Microdrones Will Soon Force Changes To Drone Laws

As one of the first Commercial Drone Service Companies in the United States, Perfect Perspectives has had a front row seat to witness the blistering pace with which drone technology has evolved in just a few short years. When we began offering professional aerial drone services back in 2005, there were no drone-specific regulations, laws or ordinances in place anywhere in America. At that time, the term "drone" wasn't even being used to describe what we were flying!

Fast forward to today, we now have well over one million registered drones in the United States alone. Include unregistered craft and that number balloons to a significantly larger figure.

U.S. Drones Top One Million

Pretty much anyone who doesn't now own a drone certainly knows someone who does. And as with everything else, if you have a million people doing something, some of them will be doing it very badly. These bad actors have forced bans on drones in areas such as parks, landmarks, prisons, critical infrastucture and of course near airports. In an interesting twist of legal hierarchy, owners of property can only restrict drones from taking off and landing on property they control due to something called "Federal Preemption". What this means, in the simplest of terms is, only the FAA can enact laws controlling what/when/where something is allowed to fly in our National Airspace. This turns out to be a very good thing if consistency is something that is needed, and in this case it certainly is.

Bad Actors Drive Call For More Drone Restrictions

There has been no shortage of bad actors with drones feverishly exercising poor judgment and a general lack of consideration for anyone but themselves. These individuals have driven the desire by many to limit when/where/why drones are allowed to operate. The reasons for the desired limitations are many but fall into a few basic categories - general disturbance, safety & security and privacy.

General Disturbances Caused By Drones

General disturbances caused by drones often go hand-in-hand with privacy issues. Most often, as with National Parks for example, most people don't want the annoyance of drones buzzing overhead spoiling their enjoyment of our nations most beautiful natural splendor, and who can blame them. Add on disturbing all the wildlife nearby for good measure and it makes perfect sense.

Safety & Security Issues Caused By Drones

Safety & security is a very different issue. It encompasses everything from endangering passenger aircraft operations to delivering contraband to prisons to crashing into unsuspecting individuals and property/vehicles on the ground. In these cases the problems created can be either due to carelessness and/or bad intentions.

Privacy Issues Caused By Drones

Lastly privacy issues stem from a reasonable expectation that normal people have that, like in Las Vegas, what they do behind their privacy fence stays within the privacy fence. Of course just about any photo taken by a drone can also be captured from a full size aircraft using a telephoto lens. The major difference from the privacy viewpoint however has to due with proximity and persistence. An airplane or helicopter flying by 1000 feet overhead doesn't usually stay over your house for more than a moment or two.

Altercations With Commercial Drone Operators On The Increase

The privacy issue has steadily become a larger issue for licensed commercial drone operators. As an example, an increasing number of drone photographers filming real estate are reporting confrontations with adjacent property owners. It is very common to fly briefly over a neighbors house in order to get a good wide view of the property being listed. Nearby property owners are often surprised after assaulting the pilot or shooting the drone down that they have, in fact, broken several laws and are responsible for the damage to the drone.

                                         Photo credit - Richard Watt
                                 
Civilian Microdrones Will Disrupt The Current Logic Regarding Drone Laws And Restrictions

This brings me to the final point of why laws will not be able to keep up with drone technology advancements. It is inevitable that drones will only continue to get smaller while, at the same time, producing higher quality imaging. Case in point, micro drones the size of the Black Hornet, currently being used by ground troops across the globe, will soon be made available to the public. Being the size of a small bird or large insect will make them virtually undetectable in many cases. While this may be bad news for those who value their privacy it also brings up another very interesting point. At such a small size, many of the issues listed earlier as the basis to ban drone use start to become harder to justify with microdrones. Does a drone the size of an insect really cause a disturbance in a National Park or do any real damage if it has an mishap? The answer is a resounding NO and the current race to enact a host of even stricter laws and ordinances will be about as effective as telling people not to take photos with their smartphones. Failing to scale back bans for microdrones in National Parks and elsewhere won't really matter as enforcement will be all but impossible. Food for thought.

Make sure to follow the Perfect Perspectives blog for all the latest insights into the rapidly changes world of Drones.

Cincinnati Drone Aerial Photography

 FIRST IN CINCINNATI DRONE FLIGHT

Did you know that Perfect Perspectives was the first commercial drone service company to operate in Cincinnati Ohio? Beginning in 2005, Perfect Perspectives began capturing aerial photos and video from custom built radio controlled helicopters. As a matter of fact, Perfect Perspectives is accredited by the BBB as "Ohio's Most Experienced Drone Service Company". Today there are over 100,000 FAA Part 107 certificated pilots but when we began offering drone aerial imaging 14 years ago in Cincinnati there were none.

