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| A ‘drone catching’
drone – Source: : https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-HC241_frdron_GR_20150224060538.jpg |
More than ever, I feel compelled to pinch myself in order to prevent myself from drawing the
unconscious parallels between remote controlled helicopters, quadcopters and
the unmanned aerial vehicles that circle military operations overseas.
Of course, we’re accustomed to the term drone now, but several years ago, claiming that you saw a drone overhead
on your way to work would lead many to believe that we live in a dystopian
police state. Thankfully - the sudden, incredible surge in popularity of every
teen’s dream Christmas present has helped firmly established itself as the more
positive connotation of the term. However that doesn’t mean everyone is happy
to see sales take off…
In December 2015, the Federal Aviation Administration forced all drone
fanatics, hobbyists or veteran flyers to register to use their recreational
drones. This decision spurred social media outcry from avid drone fans, but did
nothing to deter over 468,214
people from registering their drone by June 2016.
Additional restrictions imposed by the FAA also prevent users from
flying their vehicle over altitudes of over 400ft. Failing to register your
drone could put US citizens at risk of a $250,000 fine and/or three years in
prison. Those who are based in the UK, wishing to fly above 400 feet or 500
metres horizontally, will require written
permission from the Civil Aviation Authority.
Five minutes spent reading any popular broadsheet or news site, will
tell tales of terror, as drones pass inches from civilian passenger flights,
which leaves me puzzled because It doesn’t take a mathematician to notice that
there is a significant difference in altitude between flying at 400ft, and nearly
colliding with an Airbus A320 flying at 30,000ft.
Reading closer (which isn’t a trend I’d like to continue on the Express)
will in fact show in one recent instance, a 50cm drone “hovered across the
aircraft’s right wing before moving towards the plane’s tail”, just within
“200m of the Shard”. Personally, I feel more concerned about a commercial
flight flying just 200m away from the UK’s tallest building than a 50cm hobby
drone’s lithium batteries potentially “catch(ing) fire on impact”. For context,
one of the most popular brand of drone batteries – Venom, retail batteries that
weigh 5 grams and output a whopping 3.7 volts.
With that said, I do understand the danger of engine failure caused by a
drone getting sucked into a turbine engine – though I would rather the media
focused on that as a key issue as opposed to the perfectly safe and heavily
regulated specifications of batteries and other parts.
Drones were featured heavily in the news once again this week with
regards to an exponential increase in the number of drone incidents surrounding
prisons – usually relating to the smuggling of contraband. The solution, one
Cabinet minister, Justice Secretary Liz Truss posed, was that ‘barking
dogs’ could be, and were planning to be used to deter drones.
Liz Truss is of
course no stranger to the occasional gaff.
She once announcing at the
Conservative Party Conference in 2014 while Secretary of State for Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs, that we are “Selling tea to China…Yorkshire Tea”. The
statement was intended to demonstrate the UK’s strong positioning on exports.
When in fact, Yorkshire Tea uses “varieties
of tea grown (and imported) from Assam, Sri Lanka, and Kenya”.
So why should we
be concerned?
Because for every thousand hobbyists eagerly waiting to use their camera
drones, there seems to be an MP looking to impose staunch restrictions on a
pastime that is far less dangerous than binge drinking or smoking. In fact, one
could argue that the decisions are being made to clear the airspace for
services like ‘Amazon Prime
Air’, intended to deliver consumer goods in less than 30 minutes by drone.
Such a service would sharply increase Amazon’s consumer market share and ensure
that customers that buy based on convenience would look to buy within the UK,
rather than purchasing commodities from overseas.
After all, a successful drone delivery service will drive competitors to
step up their own efforts – perhaps driving more business to provide airborne
delivery options of their own, driving down consumer costs, but increasing
transactions that the government can tax. The opposition to drone delivery
revolves around arguments based on national and data security.
Alas, I for one feel despairing that we can’t live every man’s dream of
taking to the skies and seeing a real bird’s eye view. If 2016 is anything to
go by, it’s that people (for the most part) aren’t concerned with the
overarching intentions of global monopolies – but care about their own issues
closer to home, that have a direct influence on their work and leisure choices.
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