Casey Neistat New York Karma

Did Colin from GoPro make a monumental marketing error letting Casey fly Karma in New York?

I have received the link of this flight, no less than 12 times this morning already from concerned Part 107 operators and even the very famous in our world, Bruce Simpson of New Zealand!

I  made a video about what I think the FAA should do about Casey, it is not what you might think. Now that Part 107 is in place and Casey was clearly not flying under Part 101 model aircraft rules will the FAA be compelled to look into his flying activities.

More than this GoPro are on FAA committees and should be towing the party line. This is to my mind the biggest error of judgement. GoPro doesn’t seem to be leading by example. Rob Thompson wrote about this in February for us.

Ok, I said his name wrong and have since watched lots of his videos and have great admiration for him. He is a filming machine.

Just last night on our weekly chat we spoke about the legality of flying in New York. Couldn’t have been more topical if we tried!

Now we don’t know when the flight actually happened but if it was this week there is a strong chance Casey broke a TFR. This one http://tfr.faa.gov/save_pages/detail_6_3040.html

Airspace map from https://skyvector.com/ make this your very first port of call for information in the USA, not apps.

Now…. let’s park the TFR for a minute.

Operating a UAS from a moving vehicle, does a boost it board count?

At the end of the day, GoPro knew what they would get from Casey.

Is it wise that they continue to represent the RPA industry at FAA meetings? Perhaps Part 107 operators might consider making sure they don’t get asked again.

I doubt the FAA will do anything which sends a poor message to newly minted Part 107 pilots.

If the FAA do decide to get involved Casey might face multiple $1100 fines.

Let us hope they rather get him some training and use him to spread the safety message.

That would do far more for the emerging commercial drone industry in America.