To learn more, please contact Perfect Perspectives at -

https://perfectperspectivesaerial.com/

Commercial Drone Industry Best Practices

                                                 

The following list contains recommended guidelines for Part 107 Commercial Drone Operations that are intended to promote a positive image for this rapidly evolving industry.

Safety

• Although not a regulatory requirement, notify nearby airports and heliports of your operations. This promotes a spirit of cooperation with the manned aircraft community and helps avert misunderstanding and minimizes overreactions.
• Wear high visibility reflective vests. When working near streets use traffic cones and signs in order to avert causing traffic accidents. 
• Don't fly close to vehicle traffic in a manner that would cause a distraction and possible accident.
• Maintain a safe distance from Cell Towers, Electric Transmission Towers, Radio Transmission Towers and other high intensity RF transmitters.
• Always evaluate surrounding obstacles before flight relative to an unexpected return-to-home (RTH) event.
• Don't fly waypoint missions if there is a high probability that persons or vehicles will enter the flight zone during the flight.

Privacy

• If you can, tell other people you’ll be taking pictures or video of them before you do so.
• If you think someone has a reasonable expectation of privacy, don’t violate that privacy by taking pictures, video, or otherwise gathering sensitive data, unless you’ve got a very good reason.
• Don’t fly over other people’s private property without permission if you can easily avoid doing so.
• Don’t gather personal data for no reason, and don’t keep it for longer than you think you have to.
• If you keep sensitive data about other people, secure it against loss or theft.
• If someone asks you to delete personal data about him or her that you’ve gathered, do so, unless you’ve got a good reason not to.
• If anyone raises privacy, security, or safety concerns with you, try and listen to what they have to say, as long as they’re polite and reasonable about it.
• Don’t harass people with your drone.

General

• Don’t offer services without required credentials in your state such as mapping (surveyor's license), thermal imaging (ASNT certification) and building inspection (inspector's license).
• Avoid flying close to wildlife. Don't fly in wildlife protections zones or near nesting birds.

As a pioneer is commercial drone operations, Perfect Perspectives Aerial Imaging is committed to advancing the industry in a positive manner.

http://perfectperspectivesaerial.com/

5 Valuable Business Lessons From The World Of Drones

Drones are disruptive technology

Small commercial drones fall into the category of a "disruptive technology". To a lesser degree a bit like transportation, where the automobile disrupted the horseless carriage industry or how the airplane disrupted the bus and ocean liner industries. To a larger degree however, drones are more akin to being disruptive on the scale of how the personal computer and internet have disrupted countless facets of human life.

Drones are already making early changes in how farmers monitor crops, how bridges, roads, power plants, refineries and large structures are inspected/constructed and much, much more. Drones are even saving lives by helping prevent shark attacks and preventing drownings through the rapid delivery of flotation devices. In the coming years, drones will impact daily lives in ways that are impossible to imagine right now.

What can other businesses learn from the drone revolution?

As one of the early pioneers offering drone services, Perfect Perspectives and Drones That Work have had the unique opportunity to have a front row seat to the birth and early first steps of the commercial drone industry. This got me thinking that there are so many incredibly valuable lessons learned working through the process of starting and growing our business. Lessons that apply to almost any other business that are worth sharing.

Lesson 1 - Be Early

Being early is one of the hardest things to do in business. It requires you to boldly go where no one has ever gone before. Even worse, the human brain is historically very poor at predicting the future. The best we can do is learn from the past or from others with similar interests to help recognize future opportunities. Twelve years ago we knew that there were opportunities to use unmanned aircraft (drones) in business applications but our imaginations seriously lacked the foresight to see the true potential as we know it today. We were certainly not alone. Insurance companies were not comfortable covering a new risk with so little claims history. But that's perfectly okay. What mattered was we stuck with my gut feeling that drones were something with true commercial potential. As the technology evolved, we were ready to extract maximum value quickly, almost always before our competition could.

Being early is often very expensive in fields of cutting edge technology. Careful thought must be put into business equipment purchases that can quickly become obsolete. There is always an optimum jumping in and jumping out point. A good rule of thumb is - try not to be the first to adopt new technology nor be the last to abandon old technology.

Lesson 2 - Be Ready

A good friend would always say "the only thing harder than getting ahead of your competition is staying ahead". We are seeing thousands of drone entrepreneurs making most of the same mistakes we made. The big difference is we made those mistakes many years ago and have moved on to making fresh new ones. Being a leader is not easy or painless. We are constantly trying new things and often fail spectacularly. The best way to improve/grow is to push beyond your comfort zone. The key is to learn quickly from your mistakes and don't repeat them. This mindset continues to allow us to do things few others can do.

