Drone view of the neighborhood from last weekend.

[dmccarty]

It would seem that a person with binoculars in an airplane wouldn't be a whole lot different than a drone with a camera. Or am I missing something?

Yep, you are missing something. :laughing::laughing::laughing: A drone is cheap, can be bought and flown by anyone with no real effort and flies at low altitude. A plane is expensive, requires time to go to the airport, prepare for flight, take off, fly back to a house, AND requires a great effort to learn to fly. Being able to fly a plane is not open to most people but almost anyone can get a drone and fly it so that it views over your fence. All the drone owner has to do is go out in the yard and off it goes. There will never be many private planes flying around but there are going to be a gazzillion drones flying around.

RC planes did not have video cameras on them either and RC planes were hard to fly but I am not sure that is true anymore. I saw many RC planes crash and one man break down in tears after his plane went into the ground after he lost control.

The reality is that cheap, easy to fly drones that can produce very high quality video and still photos are a new technology that the law does not currently address directly though I think there are enough court cases and statues to deal with them.

I hope.

Later,
Dan

 

[MossRoad]

It would seem that a person with binoculars in an airplane wouldn't be a whole lot different than a drone with a camera. Or am I missing something?

No you're not missing anything. You don't own the air over your house or land and anything in plain sight is in plain sight, weather it be from the street, a neighbor's yard, or up in the air.

You may have a legitimate noise complaint, harassment complaint, etc... but that's about it.

 

[IslandTractor]

No you're not missing anything. You don't own the air over your house or land and anything in plain sight is in plain sight, weather it be from the street, a neighbor's yard, or up in the air. You may have a legitimate noise complaint, harassment complaint, etc... but that's about it.

I googled this issue earlier today as I had no clue. Turns out the laws are a bit ill defined but that generally we do "own" about 500 ft over our property. Case law includes a chicken farmer who sued the Feds because aircraft were flying over his chicken coops and the birds were killing themselves trying to get away. Helicopter operators have been successfully sued for relatively low altitude flyovers that annoyed the owners.

I had never considered it before but basically the air is treated like the ground. You own the gold under your property and you have some rights to control a portion of the airspace too. We cannot stop a transcontinental jet from flying over but there are sufficient rights to prevent unauthorized overflights by drones. Those rights do not include operating an antiaircraft battery however and anyone who discharges a shotgun at a drone is likely to spend money on defense lawyers.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I'd like to have one. but if someone else was flying one low over my house taking pictures, I might be inclined to adjust it's flight path into a downward spiral.

 

[MMfrompa]

I googled this issue earlier today as I had no clue. Turns out the laws are a bit ill defined but that generally we do "own" about 500 ft over our property. Case law includes a chicken farmer who sued the Feds because aircraft were flying over his chicken coops and the birds were killing themselves trying to get away. Helicopter operators have been successfully sued for relatively low altitude flyovers that annoyed the owners.

I had never considered it before but basically the air is treated like the ground. You own the gold under your property and you have some rights to control a portion of the airspace too. We cannot stop a transcontinental jet from flying over but there are sufficient rights to prevent unauthorized overflights by drones. Those rights do not include operating an antiaircraft battery however and anyone who discharges a shotgun at a drone is likely to spend money on defense lawyers.

What I read is anywhere from 80' to 500', none of it makes any sense actually, the FAA says they control all the air space even though you may "own" it. There are some local towns passing laws but that also is ticking off the FAA

 

[BoylermanCT]

I'd be curious if the guy in Kentucky who got in trouble for shooting down the quad copter - was he in trouble for discharging a firearm where it was not legal, or was the real issue shooting down the remote control copter? I got the impression he had neighbors close by, and I am guessing it was not legal to shoot a gun where he lived.

Quad copter operators need to use common sense, and fly over your own property. If you are going to fly over someone else's property, get permission first. If my neighbor asked my permission, I'd give it, and come out and see it.

 

[TomSeller]

What if the drone operators are casing a place see if anyone is home and find out there has been no activity for days because the owners are on vacation. They then break in and rob the place. What if they are checking out what the neighbors own so they can target them?

Invasion of privacy in my opinion.

 

[BCMac]

I really do want to get one of these. From ground level it can be difficult to identify the size of dry/bare sections of pasture. I want to fly it around the farm and see where I need seed, fertilizer, etc.

 

[MossRoad]

I googled this issue earlier today as I had no clue. Turns out the laws are a bit ill defined but that generally we do "own" about 500 ft over our property. Case law includes a chicken farmer who sued the Feds because aircraft were flying over his chicken coops and the birds were killing themselves trying to get away. Helicopter operators have been successfully sued for relatively low altitude flyovers that annoyed the owners.

I had never considered it before but basically the air is treated like the ground. You own the gold under your property and you have some rights to control a portion of the airspace too. We cannot stop a transcontinental jet from flying over but there are sufficient rights to prevent unauthorized overflights by drones. Those rights do not include operating an antiaircraft battery however and anyone who discharges a shotgun at a drone is likely to spend money on defense lawyers.

I'm guessing the aviation laws are what's stopping folks from flying airplanes below 500 feet, not the issue of private property owners' air rights beneath them.

 

[MinnesotaEric]

I think those drones are pretty cool, but I'm digging the idea of getting myself a powered paraglider and taking myself up low and slow!