" Solo’s software includes airspace safety information to make flying Solo as safe as it is easy."
(followed by a screenshot of a flight above Paris that will land you in jail or with a hefty fine if you try a similar stunt).
FOLKS, do you actually use a brain when promoting these things?
Flying over populated areas is illegal in most of Europe without special permits and especially Paris is a well known “no-fly” zone. Several people have received suspended jail sentences and huge fines, including confiscation of their drones for violating this recently. Not to mention the current state of emergency with every cop being jittery.
I get that it’s illegal, I also get why it’s illegal, and I’m not trying to promote illegal behavior here, but I don’t get why they get arrested.
Fly it from a rooftop, from a friends apartment, fly it on autopilot, land it somewhere out of sight and unaccessible and retrieve it later. It does not seem that hard to me to get the footage and get out without getting caught. Am I missing something? Are people that get caught just unaware of the law?
You know, most people doing these things are not the sharpest tools in the shed. Fellow buys a drone, sees a video on Youtube and goes on to do something similar, never even being aware that there are some laws or anything covering it - especially with such promotion materials showing these stunts as something to do. So you get morons flying around airports, over cities, over crowds of people …
That and the fact that after several high profile incidents - drones flying around the Eiffel tower, governmental buildings, US embassy (central Paris is crowded and is a no-fly zone even for manned aircraft!) - the cops are very much on lookout for these things.
Also, most pilots don’t want to keep the videos for themselves but brag online about their exploits (Youtube, FB, Twitter, etc.). That’s how most were caught - the video appeared in the news or the cops/municipality caught wind of it. After that it is not hard to track down the owner of the Youtube/Facebook account and arrest them.
Fourteen hundred bucks a pop, not including the camera.
For a site that’s always whingeing about income inequality, there is a lot of advertising here aimed at one-percenters.
There might be laws against people doing it, but I am curious how these would be applied to autonomous machines. If nobody owns it or steers it, they might be SOL.
There are proposed rules requiring obligatory registration of the drones beyond certain size and/or carrying a camera (regardless of size) with the authorities. So it will be easy to track the owner down based on the visible marking.
Of course, someone can always cover/remove the markings or use a DIY drone, etc. but then we are getting into speculation and criminal territory as opposed to mere negligence or stupidity. I wouldn’t be surprised if cops started to shoot such unmarked drones down. The Japanese police even has a “counter drone” carrying a net meant to snare these.
The rules are not meant to make illegal activity impossible (that’s not achievable, even if someone has banned the sale of drones and all RC models outright you could still build one yourself), only to make sure that illegal behaviour can be punished easier.
By “autonomous”, I meant drones which are neither owned nor controlled by humans. It is not clear to me how they might be subject to human law.
How can a drone be “not owned” by a human? Drone doesn’t assemble itself, nor does it launch and fly by itself, even if nobody is at the actual controls.
The legislation in most places recognizes concepts of owner and operator - and those don’t have to be the same person (or even a physical person - owner could be a company, for ex.).
So if nothing else, there will always be an owner who is going to be ultimately responsible for their device.
Of course, once you mean fully autonomous robot driven by some sort of AI common in the sci-fi literature, then that is more a question for philosophers. However, we are not there yet and not going be there any time soon.
Shouldn’t it be 60% off in the BB Store by now?
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