Lesson 3 - Be Nimble

The pace that the drone industry is evolving is both exciting and scary as hell for those wanting to make a living from it. It's much like launching satellites - there only two outcomes - a good geosynchronous orbit or a fiery crash. To compete in today's drone industry requires waking each morning and hitting the ground at a full sprint - keeping close tabs on changing regulations, public opinion, customer wants/needs, rapidly depreciating equipment purchases and a landscape of overnight competition.

Lesson 4 - Be Versatile

Starting early in the drone business has allowed us to explore many different markets and applications. Many that we thought would end up being viable proved to be far less than expected. Conversely, others that we would have never thought of came about when a client called asking if we could do something new. Our response was usually "I don't really know but we're certainly willing to give it a try!".

Listening to customers is always a powerful business opportunity because if they need something, odds are there are others just like them that do too. Most important is listening to customers when you fail. It is human nature to want to quietly exit the stage upon disappointing a client but that's the worst possible thing to do. Take the failure as an opportunity to learn and move forward.

One of the reasons we have been able to make drones a full time business ahead of most others is our versatility, hard won by always trying something new. This versatility allows us to stay busy year around in a wide variety of markets and business sectors. When one sector slumps, the others pick up the slack.

Lesson 5 - Be Different

Being different is a very powerful asset in a competitive industry. When there are thousands of other businesses out there doing similar things, simply saying you are better means very little. If however, you have capabilities and experience few others have, well that's a whole different story! As mentioned before, in this age of global information sharing, being different for very long is very difficult. The best you can do is have a new idea in the oven, so that when your competition copies your previous concept, you have already moved on, forever expanding your comfort zone.

Drone Policy - When, Where and Why

 On Dec. 21st, 2016 the FAA announced that more than 600,000 drone users have been added to a public registry. The FAA expects the combined total sales of both recreational and commercial drones (small unmanned aircraft systems) to steadily increase from 2.5 million in 2016 to 7 million in 2020.

This is great news for market leaders like DJI and others who manufacture, sell or support small drones but their low cost, small size and ease of use can also bring along a host of related potential problems for some entities if not properly wrangled in. This is even more important when you consider that many people flying drones today have very little experience operating them safely.

This recent drone ubiquity has forced many of our clients to implement specific policies directed towards keeping drones under control when operating from property they own or manage. The reasons for this stem mainly from the need to assure that drones and their operators follow all applicable laws in order to protect both safety and privacy. Such policies typically come from risk managers and safety officers employed at larger, culturally significant public and private properties. A few examples include public parks, colleges and universities, museums and historical landmarks, among others.

In general, these policies require drone operators to comply with all existing State, Federal and City laws for drone use. They also require advance permission (permit) that details specifics about the intended use of drones. And lastly, they include provisions that prohibit using a drone in a manner that would invade a reasonable expectation of privacy. It is important when drafting such policies that they do not conflict with existing FAA regulations, as these have preemption. These policies must also be regularly revised as FAA rules change frequently at this stage of the game.

Unfortunately drones open up an entirely new arena that often isn't addressed properly through existing policies. Failure to have instituted a drone policy can implicate a property owner in the event of an accident or privacy violation in subsequent legal proceedings if it can be shown in court that the entity was aware of the issue and took no action.

A well crafted drone policy is almost always preferred to an outright ban on drone use as it allows for countless beneficial drone uses by qualified personnel for marketing, inspection, mapping and countless other useful purposes.

Key Considerations When Selecting A Drone Filming Company

Currently in the U.S. there are over three thousand FAA Section 333 approved drone service providers and many, many more rogue (unauthorized) operators. As word spreads throughout various industries that a legal (although cumbersome) option exists for limited commercial drone use, more and more companies are insisting on only using Section 333 authorized companies for their drone aerial filming needs. Here are a few reasons why:

In general, well established businesses don't want to risk getting into scrapes with the Federal Government or having to deal with the negative publicity that often results when things go south. The media continues to sensationalize anything negative associated with drone use, no matter how trivial it might actually be. Larger companies also don't want to risk having an entire production shut down unexpectedly by the FAA. Using only an FAA authorized provider is also preferred for liability reasons.

A down side of using a Section 333 provider is more planning is required, which can result in significant delays in a production schedule in some cases. A perfect example of this is the requirement to obtain a written letter of agreement from airport management when flying within controlled airspace. As a matter of fact, at this point in time it is just about impossible to get such approval flying near any of the 12 largest Class B airports in the country. This might sound like an infrequent issue until you look at an aviation sectional chart or Airmap.io (a great resource). Every moderately populated part of the country is densely littered with airports and heliports.

