It's a Bird... It's a Plane... Nope. It's a Drone!

I have a confession to make: I want to buy a drone. Not a military drone of course--- a personal quadrocopter with a camera mounted on the bottom and a linked smartphone app for easy control. I can’t quite pinpoint when this fascination began… But I have a feeling it started this past summer when I saw the North Carolina beach patrol using one to look for sharks in the water.  Interestingly, it seems like the trend in consumer drone technology is towards making devices that anyone can fly right out of the box. In fact, these new drones are being touted as more of a photography tool rather than a hobby aircraft.

One of the more popular drones on the market is called the DJI Phantom 3. It features a 25-minute flight time, 2.7 or 4k camera mounted on a 3-axis gimbal and a phone app for real time control.  One of the coolest software features that is available makes the drone follow you around at an altitude that you specify. Other modes include free-flying, a fixed route or a ‘fly around me’ mode where the drone does a 360-degree circle around the user.

In doing research into what consumer/hobby drones are available to purchase, I’ve come across some of the laws & regulations that apply to drone flying as a hobby. The most notable law involves the use of personal drones near airports. Under no circumstances may a user fly their drone near an airport. The other interesting regulation I read about stated that users ‘shouldn’t lose eye contact with their drone’. I completely understand the law about the airports and I (having never flown a drone before) agree with the rule to never fly it out of sight.

As drones become more accessible to consumers and hobbyists, I suspect that more laws will be created to protect both pilots and other citizens. Having seen some of the flight demo videos posted on YouTube, I can completely understand both the tremendous opportunity and liability that comes with piloting a drone. It’s extremely apparent that these devices could be used to compromise other people’s privacy. As a potential future drone pilot, I’m not entirely sure how other people might react to a drone flying up and down the street. In other words—at what point do people feel that their privacy is being violated? If I were to simply fly my drone past someone’s house—is that considered spying? Check back later to find out whether or not I end up becoming an amateur drone pilot.