Speak Up: Let The FAA Know How We Feel About RC and FPV

Something that has been a hot topic for a while on the news are drones. When I think of drones I think of military unmanned aircraft that are used for gathering information to be analyzed and studied by and for our government. What I don't think of are remote control helicopters and planes that I usually correlate with the hobby of RC flying. The hobby is an activity that I picture families doing together to bond with their kids and teach them about robotics, the science behind how it flies and just simply to have fun. The hobby has been around for many years. I remember when I was a kid, I wanted a model RC plane or helicopter so bad, but I never got one. Back then I didn't know how much practice it would take to learn how to fly one without crashing it, and I had no idea that it would cost a good bit of money to repair it if it did crash. I just saw them in the JCPenny Christmas catalogs every year and wanted one so badly. I eventually figured that I wouldn't ever get one, and moved on to wanting other things. I didn't even think about it again until I started dating my husband who had one. There are a lot of people who have model RC planes/helicopters that use them for recreational purposes and do it responsibly.

It wasn't until recently that the FAA started trying to manage air space 400ft and below; which directly affects these model RC aircraft. The biggest reason for this is the increasing number of people who are purchasing these model RC aircraft and attaching their GoPro cameras to them. The problem is that not everyone that has them are using their common sense and are flying them in areas where they could hurt someone. Other people, and driven a lot by the media, are concerned about their privacy. I'll get there in a little bit. The rapidly growing number of model RC aircraft that are being flown around every day are causing the need for regulations to be put into place. The US congress has long since given the FAA a deadline for when they need to have these regulations in place, but the FAA hasn't really said a whole lot about this until the last several months. Everyone in the model RC world who are hobbyists and those who would like to use them commercially have been waiting for what the FAA is going to rule on this. Right now it's not looking very good, and there are a lot of people who are disappointed in the direction the FAA seems to be going with this issue.

I mentioned earlier that the media and some people are concerned about their privacy with people flying model RC aircraft with cameras on them. It is true that the thought is scary, but lets take a look at some technical things for a minute. Most of these model RC aircraft that carry cameras actually have GoPro cameras on them like the one pictured to the left.

Yes, these cameras record in high quality, but in low lighting situations it is not all that great. This means that the camera cannot be used to video the inside of your house or buildings because during daylight hours the inside would be too dark for anyone to see what's going on inside. At night most people have their blinds and curtains closed, so no one can see in; which means that the camera wouldn't be able to either. Moving outside, if you're in public view, then legally you can be filmed and photographed without any repercussions to the photographer/videographer. You can ask to have your image removed by the photographer/videographer and most will do this willingly for you. However, many people do not realize that if you are in public then photographers/videographers can take pictures and video of you without there being repercussions for this. That is how news studios and photojournalists are able to take photos and video of people during different events that are documented on TV, in newspapers and online. I'm not saying that people won't try to use model RC aircraft and their mounted cameras in ways they shouldn't. There are always people out there who will do the immoral. This is why we need laws and regulations for the proper use of model RC aircraft equipped with cameras.

Currently, the FAA is trying to make it illegal to fly model RC aircraft with FPV. FPV stands for first person view, and do to this they use a very tiny (low quality) camera mounted on the model that transmits live video to a pair of goggles that allows the pilot (or another person) to see what the RC model would see. On the right is a photo of the camera, transmitter, Lipo battery and FPV goggles.

The concern with FPV is that if the pilot is wearing the goggles, they cannot see everything around them to be safe about their flying and landing. FPV also makes it possible to fly outside of the line of sight because you can see through the goggles where you're going, and if you're using a spotter they would have to be in every place you flew with some form of communication to notify the pilot of any dangers or problems. Obviously, there is a concern for people's safety here, and this is completely understandable. No one wants to get hurt, and the people flying this model RC aircraft with FPV need to make sure they're doing it in a way that is safe for everyone. There have been reports of people that have crashed their RC model while flying FPV in heavily crowded areas, and of course, the FAA has to (and should) take this into consideration. This is a big motivator for the FAA to come up with some regulations/laws on FPV specifically. They need to do this quickly, but they're talking about making it illegal.

If FPV is made illegal, then it rules this out for those who use it as a hobby and those who want to do it commercially. From a commercial standpoint, this is highly limiting. Let's use farmers, for example for a minute. Farmers typically have large fields that they have to check on periodically. This means they have to hire a pilot who has a real aircraft that has to pay for expensive AV gas to fly over their fields to check on them because you can't just drive up to the field and say it's good. You need a bird's eye view to know that the field is doing okay. This is expensive, and it's only to check the health of the field. Now, imagine if they hired someone with an electric RC model aircraft that is equipped with a camera that can easily fly over the field, capture video and give instant feedback on the state of the field. The use of this technology would save farmers a lot of money. How do you think this would affect the economy? Maybe a lot, maybe a little. I think that it would help make our grocery bill a little cheaper at least. There are many other excellent uses for FPV. If you need more ideas on how this technology would benefit everyone, there are plenty of ideas out there on the Internet for this. I just thought the use of the farmer example would be the best one to illustrate our point.

