April is Drone Aware month

electrotor · April 02, 2016, 02:32:02 AM

It seems to have got off to a quiet start.

http://droneaware.org/

Still, plenty time left this month for the fun and games and maybe even the odd public flogging or execution. I understand in days gone by these used to be quite social events.

Cockney Boy · April 02, 2016, 10:44:10 AM

Conveniently all the supporters have links to their web sites. And pretty much all BMFA sites hate Multi Rotors and FPV craft.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

BlueFlyer · April 02, 2016, 12:02:29 PM

Quotenew and existing drone flyers can attend and learn about safe and lawful drone operation

"New" drone flyers.... come to our club and pay subs to get patronised at every opportunity

"existing" drone flyers.... come to our club so we can patronise the noobs

electrotor · April 05, 2016, 10:07:07 PM

Still all quiet on the droneaware front.
Perhaps someone knows if something is supposed to be happening. :+

Gundummy · April 05, 2016, 11:27:09 PM

I'm aware i have drones every month?

BigT · April 06, 2016, 09:53:58 AM

Quote from: Steve W on April 02, 2016, 10:23:44 AM
Does anyone else get the feeling that this sort of thing is only actually bothered with by:

a) people with an interest in its success (COME JOIN OUR SAFE CLUB! DON'T FORGET YOUR SUBS!!!)
b) people who want to spoil other peoples fun (LOOK HOW DANGEROUS THESE THINGS CAN BE. OMG!!!!)

Meanwhile back in the real world, people are too concerned with paying the mortgage to be bothered about idiots with drones, the CAA has bigger fish to fry and 99% of the RC community just pop along to their local field to fly a little plane.

Droneaware feels like a sales pitch. I mean, all this death and destruction makes it sound cooler than it actually is. "drone" flying that is.

A far more effective solution if the RC/FPV communities ARE actually against all the crap flying, would be to ban anyone doing it from the forums. Sure, that would leave Youtube, but I'd wager the most views of those types of videos come directly from people in the community (i.e. forums). Remove the audience, remove the incentive IMO.

Meh. It's early.

Let's get the facts straight here instead of left wing propaganda.
Drone Aware is an incentive promulgated by the DfT and the CAA.
The BMFA, LMA, and FPVUK etc are all involved in moderating any proposed legislation by being involved at a grass roots level in any discussions with the legislating bodies.
Drone Aware is just one part of the joint public consultation program being carried out by the DfT this year. The purpose of which is to garner public opinion as to the publics preferred legislation.
You don't need to join a club to belong to the BMFA.
BMFA insurance does not exclude multi rotor UAV or UASV.
You do not need to pass any competency test to take advantage of the protection of the insurance.

Regardless of your personal views on legislation and the limitation government places on your activities as a citizen and your obvious dislike for any curtailment of your activities, there will be additional legislation introduced specifically to deal with the real or perceived risk posed by UAV and UASV.

That is a fact stated by the DfT minister in parliament.

The major perceived threat as seen by the CAA and DfT is that due to the comparatively simple operation of a multicopter with built in stability it is more likely that they will be operated in situations that are dangerous to the public and air traffic.

Left unchallenged the legislation could and probably would be draconian, as in the RoI. Similar legislation in the UK would effectively kill the airborne RC hobby due to the dense population.
Licensing has been ruled out as it implies a government controlled test, the cost of which would have to be born by the tax payer.
Currently a legislation requiring the retailer to complete registration of the pilot at point of sale of RC equipment and models is favoured but how would the selling on of used equipment be handled? Probably in a similar way to the new laws regarding Dog Chipping that came into force this month. Not enforced until you are caught not doing it. And how does a person get unregistered if they leave the hobby?

Banning of grey imports was tabled as an option by the DfT, treating the sale of components in the same way as firearms components. This is largely realised as unworkable.

The point is that the representative bodies that you seem to detest so much are doing their utmost to reduce the impact on the modelling community by being pro active. What else would you suggest? Who else do you want on your side? Perhaps you would like to join up and do you're bit?

You seem to detest the BMFA and all it stands for, or is it just any organisation? I would be very interested to know the reasons for this. Did you have a bad experience you would care to share?

I currently fly at 4 affiliated club sites in the UK (I fly at many others as a guest during the display season). Non ban multicopters or FPV, 2 are in controlled airspace and one is an active airfield.

The only stipulation made is that the pilot has insurance and operates the vehicle within the law.

My prediction is that in my lifetime FPV will be banned, there will be more high profile prosecutions, and non FPV RC pilots will be the "civil police".

Gundummy · April 06, 2016, 10:04:27 AM

That went from left wing to negative rather rapidly :)

CurryKitten · April 06, 2016, 10:52:46 AM

I guess a question which may/may not validate one of the points put across there on the "drones are so easy to fly, anyone can fly it and may do so anywhere" and I'm paraphrasing here, are how many "drones" have you guys seen in your ordinary lives. I'm guessing we're a little more wired in to notice these things.

Outside of flying at FPV meets and things (obviously that doesn't count) I've seen one guys flying a Phantom in the football fields near me the day after a fireworks display there. All the fields were still fenced off from the night before, and I would say he was acting perfectly reasonably.

My wife saw another phantom (she called me and asked me if I knew anyone flying near where she was, and I asked her if it was white with little striped) flying around a beach she was on. It was mainly taking video of some jet skiers, but also flying around the beach over people. So, some crap flying there.

