Remotely piloted aircraft — also known as drones and unmanned aerial systems — seem to be everywhere these days, but keeping up with the regulatory environment is a challenge.
The forces behind BuyTheBestDrone.com want to help by providing a continuously updated post on the FAA’s small RPA policy. The post, which was last updated in August, assesses the FAA’s current guidelines based on court decisions and FAA cease-and-desist actions.
“It is constantly updated, and provides readers with a much better understanding of current policy,” officials note. “Our goal is to help pilots understand what’s okay and what’s not when flying, as there has been some confusion in the industry.”
Interesting information re the accuracy and currency of the site.
Whatever issues we in the GA community might have with the FAA, the better, perhaps best, recourse might be regular visits to faa.gov and searches of Federal Register and other federal and legal sites for NPRMs and similar announcements and information.
So much of that “Drone Policy” site is just flat out wrong, misinformed or at least old news.
They say: “According to Motherboard: “If you fly a drone and post footage on YouTube, you could end up with a letter from the Federal Aviation Administration.””
What they don’t tell is that just two weeks later the FAA General Counsel in Washington issued a policy update that in part said: “Inspectors have no authority to direct or suggest that electronic media posted on the Internet must be removed,”
And: “Electronic media posted on the Internet is ordinarily not sufficient evidence alone to determine that an operation is not in compliance with” FAA rules.
The author also seems to be OK with shooting down drones, which would be a violation of 18 U.S. Code § 32 – Destruction of aircraft or aircraft facilities. According to the NTSB and the FAA, personal drones are aircraft.