dmwierz
 lvl.4
Flight distance : 61427 ft
United States
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Look, I'll never convince anyone of anything, especially in a mostly-anonymous forum like this, but I've gotta try.
I live downtown in a major US metro area and I see goofballs flying drones over crowded city streets, over monuments, over parks, ALL the time. Last year during and just before the 4th of July fireworks celebrations, there were no fewer than 4 drones in the air, three of them Phantoms, buzzing over the crowd estimated at 200,00 spectators, and one was inside the fireworks, over hundreds of boats. You think any of these guys thought "what would happen if I had a fly-away, or if I lost control of my drone?"? Not a chance.
A few evenings ago, I walked onto our balcony to catch some springtime sun and warmth, and heard a familiar buzzing sound. Sure enough, some idiot was flying an Inspire 1 right outside our building (we overlook a river that goes right through the downtown area). It was at least 600 feet above the ground. It hovered there for a while, then took off out of sight (out of my sight, and more importantly, out of sight of the pilot) around our building, out over rush hour traffic and the crowded street on the ground. I saw the pilot in a clearing below our building and went down to chat with him, but he was gone by the time I got there. I was not going to scold him, wasn't going to call the police, or anything like that. I just wanted to ask him if he had thought about what would happen if his $3K toy malfunctioned and crashed, or if somebody didn't appreciate having a drone hover outside their balcony (the camera was pointed away from our building, at the river, but 99.9% of people wouldn't have known this) and called the police on him?
You don't think I haven't considered how "cool" it would be to fly around down here, skimming over the river, between or over the skyscrapers, zooming under bridges, screaming over sailboats on the lake, hovering over a fountain, etc.? Of course I have. What has stopped me is the realization that if something bad happened, someone or something could be seriously damaged or injured. That's what responsible people do - they analyze what the consequences are of something going wrong as the result of their actions, and make a considered decision on whether what they are doing is wise. And I don't mean the risks just to themselves; I mean the risk to others. They also research the laws and regulations to ensure they are operating appropriately.
Maybe this is where I see many pilots/owners go astray: they make the risk/reward decision based on the risks to THEM, not to others. "Am I willing to risk losing or damaging my aircraft? Yeah, it would be expensive, but just THINK of the cool video I can take and show to all my friends, and really, what are the odds something's gonna go wrong?". They never consider what would happen to OTHER PEOPLE should something go wrong. Or...more likely they just don't care, and simply figure, "it's a free country - don't tell ME what i can't do".
I cringe every time I see something like the (well done and beautiful, but that's not the point) videos Jeff posted, AND when I read people rationalizing why it was OK to do what they or others have done, or deflecting the discussion over their possibly irresponsible actions onto the people who try to show them that what they are doing may not be cool. I don't think Jeff was consciously acting recklesly. I'll gladly give him the benefit of this doubt. It sounds as though he attempted to get what he thought was approval to fly over the Golden Gate National Park, although I seriously doubt a Park Ranger has the authority to grant such approval.
More generically, though. when, not if, one of these small drones falls out of the sky and injures someone, or worse, the pilot/owner may or may not suffer whatever the consequences are (how likely is it that he or she will have liability insurance?), and then will move on with his life, returning to his day job, minus his drone. He'll look back on this years later "Remember how cool that was when we had that drone? DUDE, that was awesome!"
However, some of us make a living taking photos and videos (me), terrestrial and aerial, and we will be the real losers, as undoubtedly the long-term results of incidents like this will be EVERYBODY will pay the price for the reckless actions of a few. More restrictive laws and regulations will ensue. More bureaucratic red tape to go through to ply our trade.
I'm done, now. Do what you want to do, when you want to do it. You're going to anyway. Hey, this is a free country, right? Laws, Shmaws. Regulations, Shmegulations. FAA, ShmeffAA. Other People, Shmother People. |
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