The working man blues

Just a little reminder of what is really important during all of the fan fare and jubilation: Some folks (the little people) are still sitting by the sidelines just waiting for a chance to make a legal income in the profession they chose. It’s those genuine stories like the one in Pat Kerby’s letter to his elected representatives that should remind us what it is all about.

The old familiar anthems like Do No Harm, and The Safety of the NAS have seemed to fade into the background as the moneyed and connected interests find inroads to integration.

First it was the DoD vendors Boeing and AeroVironment that got to fly BVLOS and now some more examples of small business: BNSF (Warren Buffet), CNN and Precision Hawk. The later should serve well as a criteria example for safe operation of hobby grade aircraft. It is an amalgamation of several hobby aircraft designs with the only major mechanical difference between the masses and them are several million dollars in venture capitol and membership to a lobbying firm coalition.

Not that the secret ingredients are necessarily a bad thing, just that investment has as of late been hard to come by. What you are really celebrating is what had been celebrated before; your money and thunder going to secure market share for the moneyed and connected interests.

At this point, you should feel encouraged to petition the FAA and test the Amazon and Google assertions that your systems are safe because you say so.

I said it would happen.

——–

Greetings Representatives.

My name is Patrick Kerby and I have run a successful film and TV production company in Nevada since 1984.  Two years ago, I saw the amazing possibilities of SUAS (Small Unmanned Aerial Systems (drones) aerial cinematography and went all in as far as this technology goes, hoping to expand my business in this exciting new field. 

It is my hope to educate people as much as possible about my chosen field of endeavor so that reasonable, common sense rules can be created to deal with real issues concerning the use of SUAS  for aerial cinematography, and unreasonable fears do not enter into the decision making process.  Admittedly, there are many other uses for SUAS, and many of the points made below may translate, but this message is from the aerial cinematography perspective, and I do not pretend to be an expert in any other application.

We knew there would be legislative hurdles as from the get-go as the FAA interpretation was to ban commercial use of Drones.  There are big questions about their authority to do this involving private property rights, the Tenth Amendment, Federal jurisdiction in the States, etc. etc.  However, this is probably a moot point, as most everyone in this burgeoning industry agrees that some sort of reasonable rules are needed to deal with real concerns and establish penalties if the technology is abused.  Thankfully, the new proposed rules by the FAA seem to be headed in that direction.

The point I want to make to all legislators concerning this matter is that the initial opinions and stance of the FAA punished an entire industry for imagined fears that were completely unreasonable and were clearly the result of a lack of education on the subject.  This trend is something we want to avoid in the State and local arena.  Let us deal with actual fears, and establish punishments for irresponsibility or abuse, but let’s not punish the vast majority of responsible operators over fears of what might/could happen. 

So what exactly are the concerns?

1.        Privacy –  Everyone fears that drones will be used to invade people’s privacy and spy on us, and certainly restrictions should be written for what the government is allowed to do with this technology.  What people do not know is that the multirotor SUAS used for aerial videography have relatively short flight times ranging from 5 to 8 minutes for the larger craft to some smaller units being able to fly near 20 minutes.  This pretty much relegates them to line of sight flying for short periods of time.  Also these systems use cameras with very wide angle lenses, great for landscapes and structures, not so good for spying or paparazzi photos.  There have been instances where people were accused of invasion of privacy, and their best evidence against those charges was the footage they shot from their own cameras.  Commercial operators are paid to film a certain subject, so by and large they are there at the behest of the property owners and all privacy concerns go away.  There are already penalties for invasion of privacy and peeping tom laws.  Let’s just apply those to this application, as there is no need to make redundant laws just to add “with a drone” at the end of them.

2.       Risk of injury – With any endeavor there is an element of risk, and clearly FAA policies were the result of imagining a mass of spinning blades ripping through a crowd of people.  The reality is a lot different.  Instances of SUAS failure has plummeted even as the numbers have increased.   This is because of rapid improvements in technology and reliability in a cutting edge (I hesitate to use that term) technology.  Full size helicopters fly over populated areas all the time, and if one of those fails the results are catastrophic, almost always resulting in deaths.  But because of proven reliability, they are allowed to do it despite the risk.  SUAS malfunctions even in the worst case scenario would be far less lethal, and as reliability improves at an exponential pace, the need for unrealistic restrictions goes away.  If I own a rigging company, and one of my men drops a hammer out of a catwalk and it hits someone, I am responsible for that.  I do all I can to keep that from happening, and I carry insurance in case it does.  No one says that working on catwalks should be illegal because of some imagined accident.  Also it should be noted that commercial users will be the safest of all. While the hobbyist will let inexperienced pilots fly, sometimes with untested systems, a commercial user has their reputation, and a much more substantial investment to protect.  If you have 50k into your craft, you are not going to let just anyone fly it, and you are going to have procedures in place to make sure there are no mistakes.   The proposed FAA rules have clauses in place to insure craft reliability, and no redundancy by state or local authorities should be required.

3.       Risk to manned aircraft – For aerial cinematography uses, this is perhaps the most absurd fear of all.  Our realm of operation is from the ground to a few hundred feet.  Above that, mulirotors cannot go fast enough to create the best results (this is the realm for full size helicopters)   So inherently where we need to fly for best results is below any altitude where there is any possibility of manned aircraft.  If we are flying at 50 feet around a stage or pool, or whatever, and we are in the path of a manned aircraft, then there are bigger problems to worry about.  Just walk outside and imagine a SUAS covering the building you are in, and imagine where it would have to go to interfere with a manned aircraft.  Unless you are sitting at the airport café, this is rarely a factor.  Proposed FAA rules will cover restrictions in the various airspace channels, so no state or local regulations should be needed.

4.       Criminal behavior – This is where legislators usually go wrong.  Because of real or imagined fears of what these craft might be capable of, they put restrictions on them for all users instead of just setting up appropriate punishments for the actual offenders.  Take the ban in National parks for instance.  Because of a couple of irresponsible users, the world is deprived of some of the most breathtaking imagery imaginable.  By all means, punish the irresponsible, but do not punish an entire industry because of the actions of a few.  The reality is that SUAS will have much less impact on the environment than any other means of cinematography, and this technology should be embraced, not shunned. The other area legislators fail is thinking that any law will deter someone with criminal intentions.   If someone is going to try to fly drugs into a prison, or even attempt a terrorist act, no law is going to deter them.  By definition criminals don’t care about laws.  So please be careful when considering regulations for drones that you do not punish the thousands of responsible operators for the actions of a few.  Punish irresponsibility and/or criminal behavior, but do not restrict the useful operations of the vast majority.

Thank you for reading this, and I hope this helps to develop reasonable regulations for an exciting new industry where the US can be a world leader in struggling economic times.

Patrick Kerby