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Some people think of drones as a toy or a way to get great pictures, but the tiny aircraft could pose a threat. Some local parishes step up with new technology to prevent potential attacks from the unsuspecting source. 
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Everything that you need to know about the FAA Reauthorization Act and Airports
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Drones are mostly here seen as threats under this reauthorization.....Great.
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As a splinter Advisory Committee gets ready to recommend FAA control, White House says test run outside of Washington
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The EU's European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) recently drafted the UAS Prototype Rule, which harshly targets the (DIY) drone community. In short, the rule would destroy Europe's recreational drone market, by prohibiting the majority of custom assembled drones. Major manufacturers an
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The Obama administration released a redacted version of its “playbook” for the lethal U.S. drone program, a booklet of presidential guidelines that sets legal standards for deciding who to kill, where and under what circumstances. The 18-page document was drawn up in May 2013, after Presiden
PIRatE Lab's insight:
While this has little to do with how we use UAS, it has a huge impact upon how the wider public see these tools and the ability to project power and actions remotely.
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A Connecticut father and son are headed for a court showdown with the Federal Aviation Administration.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
So this is the winning pair that are the most recent challengers to FAA overreach? Really?
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Drones fly above us. Some of them look an awful lot like airplanes. They share space with airplanes and other aircraft. And, at least for now, drones
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Yep...
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Senate halts bill to include drones in criminal statutes BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) – Louisiana senators have rejected a Baton Rouge lawmaker’s bid to regulate drones by adding them to Louisiana criminal statutes. Republican Sen. Dan Claitor said his bill to include illegal drone use in state laws – including trespassing, stalking and criminal mischief …
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Wow! Our friends in Louisiana managed to keep routine problematic behavior with drones from growing into their own criminal code.
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First UC Center of Excellence on campus will produce research for public health and precision-agriculture.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Our colleague Brandon is now leading the UC permitting side of drones. He is to coordinate all applications for use across the entire UC. I had thought that this was an academic appointment, but I guess is in an administrative endeavor.
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Launching a commercial operation requires calculated choices about business goals, regulatory environment, competitive landscape, and timing.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
More ways in which FAA lagging is harming the industry.
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The FAA has again called on industry stakeholders to help develop rules for drone flying, this time for “micro” unmanned aircraft systems that would be allowed to fly over people. The agency is assembling an Aviation Rulemaking Committee (PDF) that will have about five weeks to come up with recommendations for the size and makeup of drones considered safe for flying in the presence of non-operators, and how their operations would be regulated. The micro-drone concept was part of the FAA’s proposed rule from a year ago to allow flights over “any person” if the drone weighed no more than 4.4 pounds and was made of easily broken materials to avoid injuries. The micro category was dropped from ensuing drone proposals, and on Wednesday the agency said it wants to take “a more flexible, performance-based approach” to revisit the idea. Twenty-six organizations (PDF), including those representing general aviation, air carriers and drone manufacturers, are invited to join the committee, which has until April 1 to submit its recommendations.
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Population density in the US varies wildly from place to place.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
This is a great map to illustrated the clumped distribution of most of our population. Use of technologies that might interfere with regular human activities (i.e. drones) might be expected to require slightly different requirements/procedures in the concentrated areas relative to the less concentrated areas.
Bridgitte's curator insight,
March 2, 2016 9:22 AM
I thought I shared this map or something very similiar a while back in 2013 when it was widely being shared but I couldn't find it. Many countries have highly concentrated population distributions (like Canada and Australia) and the United States has pockets of extreme density interspersed throughout the country. On the flip side, vast swaths of the countries are considered empty in terms of population such as this map that shows 1% of the total U.S. population in 42% of the area. and this one of the world that shows uneven patterns.
Tags: population, density, mapping, visualization. 
Jacob Clauson's curator insight,
March 3, 2016 8:31 AM
I thought I shared this map or something very similiar a while back in 2013 when it was widely being shared but I couldn't find it. Many countries have highly concentrated population distributions (like Canada and Australia) and the United States has pockets of extreme density interspersed throughout the country. On the flip side, vast swaths of the countries are considered empty in terms of population such as this map that shows 1% of the total U.S. population in 42% of the area. and this one of the world that shows uneven patterns.
Tags: population, density, mapping, visualization. 
Dewayne Goad's curator insight,
March 9, 2016 9:42 AM
I thought I shared this map or something very similiar a while back in 2013 when it was widely being shared but I couldn't find it. Many countries have highly concentrated population distributions (like Canada and Australia) and the United States has pockets of extreme density interspersed throughout the country. On the flip side, vast swaths of the countries are considered empty in terms of population such as this map that shows 1% of the total U.S. population in 42% of the area. and this one of the world that shows uneven patterns.
