Actually the policy sounds quite sensible and doesn't sound like it will lead to a permanent ban--just a policy about how you can or cannot annoy your fellows in a commons.
As the sky gets fuller, it will be less and less likely that users will be able to get away with acting like they are the only ones flying.
I agree this was a great call by the National Park Service, however I hope it does become a permanent ban- the only people using drones in the National Park should be Park Rangers.
Civilians have no place operating drones anywhere near a nature preserve.
Allow me to disagree slightly. If I'm on El Capitan in Yosemite I might think it was a stellar idea to get a picture of me and my spouse from the perspective of just off the face. That would both put me in the picture and put this amazing rock formation in it as well. Currently you can only do that if you hire a helicopter.
'Getting the right shot' kills a lot of tourists (I wish I knew exactly how many), if they were using drones to position the camera into that potentially dangerous position they might not die.
You are only selling me further on the ban. I think I would strangle some clown flying a drone right in front of a beautiful scenic overlook. Especially for a selfie.
Why is it okay to have a camera on a tripod on the ground, but not on a small aircraft in the air? Other than the aircraft being a newer accessible technology, I see no difference.
No difference? Are you kidding? This new technology is very useful and interesting. But is it different from a tripod? Yes, in many ways. At what decibel does your standard tripod operate? What are it's risks of falling out of the sky due to malfunction? How often does your tripod wander in front of other picture takers during use?
I don't know if you have much experience with multirotors, but they really are not that loud. They're louder than a tripod, obviously, but once they're 10 meters or so away they aren't going to cause a disruption.
As for risks of mechanical or operator failure, that's obviously a valid concern, but there are ways to handle that risk without a total ban.
> How often does your tripod wander in front of other picture takers during use?
It's pretty common for humans to wander in front of other picture takers in parks. I wager that happens a lot more per day than drones flying in from of picture takers (even before the ban).
Because of visibility... say you are trying to take a picture in the air and there are 10 other aircraft in your picture. And none of the other 50 people with their tripods are going to want your silly drone in their pictures. Not to mention the loud buzzing making the whole place an annoying place to be instead of a wonderful moment for everyone. Get a clue.
Parks can get crowded with people as well, to the extent that it's not very enjoyable for any of them. I assume that many parks have methods in place to prevent this, and I don't see why they couldn't be applied to small aircraft as well.
The problem is that you're interrupting the view and the serenity for others while you take that photo. It doesn't take too many people doing that and all of a sudden, the airspace of the park would be full of drones, spoiling it for everyone, a classic case of a tragedy of the commons.
How frustrating would it be if you couldn't get that nice photo without someone elses drone in it from your flying drone?
I live near the Banff National Park in Canada, and it's a continuous game of tug-of-war for the wardens trying to decide what activities to allow in the park. With no restrictions, the place would quickly be overrun. When the point is to experience the wilderness, you have to be very aware that some activities can very quickly, and with very few people, destroy that experience for everyone.
I can see making the tourist vistas be drone free. Some of these parks are huge. Operating a quiet drone a mile from the nearest other human diminishes no one else's experience.
The park service allows automobiles, needlessly loud motorcycles, generators for RVs (within limits), and any number of greater nuisances. (Including the other 20,000 people who came the the Grand Canyon south rim on the day I did.)
> The problem is that you're interrupting the view and the serenity for others while you take that photo.
Plenty of other things interrupt views, like tripods or even other human standing nearby. A general ban on deliberate or extreme interruption is reasonable, but a total ban on remote controlled aircraft is not.
Quiet, slow, ground-level activities are generally thought of as OK. Noisy, fast and elevated things are generally not. As the sphere of influence of some activity grows, more people begin to object to it.
The problem with things in the sky is that they visible (and often audible) from long distances. A single noisy drone might affect several square miles, covering hundreds or thousands of people (depending on the location). A guy hiding behind a tree with a tripod will likely affect a few square yards, and a tiny handful of people.
Most consumer multirotors are not audible from long distances. "Several square miles" is a wild exaggeration. For most drones that non-professionals would be using at a park, I think a 20 meter radius would be more realistic.
Sorry, I was thinking more along the lines of gas-powered remote-controlled planes.
Look, you're right. Used tactfully, by reasonable people, they would absolutely make a fantastic photography platform, and probably not be too intrusive.
However, I have insight to the daily lives of park wardens in popular national parks.
There aren't many of them, they have to cover huge areas, and they spend their days stopping people lighting things on fire, breaking things and taking them away, writing their names on things and trying to put their kids on the backs of the wildlife for photos (I kid you not, it happens once or twice every summer).
I guarantee that if drones were permitted, some people would be buzzing them around the wildlife from a safe distance. This kind of added stress on the animals can and does lead to failure to breed, which has very bad effects on the viability of species, particularly for the less populous apex predators (bears, wolves, big cats).
From the parks point of view, they have to come with policy based on gross population behaviour. They can't supervise or train everyone using the park, so they have to come up with simple policies that can be blanket applied. Unfortunately, the potential for abuse with drones is probably pretty high, thus the ban.
Yeah, I don't think you'll find very many people, even RC hobbyists, who think that gas-powered RC aircraft should be allowed anywhere other than isolated private property and dedicated RC airfields.
Comparing this "need" with the potential disruption to wildlife makes me lean towards wildlife until we get more legal structure around drone policy ironed out in the non-preserve areas.
