Small ‘Low-Risk’ Drones May Be Approved By November-FAA
Not sure what low security risk means in hardware. Line of control sight only is an example of an exiting rule. Surely nobody sane really wants to fly a drone with any kind of weapon! I suspect/speculate some of the rules will include no drone zones near (hopefully) only the most sensitive areas. 55 pounds leaves entrepreneurs room to innovate and test. Forget GoPro cams a second, think advanced compact full frame mirrorless models. Think bluetooth connectivity to get images out to your laptop or Dropbox on the fly. Or just plan on big memory cards, battery life is limited on all the small drones.
The new Sony 4k resolution mirrorless for example would be a great flying cam. And 4k content is coming at us like a freight train. $2500 est. Digressing? Not really. The point is a clever guy could be on the leading edge of independent (non corporate) civilian drone aviation and imaging for maybe $4000! That camera and lens will be under three pounds maybe under two.
Farms, junkyards, car lots, weddings, sporting events, use your imagination. I may just have to find a way to add this to the toolbox for Ballard Light Capture, my micro enterprise. Next year perhaps.
Since the FAA has only just begun flying drones at test sites, it’ll take quite some time before it can draw up rules and regulations for commercial use of UAVs. But if you start seeing small flying contraptions frequently, it’s because the agency is considering approving drone use for farming, filmmaking and other industries it deems “low risk” a lot earlier than planned. The overlord of all things that fly even wants to dole out permits quickly and aims to greenlight commercial flights (of machines that pose no security risk and weigh less than 55 pounds) as soon as November.
More: FAA Seeks to Unleash Small ‘Low-Risk’ Drones for Films and Farms by November
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