Tags: population, density, mapping, visualization. |
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A bipartisan group of lawmakers introduced legislation on Wednesday that would bar federal agencies from buying drones from China and any other country deemed a national-security risk.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
From Mitchell B
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The RC hobbyist has been abandoned and ultimately disenfranchised by a system and Federal Aviation Administration that has proven itself to be ineffectual in safely integrating UAS into the National Airspace System. Airmap, AMA, AUVSI, Amazon, DJI, Google, PrecisionHawk, et al. are apparently more interested in moving product and denying reality than in safeguarding the …
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The White House wants to rein in commercial drone flights over U.S. airspace amid concerns that the they will be used as weapons.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
More evidence of the ubiquity of this technology and the importance of getting a rational policy wrapped around them.
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With Part 107, the leaders of 3DR, North America’s largest manufacturer of drone technologies for commercial and industrial markets, are…
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Nice resources here for Part 107 Test.
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A great example of the type of situation where drone hobbyists increasingly try to fly their platforms and where authorities are pushing back: wildfire i
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Here is a great example of the type of situation where drone hobbyists increasingly try to fly their platforms and where authorities are pushing back: wildfire in the wildlands-urban interface. This situation was the Lake Sherwood Fire in Thousand Oaks, California. The fire broke out around 15:30 on Wednesday, Thursday July 13, 2016. Thousand Oaks is a town with more than 127,000 residents and a very tech savvy community. U.S. Congresswoman Julia Brownley is currently authoring legislation in the House to make such flights punishable by fines of up to $10,000 per incident.
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A side note: “Drone Etymology,” the title of Chapter 2 of Enter the Drones, remains a surprisingly contentious topic. The FAA prefers “UAS,” as does the DOD, (although the FAA did use the word “drones” in its June 21 press release mentioned in the first paragraph). The general media and apparently most non-aviation people prefer “drones.” And the publisher preferred the use of “drones” in the book’s title. In the book’s text, Carey primarily uses “UAVs,” but also uses “drones” fairly often. Obviously, drone etymology is a “to be continued” topic.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
We too have found the naming convention of this technology to be something of a bramble, but most of us are now good with simply "drone."
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For all its talk about how flying a drone for commercial purposes without its permission is illegal, the Federal Aviation Administration has never fined a drone company simply for flying a drone for money, according to documents obtained by Motherboard using the Freedom of Information Act. Over the last several years, the FAA has repeatedly said that operating a drone business is illegal until it enacts specific drone guidelines. In the meantime, it has begun issuing what are known as “Section 333 exemption,” which allows companies to fly with permission under strict guidelines. The FAA has given out 5,292 of these waivers and has a massive backlog of them to get through still. After seeing a list of what the FAA says are all of the drone-related fines it has ever given out, you wonder why anyone who has a drone business would ever bother getting a 333 exemption.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
The FAA's whole approach to "regulating" has been nothing short of an utter failure: the folks who try to follow the rules are penalized. The folks who do whatever they want, are all good to go.
Total fail.
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Air Force leaders outlined what the next 20 years will look like for remotely piloted aircraft in the Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Plan published April 30. “The Small UAS Flight Plan outlines a vision and strategy for the continued development, operation and sustainment of SUAS over the next 20 years,” said Lt. Gen. Robert…Read more →
PIRatE Lab's insight:
This mostly reads like DOD techno babble. But it appears that the Air Force wants to keep using small UAVs and to develop techniques to account for them in conflict situations.
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Airline pilots need to cool their jets about banning drones in their airspace, a former National Transportation Safety Board member said Saturday.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Excellent. We really are getting historical with regards to this "drone fear" when it comes to the aviation community.
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AeroVironment, Inc. announced that the company – in partnership with SmartC2, a leading provider of flight business management systems – will team with NASA on its Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) Technology Capability Levels (TCL) 2 flight demonstration slated for October 2016. The demonstration will build on results from UTM TCL1 field testing concluded last August and…Read more →
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Lets hope this goes well.
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Aerial drones are emerging as an effective tool for environmental monitoring and enforcement because of their ability to reach areas that would be otherwise inaccessible or cost-prohibitive. However, a regulatory framework has not developed as fast as the technology, raising concerns about privacy, evidentiary standards, and other issues. While the Federal Aviation Administration has started approving commercial drone applications, the use of drones by government agencies, private entities, and non-profit organizations is much more disordered. What are the liability risks? What are the privacy law implications? What is the regulatory purview and enforcement capability of the FAA? EPA has historically flown over farmland in private aircraft looking for violations of the Clean Water Act—a less expensive way to perform inspections than on-site visits. As EPA and other agencies consider using drones to monitor industrial sites and farmland, many landowners claim it would be an invasion of privacy. Using drones for inspections also raises legal questions about information obtained from drone flyovers and the associated evidentiary requirements. Fraught with legal uncertainty and the potential for significant public interest, the debate over the use of drones for environmental monitoring and enforcement raises important questions for many stakeholders. Join our panel to learn more about the current debates regarding drone use and regulation.
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A permit has been approved to allow the use of a drone at Cape Cod National Seashore by researchers working to map a variety of coastal landscapes.
PIRatE Lab's insight:
Finally the National Park System seems to be letting up on their band of UAV to support Park System research and management. A crack...let's hope this will widen (responsibly of course).
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