In our part of the country, over 50% of our business inquiries want to shoot within 5 miles of an airport. The main reason for this is many desirable filming locations (and subjects) are situated within population centers, and consequently, near airports. At times we have had airports provide written approval in less than 24 hours. In other instances, like in Frankfort Kentucky for example, a drone shoot had to be canceled because the approval was going to take over a month to obtain, once the airport's board and legal departments got involved.

There is also another compelling reason to only use an FAA authorized drone company. There is considerable time and expense associated in becoming authorized. Companies willing to put forth this effort are almost always committed professionals. Consider that less than 1% of the U.S. population are certificated pilots. To become a pilot requires intelligence, dedication, good decision making skills and hard work. These same exact qualities are what most people want in a company they are going to do business with.

With these thoughts in mind, here is a list of the top 10 things clients want from a professional drone aerial cinematography company, based on our 11 years in this business:

10. Drone pilots who can get technically difficult shots without putting the cast/crew at undue risk.

9. A company that brings at least 2 of everything and is also good at improvisation.

8. A company that's flexible and doesn't slip in extra charges for minor gear changes.

7. Drone Pilots who have the flying skills/gear to get epic, attention grabbing shots, above and beyond the same basic moves the everyone else is doing, even in less than perfect conditions.

6. A crew that are not only drone experts but camera/video production experts as well.

5. The ability to move from location to location and deploy in only a few minutes.

4. A company that is adept at dealing with the public and law enforcement concerns.

3. A company that is equipped with latest cutting edge drone/camera technology that is currently evolving very rapidly.

2. A company that can meet the current Section 333 exemption rules and still get viable results.

1. A company that doesn't oversell it's capabilities.

                  Freefly Systems Alta flying Red Dragon 6K UHD camera
                             

Why FAA's Commercial vs Recreational Drone Policies Don't Fly

At a recent press conference held January 7th, 2015 at the CES Show in Las Vegas, FAA UAS Integration Manager Jim Williams was asked why the FAA views commercial drone use differently compared to recreational use in regards to NAS safety.

2015 CES Drone Press Conference

The response from Mr. Williams was "It's fairly established in past history, that people who are being paid to do a job are more likely to take risks in order to accomplish that than they are if they are just doing it for pleasure and that's the reason the rules are different for those two activities". 

The looks on the faces in the crowd must have been filled with utter dismay as all of the comments immediately following this statement vehemently disagreed with the FAA's position (as we do also) and here is why:

First of all there is no valid basis or data to support such a comment and position specifically for drones. Only within the last few months has commercial drone use been permitted by the FAA through exemptions and subsequently under FAA/NTSB scrutiny in regards to safety reporting. Further, if all known careless and reckless flights performed by unauthorized commercial operators in recent years was tallied, and this figure was then compared to the number of careless/reckless recreational flights.......well, we all know how lop-sided that comparison would be. In 10 years of flying camera drones, not once has anyone ever asked us to take photos or video from 5000' AGL.

People only do things they need or want to through some form of motivation. 

The typical motivation for a careless recreational drone pilot is to simply see if they can do something. Natural curiosity if you will. At more extreme levels, this is sometimes also known as thrill-seeking. How high can this drone fly? What does my city look like from 5000' high? How far away can I fly this drone? How close to something can I fly my drone if FPV? What do fireworks look like from my drone? What do my city's Xmas lights look like from my drone at night? These are all good examples of motivations for a careless drone hobbyist. It is also human nature to want to share such daring exploits with others and the more YouTube views the better!

This is in very stark contrast to the motivations of a commercial drone pilot and company. Their prioritized motivations are more along the lines of -

Making a profit
Keeping costs down
Staying ahead of the competition
Building a client base
Maintaining a good reputation

While there can be business motivations to get attention-grabbing, high-risk shots for marketing purposes, in general putting very expensive equipment at high risk is usually a very poor business model. Frequently broken equipment is not good for a productive bottom line. A perfect example of a more preferred risk management approach is the frequent use of disclaimer's that reads "professional driver on closed course" in automobile advertising.

Looking at the list of motivations for a commercial drone operation, putting equipment, persons and company reputations at excessive risk is directly counter to every single item listed above in a very big way. Insurance is also a consideration. Aviation liability insurance is expensive and hard to keep for those prone to frequent claims. Careless hobbyists aren't covered by insurance when not following the safety code of a "community based organization" such as the AMA.

