A Look Back @ This Week in Drones: Super Bowl Ban, Blumenauer, and Eagles

Commentary

Tomorrow’s weather in Santa Clara looks to be ideal, sunny, and in the low 70s. A perfect day for everything from a picnic to a Super Bowl. The one thing you can’t do is fly a drone. For that  you will have to get into the car and drive a while. The FAA has imposed a 32-mile ban on UAS flights around Levi Stadium for safety and security purposes.

The Super Bowl is possibly the biggest annual sports event of the year and ensuring safety and security are critical, but this ban is unnecessarily onerous and typical from an agency, the FAA, that cannot find a balance between personal liberties, commercial interests, and public safety. Public safety is and needs to be the priority, but the FAA is like the parent worried their children will get hurt if they leave the house. The solution? Don’t ever let them go out.

This is why Oregon Represenative Blumenauer’s effort to bring the US drone policy into the 21st-(or even the 20th!) century should be applauded. Blumenauer this week introduced the Commercial UAS Modernization Act, legislation that will create an interim framework for promoting American innovation in the drone industry. This legislation closely mirrors legislation filed last year by Corey Booker. That effort did not move forward. Hopefully, this one will.

Representative Blumenauer says it best:

The UAS industry is booming in Oregon and nationwide, but our laws and regulations are stifling innovation instead of encouraging it, forcing American companies to look overseas to test new technology,” said Blumenauer. “We must not miss the opportunity to harness the benefits and utility of UAS technology, which will bring advances in safety and efficiency in nearly every sector of the economy.

Better regulatory policy will assist in defining the appropriate uses and conditions under which users and businesses can operate drones safely. It may also provide guidance on preventing drones from going where they should not when they should not.

As for where they should not go, using eagles to take them down is probably not the best idea. When technology solutions become technology problems the best bet is to develop another technology solution. In an article in National Geographic, Nicholas Lund provides some valuable and needed perspective on one of this past week’s most sensational drone stories. If you somehow missed it see below. A Netherlands company released the video of an eagle trained to attack a drone. Perhaps this is not such a great idea. Mr. Lund explains that eagles by nature do not take prey out of the air. At one time, they were nearly extinct, attacking a drone presents risk to the bird, and Lund concludes:

How about this for an idea: Let’s just leave eagles alone. Let’s give them some trees to perch on and some salmon to eat and just let them be.

Amen. You can find Mr. Lund’s article here.