal dept about airspace control,been told private drones have to stay under 400ft altitude.so if your gun of choice will reach 500ft? your good to go!

I remember the CB craze way back when. There were so many that the FAA couldn't keep up. I also remember it being my job to go to the back pasture to go get the cows. Those were peaceful walks, I would miss that if all I had to do was fire up the drone. Also remember the fox hunters with a Piper Cub doing the spotting, circling round and round.

On the other hand, our cows or pigs got out so often it would have been nice to have a drone to find them. And all the cute country gals who sunbathed.....and the neighbor's pigs to scare....

And, wouldn't it be fun to have your own drone, with guns, to intercept incoming drones? :) The battle for the barn!

geo

I was looking at these for fun, but it seems there is a business use for them. The below website was the first one that came up, but there is a lot they can do.

http://www.dronemetrex.com/mapping.html

One of the first widespread Ag uses will probably be crop dusting. Japan has used drones for 20 years. http://motherboard.vice.com/read/dro...l-a-profession

The FAA rules take over at 200'.. . I have installed 60 meter towers which total out to 197' . . .so as to not require beacon lights......

Should be a revival in popularity in the Long Tom 10ga.shot guns . . . .

Whats the pattern like for number 4's at 100 yards . . .?!?!

The Problem!
Unlike normal airplanes drones have a huge potential for abuse of privacy.
Airplanes are allowed to use the airspace over your property based on the idea that they are mostly for transportation with just a small incidental intrusion into your privacy. Think in the terms of someone looking out of one of those little windows in a airliner from 12 miles up .
A small plane flying over 2000 feet up pretty well announces its presence allowing you time to get your pants zipped if your peeing in the woods.
But a drone can be almost silent, tiny and nearly invisible ,literally peeking in your upstairs shower without your knowledge its anywhere around.
I think they should be restricted to fly only over property they have permission from the owner and not high enough to see property of another.
To do otherwise makes a privacy fence pointless.

They are the future for many different things. Will be a very big business tool.

Agriculture.

Inspections.

Windmills, water towers, any tall silos and grain legs need to be inspected every so often. This requires a tall tall Crain, or a long long rope and repelling gear, with a man or two dangling at the end of it slowly going up and down..... Talk about safety equipment, time consuming just to set up, and $$$$$$.

A drone can zip up and down the sides of those structures in 15 minutes, download all the pics, can use different types of camera to see hot spots, or enhanced fractures etc. with very very little risk to anyone or need for safety equipment.

Agriculture, a drone (more the airplane looking types, not the helicopter looking ones) can go out and scout over 2000 acres in a forenoon, have the data downloaded to your computer and software will tell you where the bugs are, where the weeds are, and if the crop needs more fertilizer yet. Didnt waste any fuel driving around didnt drive on a single plant doing the scouting, you can fix the problems in time to get a better crop, you only have to spray for bugs where the near infrared camera finds bugs not the whole 2000 acres. Man it will save a lot.

These things are going to be -big- business.

You and I won't own them, companies that do the flying will.

Currently there are very few regulations on them, they evolved faster than the govt could react! The laws are rather loose, but basically you,can't fly over people, you can't fly over 400 feet, you can't charge any money or you can't fly for your own business, you can fly them for hobby use only.

Several businesses and people are using them for business anyhow, and think they have loopholes to get away with it. Well, maybe, maybe not, but at the least they are going to need a very good lawyer to get away with it as the current laws, few that there are, kind of come from different angles of the hobby world, and if you fly for profit you are gonna get messed with.

As well even if for hobby and under 400 feet, you are liable for anything goes wrong, a crop dusting plane crashes because it hit your drone and boy.......

New regulations on all this is scheduled to come out in 2015, and FFA sees the value and business of these drones, they will be allowed of course, but how strict the guidelines are, and what the rules will be, gonna be interesting. I suspect the big business interests of inspection and agriculture will get rules in place to make it work for them, the rest of us won't be involved and the hobby/ personal use of them is going to be clipped severely to where we won't really have access. That would be in the best interest of the industrial use of them, and typically how govt regulation goes.

I've attended several meetings and such on these drones, and have friends with thrm, flew my farm even.

Neat stuff, but it's not going to be like personal computers where everyone has one; its going to be a rented service you buy from a big company.

Paul

Skynet

The FAA has its head firmly planted up ^H^H in the sand on these. A local college involved in aerospace had to construct a giant batter's cage to be able to legally fly their drones and develop business applications.

Currently, they fall only under RC airplane recreational use laws. ANY other use is illegal according to the FAA.

The outcome is already obvious, the FAA will impose fees and "certification" requirements, and every government entity from Alaska to Key West will impose taxes and fees. If you plan on using one, buy and use it now (just for fun) before the hammer falls.

If you have the drone it is a toy.
If I have the drone it is a tool.
Please give me your drone... :)


*BAM!*

Dang, I swear I thought that was a crow...
Yeah, officer, it does look pretty messed up.
Oh, I was just skeet shooting... I do that a lot.

When my friend flew his drone here on the farm, it is noisier than I expected, the helicopter style. Wife could hear it at the house, and we were 80 acres away, with the drone itself centered another 40 acres away.

When we flew it out of the yard, my tomcat took a deep interest, watched it fly, as it was landing he took a stalk and attack pose, I was filming the drone with my iPad, was at first funny to watch, then it struck me it won't be funny if the cat pounces on the spinning blades of the drone so I started after him... The drone kicked over and threw some gravel on landing and chased him away. But it was funny to watch him ponder that thing flying up there.

