News and Commentary. The FAA has proposed a web-based drone sightings data collection tool, which would allow anyone – anyone at all -to report a “rogue drone.”
Forbes reports that the FAA has requested approval from the Office of Management and Budget to launch a “web-based data collection system” for the public to report “airborne and ground based observations by the public of drone behavior that they consider suspicious or illegal.” In other words, if you think you see a drone, you can report it. Or, if your neighbor is flying a drone in his yard and you don’t like him, you can report him.
While the FAA says that the system will put them in compliance with Congress’ direction to gather more true information about drone dangers, they still need to get public comment on “(a) Whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for FAA’s performance; (b) the accuracy of the estimated burden; (c) ways for FAA to enhance the quality, utility and clarity of the information collection; and (d) ways that the burden could be minimized without reducing the quality of the collected information,” Forbes says.
The proposal has glaring flaws. The FAA has previously admitted that it does not have a system for accurately gathering drone sightings data – their oft-quoted statistics come from a very questionable spreadsheet, which ranges from detailed pilot reports to garbled anonymous answering machine messages. But a public website to gather crowd-sourced data puts almost all of the reports on the anonymous answering machine message basis. How many people in the public can accurately assess the height of a drone from the ground? How will they know if the drone has legal permission to be where it is or not? How could they possibly assess reasonable flight behavior if they are not drone operators?
Obviously, they can’t. Unless a drone actually hits them on the head in their own backyard, the uninformed and nervous public cannot reasonably be expected to provide more accurate data than the mix of drone sightings from airports currently available. With our own politicians making ridiculous comments about drones peeping in kitchen windows and stealing jobs from West Virginia while commenting on FAA Reauthorization, what value does a data set on drone sightings from the random public have?
Not only does an open data collection tool on drone sightings provide data of little value, it offers the potential for significant damage. Until the public can be educated about the very real benefits that drones have to offer, many are nervous about what they perceive to be a privacy and security risk from commercial drones. If the FAA should decide to investigate or harass operators who are reported for “suspicious” behavior, they will create a “witch hunt” atmosphere which may hinder the development of promising and beneficial drone businesses.
While the FAA evidently would like to make it very easy to hear from absolutely anyone about a rogue drone, public comments on this whole idea will only be received in writing, and until July 11. Send comments to: Ronda Thompson, Room 441, Federal Aviation Administration, ASP-110, 950 L’Enfant Plaza SW., Washington, DC 20024.
Miriam McNabb is the Editor-in-Chief of DRONELIFE and CEO of JobForDrones, a professional drone services marketplace, and a fascinated observer of the emerging drone industry and the regulatory environment for drones. Miriam has penned over 3,000 articles focused on the commercial drone space and is an international speaker and recognized figure in the industry. Miriam has a degree from the University of Chicago and over 20 years of experience in high tech sales and marketing for new technologies.
For drone industry consulting or writing, Email Miriam.
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Could someone who is savvy with sending comments into the FAA please post a boilerplate to help the rest of us in sending quality comments? Thank you in advance!
My God this us getting absolutely ridiculous. I fly my phantom 4 by my house. The landing corridor for Long Beach Airport is right over my house. [I’m well over 7-10 miles away from John Wayne airport and Long Beach. Planes (specifically cargo flying in to Long Beach) routinely fly at such low altitude (which over neighborhoods is supposed to be at a minimum altitude of 1000 feet. There is no way in heck these planes are at 1000 feet. They are more like 500-600. Violating faa ruses of being 1000 above ground over populated ares which is my neighborhood. Where is the FAA ON REVIEWING THIS. Its laughable that the bozo clowns at the faa are so worried about my “toy” when these giant jetliner are lurching over my house at lower than 1000 feet. Maybe I should let a garbage bags float up to them so FAA can call my bag a drone that needs to be registered. How comical I n England what was thought to be a drone. Get the FAA out of our lives, they stifle innovations, cripple higher tech drone industries. Some one needs to educate gramma and granpda and everyone else that these are toys, and stop with the BS frame job on drones with false sightings a lot of near misses are not near misses and who or what they are is unknown. Heavens to Betsy a pilot actually fly his own plane . Dismantle the FAA, useless POS.
BTW America wake up you have no privacy when you walk outside. You’ll constantly filmed EVERYWHERE YOU GO. The least of your worries is drone, they don’t sneak up on anyone they’re louder than shit and ain’t going to sneak outside your windows and take pics of your boobies, figure it out America they just toys for Christ sake.
While the FAA is not my favorite government agency, they should not be dismantled. Retooled, maybe, but not tossed out.
First, your knowledge of FAR 91.119 is incomplete. You have the 1000 feet above the highest obstacle over congested areas correct (paragraph b), but you should read the first sentence of the section. “Except when necessary for takeoff or landing…”. As the planes are coming in to land, they are exempt from that rule.
Second, your assertion that the jets are 500-600 feet is ludacris. Assuming you are 37,000 feet (just over 7 miles) from the touchdown zone of the runway, the glide angle of which is 3 degrees, would put the aircraft at 1939 feet above the ground. Increase your distance to 10 miles from the airport and the altitude grows to 2767 feet. The general rule of thumb is Traffic Pattern Altitude for small aircraft is 1000 feet above the runway, and big jets stay 2000 feet above the runway. Big jets typically are following published approaches which also would not take them that low to the ground. For example, the ILS into runway 20R at John Wayne Airport has an Intercept point at 7.8 miles (from the station on the airport) at 2200 feet MSL (Touchdown zone elevation is 55 feet MSL).
1000 feet is the minimum altitude on a segment of the glide slope.
They follow the VASI or other lights.
It might seem lower but it’s due to the illusion of the airplane being very big?
Unless they are private aircraft, I’m sure they can get away with it.
It takes a lot of hours to get an Airline Transport Pilot license. The pilot has to also be rechecked every 6 months or a year, I forgot. It’s called a checkride and if they deviate beyond certain ranges they will fail it and not get approved to keep the ATP license.
Yet we had zero fatalities on commercial aircraft last year, because the FAA has created a system that safe. Yes, it’s taking time to create a framework for drones. But have you ever flown a helicopter? And seen what a large object, like a bird, looks like out the window? And how fast it can crash that helicopter? In April a Cessna with 4 people aboard crashed and killed everyone after running into a juvenile bald eagle. Your phantom, and my phantom, could crash a helicopter or a small aircraft. So maybe you should consider the ramifications of letting anyone or anything being allowed to fly wherever and whenever.