Let's talk about how the FPV ban would affect hobbyists. Over the years people have been interested in RC model flying, but with FPV the hobby has grown exponentially. People of all ages find this technology fun and exciting. It has brought a fresh breath of life to a hobby that has been around for many years. Young kids, parents and elders all enjoy the use of FPV. It brings RC model flying to a whole new level. People are genuinely excited about this development, and a lot of people say that it's similar to playing a video game. As long as you have a spotter, and are using it in a location that is safe then this is so much fun that I cannot express it in words. If FPV is banned, this new excitement over this hobby will quickly die out. Kids that like this activity will have to look for something else for their fun. Does that mean more time with the Playstation?

We've already touched on the idea of how FPV can benefit commercial companies with the idea of how it can be used for helping farmers. Now I want to touch on how it affects us (Redstream Digital). As shown in the photos above, we have a hexacopter, a GoPro and FPV equipment. The FPV equipment is brand new and hasn't been used except for a quick test on the ground without the use of the hexacopter. Essentially, we hooked it up to the battery to make sure it all worked, and that's as far as we've gotten with this. FPV will benefit us in a few ways, and it would save us time as well as make us more efficient. We purchased the hexacopter and GoPro to take aerial video for our short films. It keeps the cost down because we don't have the money to spend to hire a pilot and aircraft to take our aerial shots. We are independent filmmakers that don't have production studios like Hollywood does to support our talents and passion. With the use of FPV, we can see what our video is going to look like while we're still in the air without having to bring the hexacopter down, shut off the GoPro, eject the memory card, connect the card to the computer, transfer the files and watch the video before we know what we have only to possibly reassemble it all to send it back up for more video in hopes to get what we're looking for. We could do all this, and that is what we have done in the past; however, if we're trying to race the sun (as we often are) then we would lose our shot completely by the time we finish this process. We would have to plan the shot again for another day, and maybe we wouldn't have another day to do it. When you reserve locations, usually you only have so much time to get all your shots done. FPV would keep us on schedule, be hassle free and would make us more efficient. Something that important for you to know is that we always have a spotter when we're flying, we always fly in a location where it is not a safety hazard for others and we never fly out of the line of sight. We do it responsibly just as many others do who takes this seriously. Not everyone who flies these do it without the use of common sense. There's actually a large number of people who do it responsibly. You just mainly hear about those who don't because the media needs a story.

For us, if we were able to use all of this commercially, we could use it for real estate, promotional videos for businesses, our short films, etc. We don't feel that the FAA putting a ban on FPV is the proper route for this. There are several other countries that have laws and regulations on the use of FPV, and it is legal to fly in these countries. If the FAA keeps us from using FPV other countries will advance in this technology while we fall behind. Even our medical field uses FPV while performing surgeries. We wouldn't tell doctors that they couldn't use FPV for performing surgeries. Why tell other professionals who use it responsibly that they can't? We definitely need laws and regulations for FPV and the use of RC model aircraft with cameras, but I absolutely don't think that banning the use of FPV is the solution.

If reading all of this wasn't enough for you there's a video out by Flite Test who promotes the hobby and tries to make it easier for parents to share this hobby with their kids that will help you see how this works for yourself.

The video credit goes entirely to Flite Test, we're just sharing their awesome video.

We hope that you will join us in signing a petition for the FAA to rethink their ban on FPV. If you're interested in speaking out we urge you to do it now. There isn't much time left to get the petition signed. It only takes a few minutes to sign the petition and we would greatly appreciate your support. If you have questions about anything you may contact us with those and we will be happy to answer them.

The following link is where you can find the petition to sign it: http://www.change.org/petitions/the-united-states-federal-aviation-administration-rescind-your-latest-ruling-on-model-fpv-flying-and-the-personal-commercial-use-of-unmanned-aerial-vehicles

To listen to a podcast about FPV and the FAA ban on FPV you can listen to one that was very nicely done and very informative also from Flite Test here: http://flitetest.com/articles/033-faa-fpv-talk-w-immersion-rc

Also, if you're interested in seeing some of the UK's regulations and laws on flying FPV, you can see it here at this link: http://www.fpvuk.org/fpv-law/

You can also up the above video on reddit for more people to see it here: http://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/2a761l/the_faa_is_set_to_ban_a_popular_hobby_i/

Again, we appreciate all of your support. You have no idea how much it means to us as well as hobbyists and other FPV commercial users.