I'm not sure the sample of 2 flights we're seen between us give much value, else we'd declare that 50% of people are safe, and the other 50% are potential menaces. More telling is the fact that in all these years of "the drones are coming", I've seen 2. Yep, the Phantom 4 is clearly a piece of piss to fly, and can give brilliant results to a beginner. However, it's still £1299. I don't know about you guys, but to me that's not a spur of the moment "oh, would it be nice to film the BBQ in our garden from 100m up ?" buy. So whilst they might be a bit of a threat if every man and his dog had one and flew them anywhere they pleased... it's just not happening as some predicted.

Loopdreams · April 06, 2016, 11:06:12 AM

That's true but there are a lot more than there used to be when people were winding their own motors and stripping down Nintendo controllers to make them fly. So there may some merit to the argument that they will continue to increase in number as they continue to get better and cheaper. Personally I've seen a few out and about and I think probably every square inch of the coastline round here has been filmed by someone or other with a quad.

*But* I'm still not at all convinced that it's not going to just be a fad for most people, a large part of the appeal for casual types rather than the slack handful of obsessed geeks like us lies in the novelty and when, as I just mentioned someone has already filmed everything, then the lure of doing it for YouTube diminishes.

BlueFlyer · April 06, 2016, 01:56:10 PM

Quote from: BigT on April 06, 2016, 09:53:58 AMThe purpose of which is to garner public opinion

That is quite possibly the WORST way to go about this... the "general public" has a massively skewed perception of so called drones due to how the media portrays them...

I can already tell you that the majority of the public's opinion will be negative towards drones...

Heck, why not just ask the Daily Mail how to deal with "drones"

Ratty · April 06, 2016, 02:31:03 PM

My experience would tend to say otherwise.

We fly a lot, and encounter the public a lot. The general public are more interested than annoyed. Many stop and ask questions and watch for a few minuets. They always love a passenger ride on the goggles.

We have only had 1 complaint, and that wasn't because we were flying drones, but because we had gates set up and he thought we were advertising.

Your general moaner who just sits at home to complain about anything and everything tho, that's another story. ;D

Cockney Boy · April 06, 2016, 07:55:45 PM

Quote from: Gundummy on April 06, 2016, 10:04:27 AM
That went from left wing to negative rather rapidly :)

😂😂😂

FPVSteve · April 06, 2016, 08:47:00 PM

Just in case anyone was wondering where my posts went after being quoted above, I figured better not to have an argument on here again so I removed them.

Cockney Boy · April 06, 2016, 09:00:06 PM

Quote from: Steve W on April 06, 2016, 08:47:00 PM
Just in case anyone was wondering where my posts went after being quoted above, I figured better not to have an argument on here again so I removed them.

Too late Steve :o ;D

mark1975 · April 06, 2016, 09:04:10 PM

Quote from: BigT on April 06, 2016, 09:53:58 AM
Let's get the facts straight here instead of left wing propaganda.
Drone Aware is an incentive promulgated by the DfT and the CAA.
The BMFA, LMA, and FPVUK etc are all involved in moderating any proposed legislation by being involved at a grass roots level in any discussions with the legislating bodies.
Drone Aware is just one part of the joint public consultation program being carried out by the DfT this year. The purpose of which is to garner public opinion as to the publics preferred legislation.
You don't need to join a club to belong to the BMFA.
BMFA insurance does not exclude multi rotor UAV or UASV.
You do not need to pass any competency test to take advantage of the protection of the insurance.

Regardless of your personal views on legislation and the limitation government places on your activities as a citizen and your obvious dislike for any curtailment of your activities, there will be additional legislation introduced specifically to deal with the real or perceived risk posed by UAV and UASV.

That is a fact stated by the DfT minister in parliament.

The major perceived threat as seen by the CAA and DfT is that due to the comparatively simple operation of a multicopter with built in stability it is more likely that they will be operated in situations that are dangerous to the public and air traffic.

Left unchallenged the legislation could and probably would be draconian, as in the RoI. Similar legislation in the UK would effectively kill the airborne RC hobby due to the dense population.
Licensing has been ruled out as it implies a government controlled test, the cost of which would have to be born by the tax payer.
Currently a legislation requiring the retailer to complete registration of the pilot at point of sale of RC equipment and models is favoured but how would the selling on of used equipment be handled? Probably in a similar way to the new laws regarding Dog Chipping that came into force this month. Not enforced until you are caught not doing it. And how does a person get unregistered if they leave the hobby?

Banning of grey imports was tabled as an option by the DfT, treating the sale of components in the same way as firearms components. This is largely realised as unworkable.

The point is that the representative bodies that you seem to detest so much are doing their utmost to reduce the impact on the modelling community by being pro active. What else would you suggest? Who else do you want on your side? Perhaps you would like to join up and do you're bit?

You seem to detest the BMFA and all it stands for, or is it just any organisation? I would be very interested to know the reasons for this. Did you have a bad experience you would care to share?

I currently fly at 4 affiliated club sites in the UK (I fly at many others as a guest during the display season). Non ban multicopters or FPV, 2 are in controlled airspace and one is an active airfield.

The only stipulation made is that the pilot has insurance and operates the vehicle within the law.

My prediction is that in my lifetime FPV will be banned, there will be more high profile prosecutions, and non FPV RC pilots will be the "civil police".

like I've mentioned previously , there will never be a outright right fpv ban .............it is impossible to impose such laws, the consensus I got from my chat with the caa when I actually rang them twice now and I'm ringing them again next week regarding some questions my members have towardsme to ask they are optimistic in that a happy medium can be reached with regards to (drones) entering occupied airspace or flying / entering a nfz the latest geo fencing from dji is helping the cause . Restrictions and (*in my lifetime fpv bans will, never happen) copy and paste that bit if you like in fact I'll go on record and say I'm 1000percent certain it won't. ...I won't divulge any further but the future is looking greater by the year you just have to look around the next corner .