B4UFLY App

[Mike]

Kind of a stupid name, but I saw this today while finally registering...

http://www.faa.gov/uas/b4ufly/

The registration process made me feel like I was being bent over by the FAA since they're using loopholes to make laws about things that there is a law that says they can't make laws about... but then I am happy that they're putting out an app like this so there's no question of whether or not you're legal to fly in an area. But then again, the purpose of the app is probably just to track where people are potentially flying in case there ends up being an incident.

 

[ringolong]

I tried it out a couple weeks ago, and the app does help, but the 5 mile span is a bit excessive.

Have you seen this video yet? Another member posted it a while back.

 

[LoneRCRanger]

Like the video, it calls out to me about how stupid this all is and how government bureaucracy is the leaders of the stupid. Income Tax was supposed to be he tax to pay for the WWII. There was some overrun there considering we're still paying for that war 75 years later. How stupid is that?

 

[Mike]

I tried it out a couple weeks ago, and the app does help, but the 5 mile span is a bit excessive.

Have you seen this video yet? Another member posted it a while back.

Haha - no, I hadn't seen that one specificially. I love how the drama in this scene applies to every situation though. I'm glad someone captioned it regarding the registration situation. But on the other hand, it does also just piss me off more because as LoneRCRanger said, it just calls out how stupid this stuff is =)

 

[LoneRCRanger]

How does the FAA intend to enforce this law? Shoot it out of the sky to get the registration number? There are laws for the illegal discharge of a firearm in a city area. So, track down the pilot? How, with radio detection? Does one know how hard it is to triangulate on a moving radio source? And what will the police be doing? Driving while looking up in the sky? That's real safe! Bureaucrats never think beyond the means for collecting a fee. After that someone else can figure out how to enforce it. Hell, it's tough to enforce the fireworks laws and they make a big noise and brilliant flashes. Drones don't!

 

[Mike]

How does the FAA intend to enforce this law? Shoot it out of the sky to get the registration number? There are laws for the illegal discharge of a firearm in a city area. So, track down the pilot? How, with radio detection? Does one know how hard it is to triangulate on a moving radio source? And what will the police be doing? Driving while looking up in the sky? That's real safe! Bureaucrats never think beyond the means for collecting a fee. After that someone else can figure out how to enforce it. Hell, it's tough to enforce the fireworks laws and they make a big noise and brilliant flashes. Drones don't!

I think they will tackle it from two angles:

1. Most likely their original intent is to be able to track down who owns a UAV if it crashes into a building, aircraft, below restricted airspace, etc. etc. and the pilot bails without collecting it. There was that one in NYC a couple of years ago that hit a building and dropped onto the sidewalk, almost hitting some pedestrians. I don't know if they ever found that guy. In this case, it makes some sense.

2. Police will harass you while you're flying and will want to inspect multirotor for registration compliance. This one is interesting though because they can't pull me over just to check to see if I have a license unless I'm already doing something wrong. So we'll see how this plays out. I have a co-worker who was flying his Phantom in the LA river and cops stopped him to let him know that as of January 1st he might be committing a crime, but they weren't really sure of the specifics of the law or whether or not the location he was flying would be off limits or not. LA city passed something that goes beyond the FAA restrictions and basically makes almost every corner of the city off limits for flying. Maybe they were just being helpful, but there are a lot of other stories as well of cops stopping people and telling them to shut it down and incorrectly telling them they can't fly in certain areas.