
New FAA drone rule is a giant middle finger to aviation hobbyists - javawizard
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/02/new-faa-drone-rule-is-a-giant-middle-finger-to-aviation-hobbyists/
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cmurf
I'm opposed to the proposed rules. The traditional aviation hobbyist isn't
ignorant, incompetent or malicious. And the problem we've seen from some drone
hobbyists, resulting in the problems that this rule stems from, are ignorant,
incompetent, or malicious. And this rule isn't going to fix that. It might
make it very slightly easier to identify the rule breakers, but I think that's
specious.

But now, there are all kinds of private for-profit forces at play to become
the rent-seeking gate keepers for internet connected, and thus approved,
operations. Commercial operators will have no problem with this, whether $50
or $500 a month, it's just a cost of doing business. And getting hobbyists out
of the way is A-OK with them.

It's terrible, but also an entirely predictable consequence of decades of FAA
defunding, and the neurotic application of politics in aviation causing
decades of delays in modernizing the ATC system. Politicians and bean counters
have the political capital to make the new system, not FAA enforcement
experts, pilots, and user experts (including hobbyists) of that system. It's
yet another example of special interests with the money winning.

(inactive CFII)

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danboarder
There was a working group of stakeholders that worked hard for months on
proposed LAANC systems and solutions that included the AMA and FliteTest and
it was disregarded.

Discussion on YouTube suggest the NPRM was mostly written by non-pilot lawyers
and lobbyists for Amazon and Verizon, ignoring the findings and suggestions of
the working group. So a large segment of airspace users are ignored (fpv
racing and freestyle drone pilots, photo drone pilots, RC airplane hobbyists,
etc numbering a few million people and all the supporting industry and hobby
shops, STEM robotics educators, DRL fpv racing on ESPN, etc). So this is why
we are protesting.

Read more in depth on this topic: [https://fpvfc.org/](https://fpvfc.org/) and
[https://content.dji.com/we-strongly-support-drone-remote-
id-...](https://content.dji.com/we-strongly-support-drone-remote-id-but-not-
like-this/) and [https://dronedj.com/2020/02/28/help-save-out-hobby-
protest-a...](https://dronedj.com/2020/02/28/help-save-out-hobby-protest-at-
faa-headquarters-in-washington-d-c/)

