
How drones and UAVs are already affecting construction jobsites - mooreds
http://www.equipmentworld.com/drones/
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sharkweek
Friend is a site supervisor for a pretty big GC up here in Seattle - They used
to pay a pilot a few hundred bucks every time to fly over job sites to take
aerial photography.

He decided one month w/o telling the bosses to spend the money on a $500ish
drone with a decent camera attached and cancel the pilot flights.

Showed the foreman the capabilities of the little drone, which quickly made
it's way up the chain, and now one pilot is out of a recurring job.

Thanks robots.

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noonespecial
And yet here we stand on the cusp of creating a whole new breed of pilots who
are ready willing and able to follow simple common-sense rules for UAV
aviation, creating a new sector of jobs that didn't exist before. Jobs that
get the same results without all of the negative safety and environmental
externalities of flying giant tin kites with primates stuffed inside.

Just make up your minds and tell us the rules already.

~~~
Verdex
> Just make up your minds and tell us the rules already.

This is a bit off topic, but this is something that I've spent a lot of my
life being worried about. I'm pretty sure that most people don't really
understand what rules even are. Effectively they want two rules 1) things I
like are good and 2) things I don't like are bad. However, you cant just come
out and say that because of other social reasons.

Back on topic. I work in a 'nice' place in Indiana and recently there have
been 35-45ish year olds wearing business casual showcasing their drone like
remote control flying machines to their 35-45ish year old, business casual
wearing friends. Additionally, growing up I went to church with a guy who
ended up recently graduating college with some sort of piloting degree (sorry
I dont know any of the details besides "he went to college to be a pilot").
He's now going to be a police man of some sort reportedly because recent
piloting regulatory changes have made it even harder to make a living as a
pilot.

With these two anecdotes in mind, my guess is that the chaotic social fabric
that rules our lives will decide in favor of the UAVs and against manned
aerial vehicles.

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tacticus
aren't the most recent regulatory changes all about requiring more hours
before being able to do significant commercial flights?

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nakedrobot2
The FAA is flushing a multi-billion dollar industry down the toilet with their
ridiculous restrictions on this gigantic, growing drone craze. Most of these
things weigh a couple pounds and are mostly harmless (definitely less than,
say, a baseball hitting you). I'm glad I live in Europe.

~~~
at-fates-hands
Mostly harmless like when you fly them next to an apartment complex?

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuBSsBscRDU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuBSsBscRDU)

I find interesting that people are more scared of the NSA and yet we have tons
of people flying these around your neighborhoods and apartments and nobody
bats an eye about your invasion of privacy.

~~~
baddox
Yes, still mostly harmless. Still comparable to playing baseball in a
residential area.

As far as privacy goes, of course it's possible to violate privacy with a
drone. But it's a lot more practical to violate privacy with a telescope or a
camera with a zoom lens. The only thing a drone can get you is a shot of the
roof or backyard, a really easy way to get spotted, and relatively short
"mission" duration.

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randomaxes
It's weird that this article left out Skycatch and Airware.

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baddox
> That’s because most would classify the aircraft Evans and many other
> tinkerers are flying as a “drone.” Despite this definition being technically
> incorrect (more on that in a bit)...

This tired old semantic argument again. The word "drone" has been used to
refer to unmanned remote controlled (or autonomous) aircraft at least since
the 1950s. I'm pretty sure the term was used throughout WWII, but the earliest
source I can find right now is from 1951:

[http://books.google.com/books?id=cGPJ9fJDJNIC&pg=PA41&dq=%22...](http://books.google.com/books?id=cGPJ9fJDJNIC&pg=PA41&dq=%22target+drone%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=q9oYVLCoOIq7ogSauoHoAg&ved=0CEQQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=%22target%20drone%22&f=false)

~~~
treerock
I find it weird when press call what are basically kids playing toy
helicopters 'drone operators'[1]. They are definitely playing on the negative
connotations have with the word 'drone' which, as you point out, is closely
associated with the military.

1: [http://onforb.es/1matUzZ](http://onforb.es/1matUzZ)

~~~
baddox
I obviously don't approve of blatant attempts to conflate toys with military
aircraft, but that has little to do with the _word_ "drone." The military
"drones" aren't even officially called that. The reason we call military
remote controlled aircraft "drones" isn't that they shoot missiles and kill
people. It's because they are unmanned aircraft. We don't call manned military
aircraft "drones," and they also kill people.

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thomasfromcdnjs
Shameless self promotion here, but we've seen an increase in job site quote
requests on our site -> [http://www.dronehire.org](http://www.dronehire.org)

