Daily Drone to be investigated by FAA according to Forbes

If its true, the FAA are finally looking into Perspective Aerials and their news gathering activities. The complete lack of enforcement to date by the FAA leads us to think otherwise.

The Daily Drone sUAS appears to be operated by Perspectives Aerials, commercial sUAS activity is currently illegal in the USA.

Full Forbes story here

The News Corp’s The Daily has a drone that it’s sent out a few times, as noted by The Observer. After The Daily broadcast some incredible footage of Alabama after it was devastated by storms, UAS Vision reported that The Daily owns a MicroDrone MD4-1000. The Daily sent it out again in June to bring back video from Minot, North Dakota after intense flooding there.

Taking footage for news-gathering purposes seemed like a commercial use of a drone, which is a no-no, as I understand it. I followed up with the FAA asking if News Corp was one of the companies with an experimental certificate. The inquiry got lobbed to the FAA’s legal department…

“We are examining The Daily’s use of a small unmanned aircraft to see if it was in accordance with FAA policies,” said Les Dorr in an email today. A Daily spokesperson has not yet responded to an inquiry about ownership and licensing of the company’s drone.

Using drones for news-gathering seems like a pretty cool idea, though it’s easy to imagine the robot paparazzi future that Ryan Calo fears. While FAA regulations may currently prohibit such a use, the agency is planning to revisit — and possibly relax — those regulations this year, potentially making it easier for private companies to fly the friendly skies with drones.

A video clip that demonstrates what might happen if the paparazzi are allowed to embrace technology. (video removed since posting this article)

https://youtube.com/watch?v=aMpS0M1vs4M