Running Head: FIGHT FOR FLIGHT 1

Fight for Flight: Over Regulations on Civilian Owned UAVs

Kenneth Wang

Arizona State University

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Abstract:

Currently the US had been swarmed with the privacy, safety, and ethical problems with civilian

owned drones. This is largely due to irresponsible individuals abusing the technology by doing

dangerous activities with drones. The United States is having trouble in finding the optimal

solution, due to its inability to look for more complex solutions. Currently, the regulations that

have been made are To find the optimal solution on regulations, the United States should aim to

try to work with the UAV community to come up with the more enforceable and problem

solving regulations.

​ AV, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Drone

Keywords: U
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Fight for Flight

Today, as new technologies emerge, new capabilities are brought to the common person.

As these technologies are created, serious privacy, safety, and ethical concerns arise, calling for

government regulations on these new technologies. Unfortunately, often times, the government

does some unnecessary and even detrimental regulations that can kill an industry or cause a stunt

in innovation in the United States. This can drastically change everything about civilian life.

Because of the effects that it can have on everyday people and their freedoms, everyone should

take more concern in recent legislations on new technologies.

There is a lot of misguided over regulations for civilian Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)

laws in the United States. Rather than looking for good enforceable regulatory methods that

regulate irresponsible individuals, the US government made regulations that are unreasonable

and hard to regulate. The US government should not over-regulate drones and should not come

up with laws that does not solve problems with privacy, safety, and ethical concerns.

The first problem with the current regulation is that the FAA, the United State’s drone

and airspace regulation government organization tries to make everyone “register” their drones

(FAA, 2019). This is not only unnecessary, but this makes drone pilots feel like they are

registering a car for something viewed as a toy. In addition, there is a $5 charge to get registered,

which is quite unjustified. The $5 charge rather seems to be a tax to all drone pilots regardless of

their skill level. In addition, the $5 charge has been criticized by many extreme drone pilots as

even unenforceable. Out on the flying field, it is easy to find many drone pilots refuse to register

since it is hard to get caught without registration and because they do not want to volunteer

private information to the government when registering. To add insult to injury, this “tax” of
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registering yourself to the FAA does absolutely nothing to help the problem. This registration

requirement does not even prevent irresponsible individuals from breaking other rules like the

300 ft rule or prevent individuals from doing risky flying over people.

Aside from having to register, many advanced drone pilots is quite annoyed with the

regulations on making money with their drones. The FAA made a Part 107 licensing requirement

to be legally able to take money from filming with drones (FAA, 2017). This has been widely

criticized by advanced drone pilots as a bottleneck for pilots who want to make money with their

drones. Although the Part 107 licensing test does make sure professional paid pilots know basic

drone use safety, this once again does not really prevent pilots from doing risky actions in

practice. Aside from that, this regulation basically completely forces advanced pilots to register

with the FAA and give up their personal information.

Otherwise, another current regulation which is extremely unreasonable is that it regulates

that people have to fly “within visual line-of-sight, meaning you as the drone operator use your

own eyes and needed contacts or glasses (without binoculars), to ensure you can see your drone

at all times”(FAA, 2019). This legally bans very much of the drone hobby and technologies, such

as First Person View (FPV) drones. Very much technology has been placed into allowing drones

to fly further than before. This increased range being outlawed will prevent more innovation in

signal strength from being added and also prevent people who fly racing drones for sport from

flying legally. This essentially outlaws a whole community of people who normally fly

responsibly.

Aside from that, it is understandable that people are concerned with the problems of

privacy and safety concerns of just letting everyday people fly drones around. Even though the
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majority of people are not opposed to drones in public parks, the majority still are quite

concerned with things like flying over houses, crime scenes, and events (Hitlin, 2017). This

ultimately shows that the FAA is not really addressing the general public’s concerns. The FAA

seems to be putting out regulations for the sake of regulations rather than putting them out for the

benefit of the public. Instead of putting out regulations for political reasons, the FAA should be

looking for constructive regulations. Much of the main reason why the FAA chooses to make

such regulations is because the FAA tries to look for straightforward solutions to the problem.

This makes it easy to explain to legislators and general populations alike as well. The problem is

that as much of new technologies come to life, the only way to regulate it is with using some new

technologies. Countries like India enforce a radio transponder tag system on each drone which

helps regulate approved and unapproved flights in certain areas (UAV Coach, 2019). This is very

much more useful in enforcement than just enforcing a sticker id system that the United States

uses.

But at the same time some people like Eric Zorn from the Chicago Tribune and Ben

Popper from the Verge will argue that the easiest way to enforce a law on drones is a full ban on

drones. After all, a full ban means if a drone is sighted, it is obviously identified as illegal and

can be taken down with any measures. Although this might seem to be a direct solution to the

problem, it causes other problems at the same time. The first problem is that too much of the US

population is already invested in drones. A 2017 Pew study found that around 8% of Americans

owns a drone (Hitlin, 2017). In placing a sudden ban, it will affect millions of innocent US

citizens who just want to fly their drone responsibly. Also, this kind of policy will stunt

innovation in the United States, causing other countries to possibly take over the United State’s
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position as the world super power. Many technologies have been invented by civilians in the

UAV community. For example, one of the pioneers in VR systems and head tracker systems

actually started his company in his own garage to help model plane implement First Person View

Systems. Gregory French started the Fatshark RC Vision systems company. Today, a lot of VR

technology is based on the foundation that he made.

