Re: Meeting with pesticide board and use of Drones

Posted by docmirror on February 15, 2017 at 16:14:39 from (107.213.165.255):

In Reply to: Meeting with pesticide board and use of Drones posted by jocco on February 15, 2017 at 13:16:03:

I'm a private pilot, and have been mixed up with the regulations on smaller drones previously, and we knew there would be larger drones coming along as the technology improved.

The short answer is there is no answer right now. The technology has outpaced regulatory oversight. Mainly this is because the FAA has become a behemoth of inaction. Much of the blame for the 9/11 disaster fell on the FAA, and where there was some common sense prior to that, the 'guy in the office' of the FAA now follows the regulatory book with a magnifying glass and an attitude.

First thing to cover is that a recreational drone has weight and distance limits. It's very small, something like 50Lbs, must be in line of sight of the operator, no higher than 400 feet, not operated near or around any public or private airports, etc.

Note that this is for rereational use. Applying any kind of chemical from the drone would fall under commercial use, no matter if it was done for profit or as the owner/operator of the drone doing his own work. It is still commercial ops. There are no regs, and no outline right now for any regs on comm ops of drones. The rec regulations state 'no carriage of hazardous materials'. The FAA definition of a hazard more than likely would include anything that isn't water.

Personal experience. I fly a lot in TX, NM, sometimes in CO, LA, and AR. I've seen drones from my plane twice, but I'm absolutely sure that I've been around them more than that, just that I haven't detected them. There are several people facing criminal penalties right now for interfering with aviation using a drone. One guy was caught because he posted his drone pics on youtube, and it showed him flying right through the approach of Dallas Love field.

While there are likely benefits to be had from aerial spraying of crops while the pilot stays on the ground, I suspect it will be a long and tortured process to get it regulated. If one were to go out tomorrow and started spraying with an unmanned air vehicle, there is no law to stop it, and in what we call our 'permissive' society(something which is not specifically banned, is afforded the oppty to do that thing), I guess it could be said that there's "no law against it". And that would be true. However, the FAA would declare it an illegal UAV, and would be subject to the administrative laws for the Fed Air Regs which in some cases include serious fines, and even prison(but that's pretty rare).

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