So in conclusion, since the FAA's commercial vs recreational regulatory policies are not based on data, logic, trends or observations, the question that begs to be asked is...what are they "really" based on, truth be known?

Top 5 Reasons Small Drones Crash More Often Than Manned Aircraft

General aviation remains one of the safest forms of transportation with a fatal accident rate per 100,000 flight hours of only 1.05 in the United States in 2013. The non-fatal accident rate per 100,000 flight hours was 5.85 during the same period. It isn't easy to make an apples to apples comparison with drone accident rates because, for the most part, small drone accidents happen often and most go undocumented.

2013 U.S. Aviation Statistics

Our estimated accident rate (non-fatal) for even the most experienced commercial drone operation would likely be on the order of approximately 1 accident every 250 flight hours for a rate per 100,000 flight hours of 400. There are many reasons for the wide gap compared to manned aircraft accidents but this article will focus only on what we see as the top 5.

#5 - Multirotor drones have very limited flight test data to learn from.
     
Today's small drones, for all intents and purposes, are very similar to RC aircraft. The first RC gliders, for example, have been around since the mid 30's. The first successful RC helicopter flight took place in 1969 by German engineer Dieter Schluter. Multirotor's however are a very recent development with the earliest versions only taking off within the last 8 years or so. An early pioneer in RC helicopters named Don Chapman actually described the basic multirotor concept to me in his Dayton Ohio basement way back in the mid-90's however Li-po batteries, brushless motors, electronic speed controllers and low cost flight control technology were not available at that time.

As aircraft accumulate substantial flight hours, lessons learned such as "mean time between failures" (MTBF) contribute significantly to improving overall reliability. At present single rotor helicopters tend to be a more reliable aerial platform than multirotors, all else being equal, solely because the knowledge and evolution of SR designs has had a several decade head start.

#4 - Small drones fly close to the ground so errors in judging depth perception are common.

When the pilot is inside an aircraft, it is much easier to judge its distance from other objects. For unmanned aircraft flown by line-of-sight (LOS), the drone pilot's eyes are focused primarily on the aircraft in flight and so it is quite easy to lose track of spacing from various objects projecting up from the ground. Also, the accuracy of a person's depth perception drops off dramatically with distance. 

#3 - Small drones aren't built to any formal or recognized quality standards.

As mentioned above, small unmanned aircraft tend to use RC hobby grade components, few of which are built to ANSI, ASTM, ISO or MIL-SPEC quality standards. Sudden unexpected failures can be a frequent event as a result. It is also common to overload systems through trial and error verses having the benefit of accurate operating limits for key components.

#2 - Flying a drone manually is more difficult than flying a manned aircraft manually.

This is primarily due to the fact that the unmanned aircraft pilot is unable to benefit from several key senses, such as sensing motion first hand or detecting changes in vibration for example. When seated inside an aircraft, the relative direction of control remains constant; this is not so for unmanned aircraft. A very common cause for drone crashes is from disorientation following loss of GPS control. When a drone's heading changes, the relative control direction from the pilots perspective can become reversed. The symmetrical design of many multirotors tends to exacerbate this problem.

#1 - Small drone pilots typically aren't formally trained and have widely varying skill levels.

Many aspiring drone pilots think that because the flight controller is doing most of the work that additional flying skills aren't terribly important. This theory only works up to the point that something doesn't go as expected. Being able to react quickly and correctly to an emergency only comes from many hours of flight training, simulation and experience. At the highest level are RC competition pilots who typically have thousands of hours experience building, tuning and flying unmanned aircraft.

There are also less tangible factors that affect the overall reliability of an unmanned aircraft. It is a common mindset that each drone has a number and it isn't "IF" a crash will occur but rather "WHEN". This is a dramatically different mindset from a full size aviator. 

Perfect Perspectives has been able to dramatically improve the reliability of its unmanned systems over the last 10 years by applying concepts such as "all accidents are preventable" along with management of change (MOC) principles and near-miss tracking. Each time a maintenance function, repair or modification is performed, key questions are asked such as - "how might this change unintentionally result in a malfunction?". Going through this thought process has proven very effective in avoiding otherwise unexpected failures. Also any event that is abnormal to the standard flight process is recorded on the Flight Safety Analysis form as a "near-miss". These events are not near mid-air collisions with full size aircraft but rather are any operational close calls that could have caused an accident if not detected beforehand. Studies have shown that for every accident that occurs, there can be 100 or more near-misses that went unacknowledged as a precursor. Taking note of, and incorporating preventive measures for all near misses has proven very effictive in reducing accidents. The combination of all of these techniques has allowed Perfect Perspectives to safely make thousands of flights over several years without incident.