Besides that, a full ban would also cause a loss of an educational opportunity for kids.

There are companies like Flite Test, which aims to create affordable model plane kits for kids to

help promote engineering and aviation in today’s world of declining amounts of passenger

aircraft pilots (Flite Test, 2019). Aside from having major economic and innovative actions in

the company, very much of Flite Test has taught many kids through STEM school programs and

through a formation of a model aircraft community. Today, one of the major problems with

students opting out of STEM majors is because of the lack of hands on learning. Innovative

companies like Flite Test are able to help with using UAVs as a tool for education.

Otherwise, the UAV flyer community has responded in trying to find ways to regulate

this problem, but such attempts have been largely ignored by the legislators. One example is the

company “Red Cat Propware”. They specialize in the idea of using blockchain to store blackbox

logs of drone flights to identify technological issues and problems with irresponsible pilots (Red

Cat Propware, 2019). Through the implementation of GPS units, the blackbox systems can help

identify dangerous airport disturbances and trace this back to the individual who is responsible.

The whole environment is built around the potential for new legislation that might include this

kind of technology to help regulate. The main problem is the congress is listening to corporations

over the people of the UAV community. In previous discussions between congress and “UAV
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community members”, the “community members” more represented 3rd party organization

interests rather than the actual community. Or rather than come up with these ways to regulate

the hobbyists, the government can also look to other nation’s methods (FAA, 2019).

While the tensions continues to rise, other interests start to get involved as well.

Companies like Amazon and Google are beginning to recognize the value of the 0ft to 300 ft

airspace which is currently occupied by model aviation hobbyists and drone users. Amazon is

currently trying to lobby for rights in this airspace (Brueck, 2016). If these rights are given to

large corporations, it is equivalent to a ban since it would outlaw all model aviation pilots.

Recently, the FAA started a Drone Advisory Committee or DAC. In the list of over

twenty members, only one member represented UAV drone hobbyists. The majority was

represented with big companies like Amazon, who is looking into launching a drone services

programs and also manned pilot groups (FAA, 2019). Both of these kinds of groups are trying to

kick the current hobbyist drone pilots out of the air by lobbying legislators to side with their ideal

regulations.

While having drone delivery and services with drones can be quite beneficial to the

everyday man, the truth is, the airspace was originally owned by hobbyist UAVs and a drastic

change will change the rights that matter to too many people. Instead, rather than having

hobbyists work around large companies, the opposite should happen. These companies should

come up with a way to work around the people who natively fly UAVs. From another point of

view, following big companys’ direction in passing laws on UAVs would hand all the power to

the big companies. This would not only result in less power to common people, but would cause

some major monopoly issues in the company’s line of services.

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Overall, the current regulations on drones and UAVs are not really solving any problems

and are actually creating some new problems with enforcement. The current regulation is a

misstep and if not corrected will not only kill innovation, but will also change American lifestyle

for years to come. Instead, Congress should instead look to new technologies and solutions

generated by the UAV flyer community rather than go for easy solutions. Although this problem

is not an easy one to solve, the solution to the problem lies in legislators working with industry

members to find the optimal solution and recognize the value of things like blackbox database

companies, like Redcat Propware. Otherwise, the US should also look at how other countries are

implementing their systems and try to use those as a starting point. At least today, everyone

should take concern with this area of legislating and express support for good policies in UAV

laws and laws on other new technologies due to the effects on everyday life.
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References:
Abbott, A. “Penalizing Innovation: The FAA's Regulation of Drones.” The Heritage Foundation,
22 Mar. 2016,
www.heritage.org/economic-and-property-rights/commentary/penalizing-innovation-the-
faas-regulation-drones.
Brueck, H. “Here's How Amazon Is Fighting For Drone Deliveries.” Fortune, Fortune, 21 Mar.
2016, fortune.com/2016/03/21/amazon-drone-lobbying/.FAA.
Federal Aviation Administration. (2019), Recreational Fliers & Modeler Community-Based
Organizations. Retrieved from ​www.faa.gov/uas/recreational_fliers/
Flite Test. (2019). Flite Test Stem. Retrieved from https://www.ftstem.com
Hitlin, P. “How Americans Feel about Drones and Ways to Use Them.” Pew Research Center,
Pew Research Center, 19 Dec. 2017,
www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/12/19/8-of-americans-say-they-own-a-drone-while
-more-than-half-have-seen-one-in-operation/.
Levin, A. “Drone Hobbyists May Soon Lose Their Freedom from Regulation.” Insurance
Journal, 28 Sept. 2018,
www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2018/09/28/502849.htm.
Popper, B. “I Almost Killed Someone with a Drone.” The Verge, The Verge, 13 Nov. 2014,
www.theverge.com/2014/11/13/7205741/i-almost-killed-someone-with-a-drone​.
Red Cat Propware (2019). Red Cat Propware. Retrieved from
https://www.redcatpropware.com/#/
UAV Coach. (2019). India Drone Regulations. Retrieved from
https://uavcoach.com/drone-laws-in-india/
Zorn, E. “We Must Ban Drones before It's Too Late.” Chicago Tribune, Chicago Tribune, 1 Mar.
2015,
www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/zorn/ct-drones-ban-chuy-garcia-rahm-emanuel-p
erspec-0302-jm-20150227-column.html​.