Drone!

Managed to get a few snapped off as this took flight! What an amazing range they have. He flew it out literally to sea and we couldn't see the thing before he brought it back!

1.

Barry Island 04/05/16 by Gareth Williams, on Flickr

2.

Barry Island 04/05/16 by Gareth Williams, on Flickr

The first rule of The Dronecode is to make sure you can see your drone at all times and don't fly higher than 400 feet. Presume he failed in that?

should be banned
thats my opinion

Drones have a fantastically important role to play in archaeological research and a ban would be disastrous. Sane legislation is what is needed, not extreme knee-jerk reactions.

K.

There's nothing wrong with drones if flown responsibly. If that one was flown out over the sea and had suffered a propeller or motor failure then it would have been bye bye drone.

Dang! Didn't mean to start a heated debate. The drone was gone completely out of sight! Obviously he could see what was going on as it was linked to his tablet somehow that was clipped on his control unit but for us, it disappeared!

Can't ban them, a lot of TV programmes I watch feature drone footage

+1 Imagine a sky full of these things

But therein lies the main point - it is not the object that is the problem, it is the user. A similar point could be written about guns, but there are strict laws to license and control their ownership and use, and they are not sold over the counter in high-street shops to anyone who wants one.

There are issues of privacy, safety, accidents, casual and/or deliberate nuisance, and possibly terrorism, associated with drone use which should be taken seriously. In my view, strict legal regulation of the sale and use of drones is necessary. They should be used only by trained, licensed and insured adults, and preferably only as a tool appropriate to their profession.

Cheers.
Philip

.... all carrying K-1 parcels from Amazon!

Having played with these a while back myself, the line of sight/see at all times requirement is misguided.
If there is camera feedback to a local screen, you have much more control and spatial awareness etc than if you can just see it with the naked eye.

These things are a marvel of cheap but powerful electronics, control systems and video transmission, gps integration and battery and motor technology. The end result is you can acquire these cheaply, and fly them from out of sight, so banning them is plain not going to be enforceable. It would be incredibly easy to fly these into plane flight paths etc, or use them inappropriately, dropping contraband behind prison walls/past security checkpoints etc. How exactly you manage that is going to be a huge task in modern security approaches.

Nice to see the gimbal underneath by the way Gareth. I'm about to purchase one myself for video use on the end of a pole. It's a pet project of mine and will be powered off a torch with the front LED element removed. Such a fun time at the moment, with lots of cool electronics opening doors to new opportunities.

if one invades my space and i have the 12bore it will have some lead

I'm all for personal privacy, (and on that front I see street photography in the same way), but it really is difficult to define 'my space' a lot of the time.

Even if you own the land, do you have exclusive rights to the air above it etc?

And those issues, plus the fact that there are now so many morons around who have no sense of judgement or any innate sense of responsibly to those affected by them (eg many licensed car drivers are one such category of that type), means that I'd agree with a total ban.

If there are useful scientific purposes then it needs to be tightly controlled and licensed within the confines of that industry or profession.

At the end of last year I was involved with a drone shoot being done to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Ford GT40 1,2,3 at the Le Mans 24 hour race in 1966. The drone team were incredibly professional and did an amazing job. However, they were really concerned about the number of complete idiots who buy drones of all sizes and fly them with no consideration of anyone else but themselves, and who are completely unaware and/or don't care about the laws/guidance surrounding their use. They were worried that professional and responsible operators will get 'tarred with the same brush' as the selfish idiots, and that regulations will be brought in that will materially affect their business.

The manufactures and retailers of these things should take some responsibility, and ensure that they are only supplied with proper guidance and and 'No-Fly Zone' installed.

Manufacturers and retailers are incapable of taking any responsibility as they are driven by greed .... It needs regulation and policing.