[drone-list] When swimming with SHARKs...

[Yosem Companys]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Gregory Foster <gfoster at entersection.org>
To: drone-list at lists.stanford.edu
Cc: gia-unmanned_systems at grassintel.com
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 2012 13:42:51 -0600
Subject: When swimming with SHARKs...

This is the first domestic incident I've seen of a privately launched
surveillance UAV being shot down by disgruntled folks under observation.
It won't be the last!

The Times and Democrat (Feb 14) - "Animal rights group says drone shot down"
http://thetandd.com/animal-rights-group-says-drone-shot-down/article_017a720a-56ce-11e1-afc4-001871e3ce6c.html

The comments over on Gizmodo's coverage are revealing of public sentiment,
as a majority say they would have shot the drone down too, if it was
hovering over their home ("then I'd run my mower over it").
http://gizmodo.com/5886013/hunters-shoot-animal-rights-drone-out-of-the-sky

However, it sounds like the drone was actually not over private property at
the time of the incident.  A little digging starting (but not ending) at the
"Air rights" article on Wikipedia
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights>indicates that National
Airspace (NAS) starts at about 500 feet above the
land or structures, and is effectively the property of the US Government.
The FAA's Advisory Circular
91-57<http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/advisory_circulars/index.cfm/go/document.information/documentID/22425>governs
non-commercial hobbyist usage of UAVs, roughly interpreted as
restricting flight below 400 feet while maintaining line-of-sight.  So it
seems that landowners have property rights to the airspace directly above
their property and below the NAS.  Hobbyist UAVs should watch those
property lines!

Reminds me a little of the Cold War "ravens" and
"ferrets"<http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1360/1>tasked with
probing Russian airspace to gather signals intelligence:

*The aircraft themselves were called ferrets, a name that stemmed from
their mission of burrowing for prey, like their furry namesake. Rarely did
the aircraft actually penetrate Soviet airspace, and those that did
occasionally got shot down. But their reason for being in the air was to
record signals and they could not do this if the Soviets never turned their
radars on, so it was common for them to fly provocatively. Sometimes they
headed directly toward the Soviet border and turned away at the last
minute; sometimes they operated with other aircraft, to scare their prey by
implying that they were about to do something warlike. Nobody said that
being a raven was a safe job.
*


The Straight Dope has a pretty funny article surveying the history of
relevant case law<http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1117/can-i-declare-a-no-flight-zone-over-my-house>
.

gf

-- 
Gregory Foster || gfoster at entersection.org
@gregoryfoster <> http://entersection.com/
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