Paul

I was thinking more along the lines of a 12 ga, 32" bbl, 3" magnum, #2 shot. That's my old goose gun, and I swear it would reach to where the geese had little oxygen masks on.

The rules are such a mish mash of stuff that kinda applies sort of at this time.....

That shooting one down is actually a pretty bad fedral offense, and a real good chance someone has you on video doing the shooting... While disturbing your privacy is a very vague issue still, hard to really get a charge against as there is no law set up just for that. See if the govt gets that all sorted out. Yea right?

Privacy and govt spying is a very big issue, and I suppose many of us have our doubts on all that coming out well.

Then, who owns the data? If a big ag firm flys all the county crops every week and builds a database of what is growing and how and valuable data - who owns that data? Isn't that like a tape manufaturer sending a spy into another tape manufaturer and stealing secrets?

A whole lot of issues to consider.

Paul

In most localities it is illegal to videotape someone without their permission. The only reason I can come up with for a drone to be flying over me is to be videotaping me so it is doing something illegal. Therefore I will shoot it down if possible.

I finally might get to use up the 40 pounds of #2 lead shot I have lying around since they outlawed shooting ducks with it. Hot gluing some to each Cub Scout's Soap Box Derby car is not using it up fast enough.

Been looking into building and flying drone aircraft for awhile. We have a pasture a mile from home and as much as I love riding the quad and hiking, some days you are busy, everything is broken at home, and you just want to fly out and check animals are inside the fence!

Not big into the helicopter devices, too vulnerable to wind. I am looking into a small gas-powered RC plane and long-range radio link (have my ham license)
It will have to fly over others' land though I would talk to the neighbours first and obviously avoid yards as nobody likes being buzzed at low altitude. There is a legitimate reason to cross land other than spying.

These things will be more useful than scary. Don't know what everyone is worried about. I don't have time to waste on spying, too busy ranching, if these machines can save effort and fuel I'm all behind them.

The government flies over my land every week in fighter jets. Training flights out of the local base... or are they coming to look at my junk when I take a leak in the pasture uh oh

I think the more compact version would blend in with the hoards of mosquitoes we have this year.

I've got a very clear mental picture of a picture I saw long ago when some nasty guys were way over harvesting ducks??
The 10ga was mounted on a swivel attached to a vertical pole....so they could swing where ever and blast away without taking recoil to the body . . . . . .would be easy enough to duplicate in the shop.

Yes the jackboots will get away with it . . . .All they have to say is "Probable cause" that YOU are doing drugs........

Commercial duck hunters on Chesapeake Bay, a hundred years ago, used a gun the length of the little boat it was mounted in. Pour in a cup of gun powder and that much shot. Ducks would rain from the sky.

This actually happened. A few years ago a hunt club in Eastern SC was having a live pigeon shoot or something that involved shooting birds. PETA flew a drone over to take pictures. The drone was shot down. Don't know the final outcome.

COWS

But, finally you can fly over Area 51 and see what's actually there. Or do they already have stealth drones???

geo

I get that people are afraid of some idiot flying overhead and checking things out. I like my privacy as much if not more than the next guy. But with things like Google Glass, body cameras, etc, we have little expectation of privacy these days.

I don't understand why everyone has concentrated so much on these particular items. Perhaps it is the use of the term "drones" when in fact they are simply RC aircraft. Yes they are more advanced than the average RC plane or car but that is still what they are. Heck I remember launching rockets when I was a kid that had a camera built into it and would take pictures on the way down. That was around 30 or more years ago.

When I think of a drone I think more of a 10' + wingspan craft that are used by the military and not the 12" to 18" things most people are getting. I am sure that there are ones that fall in the gap between but the average end user isn't going to be forking out the cash that those cost.

I just don't understand what the big deal is. Why are we not afraid of the big hill down the street and someone with a telephoto lens with a digital camera? Or better yet all of the idiots running around with Google Glass or similar items. I have a co-worker that has Google Glass and let me tell you, the things they are capable of are down right scary and they are not even in full production yet.

Whether we like it or not, technology is coming. I personally don't like it but know that there is little I can do to stop it. That being said, the first RC copter I see flying in range over my house will be shot down regardless of what the law is concerning it.

In this story hockey fans knocked down a drone, a tshirt brought it down.

http://www.ibtimes.com/la-kings-fans...-video-1603870

Pretty hard to hide a hill its easy to hide a Drone.

It Occurs to me that the only purpose of a Drone is to spy, while other aircraft have other purposes.
We tend to think of spying as bad but the word can apply more generically such as "I spied a new bird at the birdbath".
But even under that definition we don't see much reason to allow drones to spy on us.

I use my RC helicopter with on board camera to do inspections of my roofs and to properly set drag lines with lure grapple hooks on dead fall limbs so I can slide them slowly to prevent shingle damage to my roof from the ground with my fishing rod.

I bought my first RC plane last weekend and am learning to fly. I was amazed how a robust trainer plane and radio can now be had for ~$100 ready to fly.
Flying RC planes is very different from real planes. However there are lots of neat aids available for building your "drone" like gyro stabilizers, autopilots with GPS and return to home capabilities.
I have a chassis I am looking at for next year after I have logged enough flight time, looking forward to running a civilian "drone" aircraft as they will be so useful.

By the way a drone is technically a UAV (some degree of autonomy, autopilots and GPS) while most civilian devices are called FPV aircraft (First Person Video). This is what you should look into to build your own vehicle. It is incredibly popular today I found, with tons of resources.