Many ski areas outlining bans of drone use
By Jason Blevins
The Denver Post
If camera-toting drones follow the ubiquitous trend of skiers strapped with point-of-view cameras, could we see a deluge of aerial quadcopters at resorts across the high country?
Not if ski resorts can stop it.
Resorts across the U.S. are hedging against snowy vistas clogged by drones by adopting — many in the last season — explicit bans on the wildly popular aerial cameras.
“We just felt it was necessary to cover the resort and be ahead of any issues that could potentially occur,” said Erica Mueller, a spokeswoman for Crested Butte Mountain Resort, which is among dozens of ski areas that recently outlined a ban on unmanned aerial vehicles.
The National Ski Areas Association in Lakewood, which represents 330 ski areas, has crafted a sample drone policy that most resorts have adopted. The idea of drones proliferating on par with the growth of helmet-mounted POV cameras raises serious concerns for the trade group, which is working with the Federal Aviation Administration and the U.S. Forest Service to help sculpt drone policy. (The FAA recently estimated more than 1 million drones will be given as holiday gifts this season.)
“This notion of drones flying all over ski areas, it’s something that is on a lot of operators’ minds right now. They don’t want it, and I don’t think their guests want it,” said Dave Byrd, the director of risk and regulatory affairs for the National Ski Areas Association.
But resort operators also are imagining beneficial uses of the flying camera technology and even pondering how guests could be allowed to use drones in controlled situations.
In a 15-page memo to the FAA, which offered proposed drone regulations in February but has yet to issue a final plan for incorporating unmanned aircraft systems into U.S. air space, Byrd suggested potential regulations for broader use of drones at ski areas. After-dark searches and rescue operations could benefit from the technology. Resorts could inspect lifts and spot potential fires during wildfire season. Commercial uses could help market a resort and promote events.
The FAA seems receptive, and Byrd said he thinks ski areas could be the testing ground for the agency’s new regulations.
“I think they see ski areas having a lot of potential for being on the cutting edge of drone use,” Byrd said. “Ski areas are generally rural and far from airports, and we have a strong track record for risk management and safety protocol.”
The Forest Service oversees the land used by 120 ski areas in the U.S., including 21 of Colorado’s 24. The agency is working with its ski areas to develop specific drone policies that will be reviewed annually and approved as a condition of their special use permit. Those policies give resorts the ability to approve some drone use — like during the X Games at Buttermilk, which borders the Aspen airport — for marketing or special events.
The Forest Service already requires commercial filming operations to pay a fee and secure a permit. Those filmmakers now need authorization from the FAA and must have insurance to protect the resort, said Don Dressler, who manages the Forest Service’s ski area permits in the Rocky Mountain region.
Resort angst over a potential drone invasion certainly wasn’t helped when rotor-mounted camera maker Lily Robotics this spring announced its throw-and-go autonomous flying camera with a video taken while the lifts were turning and guests were skiing at Mount Rose in California.
That same week, GoPro founder Nick Woodman announced his company had a flying four-rotor camera in development.
“I was really surprised to see how quickly the general consumer was adopting quadcopters,” Woodman said on stage at the tech industry’s Code Conference in May. “Quads plus GoPro has been one of the most democratized combinations, enabling people to capture professional quality content and seeing themselves in their environment in a way they have never seen before.”
The buzz has sent ski areas scrambling.
The National Ski Areas Association in June sent a letter urging Lily founder Antoine Balaresque to stop using ski resorts in its marketing and promotions.
“It would be deceptive — if not dishonest — for Lily to suggest or imply that skiers and boarders will be able to use these drones at ski areas in the United States,” the letter from Byrd read. “There are serious safety and risk management considerations with the operations of drones by guests at ski areas.”
Byrd said he never heard back from Balaresque. That same month, Byrd wrote the blanket ban on drone use.
The restriction of most drones at ski areas is opening doors for commercial outfits that have FAA permits to fly unmanned aerial vehicles. The FAA has issued permits — known as Section 333 exemptions — to 1,742 operators through the end of September.
The permits require those companies to follow FAA regulations that require “all flight operations must be conducted at least 500 feet from all nonparticipating persons.”
That pretty much means even permitted operators would be prohibited from flying at ski resorts.
Bay Area-based Cape Productions , which officially launches next week, is working with the ski area association, the FAA and the Forest Service for a first-of-its-kind permit that would allow them to establish commercial drone filming operations for ski resort guests.
The process has been tough, founder Jason Soll said. “It’s been a mess of lawyers from all these different agencies trying to interpret these ambiguous laws and butting heads.”
Still, eight resorts — including Winter Park and Copper Mountain — are interested in hosting the ski industry’s first commercial drone filming service, Soll said.
If he can get the FAA’s OK, the idea is to establish specific zones at a ski area for filming. Those zones, with “air rails” that serve like virtual guide wires, will keep the commercial-grade camera toting drones on specific flight paths.
Not surprisingly, Soll is a fan of resorts banning consumer drones. Those UAVs, he said, are unpredictable and dangerous. The new technology behind the personal quadcopter is not safe, he said.
“And ski resorts might be the most difficult place to fly them,” he said.
Soll is working with ski insurance providers, resort executives, ski patrollers and risk managers. His company will carry $5 million insurance policies at each resort. He plans to launch his service in December.
“In the end, we are here to help the industry and make sure we are getting more people, especially young people, excited to go to their local ski resort,” said Soll, hitting the millennial hot buttons that top today’s ski industry talking points. “People should be buying videos, not drones. That’s what they want in the end. I disagree with Nick Woodman and the others who think there is going to be some personal computer moment with drones, where everyone has one.”
Byrd envisions a time — after the FAA issues its drone regulations, which are expected by early 2017 — when some resorts craft more permissive policies.
He sees potential “drone zones,” where ski areas, like Boyne Resorts’ Big Sky in Montana, for example, allow customers to fly drones in controlled settings — perhaps every other Sunday in one of its four terrain parks.
“Some resorts, I think they are trying to figure out how they are going to capitalize on drones,” Byrd said. “There’s this tension. The millennials, they want to capture everything they do and put it on social media. We are wrestling with this tension between safety for the general public and satisfying that millennial demand.”