Consider that people may go to national parks to experience the quiet majesty of nature[1], an experience that would be disturbed by a quadcopter hovering a few feet away taking a glorified selfie.
Also consider that there are wild animals nearby who are not used to drones. Areas of Yosemite are closed to climbing annually for raptor nesting, for instance.
[1] Yes I recognize that Yosemite Valley might not be the best example of this...
Consider that people may go to national parks to capture photographs and video of the majesty of nature, an experience that would be disturbed by a ban on remote controlled aircraft.
It seems like this need would naturally lead to very small camera drones specifically for this purpose. Probably pocket-size and, eventually, inexpensive.
I know that lifting a camera and battery requires a sufficient amount of thrust, but if flight was limited to one minute then it could probably be very small. Wind might be an issue, but flying insects have been around for a while. Engineers will figure it out.
Hopefully the long term regulations would permit such small personal drones with a very limited flight time.
Are there tourists lookouts that are above popular climbing routes? Seems a little contrived to me. What if a tourist drops a can of soda?
I guess if people really can't stand not having such shots the thing to do would be to license some people to use the drones and make sure they avoid doing the most horribly dangerous things (maybe they could use tethers or something).
> Are there tourists lookouts that are above popular climbing routes?
Definitely. In Yosemite both Half Dome and El Cap have hiking trails to the top and are very popular for climbing.
There's an old joke in climbing when you top out among the hikers: "Wait, you mean there's another way up this thing??"
Edit to add: even though a falling drone would probably not actually hit a climber, I don't think anyone wants the base of El Cap littered with smashed little drones.
Yeah, I don't think people need to be commonly operating drones in these areas (I'd still probably be okay with allowing them on Tuesdays or something like that).
On the other hand, I don't think there needs to be special rules for every potential type of litter.
I agree this is a bit of a stretch as an example, but yes people do drop stuff on climbers. Still an interesting story and maybe a good sign that even the smallest objects (drones or boulders) can lead to a runaway effect on a cliff. Thankfully though, it does have to be a "one in a million" coincidence to hurt someone.
The solution is probably some sort of permit system so they can regulate the number of drones in use so it doesn't become a problem, just like they have for fishing and hunting.
People could as easily get killed trying to retrieve a downed UAV after trying to get a shot with the camera from even more remote vantage points. After all, if you can't get a good shot, most people will give up and get different shot, if your $600 flying toy goes down somewhere remote, you're quite motivated to retrieve it.
> if they were using drones to position the camera into that potentially dangerous position they might not die.
They might not die, but I'd offer that they stand a good chance of losing said buzzing, flying drone to a rock throw that went a little off course. No, seriously, I was aiming for that tree.
Do you have much experience with multirotors? It's fairly simple to get a decent rig that can carry a GoPro for 10 minutes (per battery) that weights under 3 pounds and isn't going to be very audible once it's 10 meters or so away. It certainly won't be <2" in diameter, and it won't literally be silent, but it's not going to be the massive disturbance people in this thread seem to expect.
I get the complaints about noise and potential danger. Some of these drones are potentially lethal! When I'm flying my drone, I am always very careful to look for areas without unaware bystanders and where I won't be a nuisance. For the more advanced drones being built and bought today, they typically use an autopilot with a GPS and barometric sensor to assist hovering and positioning. If any part of the system fails, it can very easily come crashing down or even worse, become a "fly-away" and land who-knows-where.
Given these issues, I do understand the reasoning behind the ban. At the same time, I cringe because it will likely be years before one will be able to get a permit to fly in a national park again, and given some of the footage I've shot so far from my drone, I would have loved the opportunity to shoot locations to which I couldn't walk or hike.
As long as there are reasonable exceptions for legitimate scientific work (and I'm sure there are).
In Yellowstone, there's a scenic overlook where you can look through a telescope at a distant hot springs. The springs have a thin crust over boiling mud, so humans cannot enter them. I can see valuable scientific research on such areas using inexpensive drones.
I was in Zion National Park about a month ago and overheard two rangers talking about these drones. At the time, it was illegal to take off or land inside the park but, as they did not control the airspace, you could fly them in the air.
I'm guessing this won't be the last place unmanned aircraft get banned. Probably the places they can actually be flown might eventually be fewer than the places they are banned.
In fact, I am guessing as the technology matures and inevitable problems arise because of drones, rather than addressing the problems and working out a solution the first response will generally be....."Ban It!". This might change when/if demonstrable public benefits (beyond a guy taking some pictures) arise.
"The National Park Service may use unmanned aircraft for administrative purposes such as search and rescue, fire operations and scientific study. These uses must also be approved by the associate director for Visitor and Resource Protection."
How right you are. Why, I should be allowed to drive however I want on "public" roads, because they're for the public. What a fantastic world that would be.
You can drive however you like on "public" roads so long as you are not a harm to yourself or others. You can go where you like, when you like and drive your choice of vehicle.
Please explain to me how a UAV is a harm to someone in national parks.
PS to those down voting me (for as usual on HN no clear reason whatsoever other than disagreement) that the national park service has been using UAS for years. I'm sure their use is "safe" and will continue for years to come.
As the sky gets fuller, it will be less and less likely that users will be able to get away with acting like they are the only ones flying.