From: The FAA Gave Us a List of Every Drone Pilot Who Has Ever Been Fined

Lots of people have been fined for flying drones when they pose a threat to those on the ground or aircraft in the sky. However, the punishments levied by the US government against people who fly drones appear to be mostly arbitrary: They range between $400 and $5,500 (with one outlier at $1.9 million), the cases are almost entirely concentrated on the East Coast, and the specific wording and regulations the Federal Aviation Administration cites are inconsistent, according to enforcement letters obtained by Motherboard using the Freedom of Information Act.

The documents involve 24 different people or companies and the FAA's FOIA office says they are the entirety of the Federal Aviation Administration's enforcement efforts against drone pilots thus far.

It's an interesting read, particularly now that the FAA no longer has jurisdiction over non-commercial "hobby" flight.

Very interesting reading, Thank you for the link!

sadly with the current administration and their priorities we will not see any changes..  basically russian roulette if you want to get beautiful shots of surroundings in populated areas.

the police dont understand how to handle it either, i spoken to a few officers and they admitted outright to me that they have less than zero idea how to handle a drone complaint... they attempted contacting FAA and other agencies to get training since they believe it will become a thing to need to handle in the future.  they also want the FAA on their sides for future drone use operations they plan on deploying, again its as clear as mud to them..

ImHereToCrash Posted at 2017-9-1 13:02
sadly with the current administration and their priorities we will not see any changes..  basically russian roulette if you want to get beautiful shots of surroundings in populated areas.

the police dont understand how to handle it either, i spoken to a few officers and they admitted outright to me that they have less than zero idea how to handle a drone complaint... they attempted contacting FAA and other agencies to get training since they believe it will become a thing to need to handle in the future.  they also want the FAA on their sides for future drone use operations they plan on deploying, again its as clear as mud to them..

I've not spoken to police officers yet, but I did check-in with a security guard at a site I like to fly near who knew all about and asked to see my FAA registration. That was early in the year, before registration was canned, and I don't know if the guards have been retrained since the change. I keep my registration paperwork handy just in case.

Ex Machina Posted at 2017-9-1 13:10
I've not spoken to police officers yet, but I did check-in with a security guard at a site I like to fly near who knew all about and asked to see my FAA registration. That was early in the year, before registration was canned, and I don't know if the guards have been retrained since the change. I keep my registration paperwork handy just in case.

ya makes some sense depending on location and such.   i would wonder however if they actually could have done anything behind the scenes to check with the FAA though?   or if they just note it down incase you are reckless and such... hmm.   seeing as security guards are private not sure what they have access to..

but out here i had a few complaints coming my way, police made contact with me, very professional about how they handled for most part but admitted they don't know much if anything.   in fact he had to do some googling himself, which worried me since it is about as clear as mud as well..

"I keep my registration paperwork handy just in case."

You just never know so I've done the very same thing. I keep it handy.

The one flying into the White House area, that pilot was completely stupid and had no sense to do such a thing. What the hell was he thinking and smoking.