Recent content by rjstone

That looks like it's written by the same sort of idiots who want to ban absolutely everything except pot and whatever else they personally want to do or use. Essentially it's written by one of these "if I don't enjoy doing something then it should be banned!!!" types. Is there a way to sign a...

What are they being cited with violating though? The park service can't make up their own laws so they have to be cited with violating some existing law. Then there's the issue of whether citing someone with vague catch-all laws like "disturbing the peace" will hold up in court, if that's the...

Good question GearLoose

Here's the AMA news about this cancellation thing: "AC 91-57 Cancelled In Error" http://amablog.modelaircraft.org/amagov ... -in-error/ Not surprisingly, I don't see anything on the FAA's web site where they admit this.

This makes me wonder if there's any design or color that could be used to deter attacks by hawks, eagles, etc.

When I filled out the form for the trackR thing it said there were like 80,000 people ahead of me in the queue, which means that either they're going to have to give away more than $200,000 worth of them or I'll never get one for free. Bet I'll get lots of junk mail though.

I don't see any comment from the AMA regarding this yet regarding the cancellation of AC 91-57. At the very least they'll need to update their materials to remove references to that or mention that it's been cancelled. Hopefully this will happen sooner rather than later. DrD: If the AMA is...

For anyone who uses prop guards because they've had tip overs while taking off: I've noticed that if you land and don't stop the motors, the controller doesn't seem to automatically re-balance the rotation speed of the rotors. So if you land, then try to take off again, even if you intentionally...

Yea, but someone else buying a quad from a different company that does have the software means DJI loses a sale. So it would be in their best interest to compete effectively in this area, and they might want to get out ahead of the issue so they don't lose a ton of sales due to the lag time.

Well "surely" paper airplanes aren't aircraft, yet it sounds like they are based on the FAA's definition, but aren't according to the FAA's actual history of behavior. It sounds to me like the FAA has, up until this point, been able to get away with playing everything very fast-and-loose and...

It doesn't surprise me to find that someone in this particular job doesn't know the exact answer to the question, but it should be surprising if they can't give you the phone number of someone with the authority to comment on legal issues on behalf of the state park system. I would call one of...

Supposedly the Naza controller can handle a single motor failure with the hex or octo configurations, but not with a quad configuration. So if you want to be able to deal with motor/rotor failure then you'd need to get something with 6 or 8 props on it.

It would be useful if someone who was an aviation, privacy, or some sort of lawyer with relevant experience could comment on what the laws affecting regular manned aircraft are. If national airspace is solely the FAA's jurisdiction then they're going to have to have laws about taking...

I just recently joined the AMA primarily for liability insurance when operating under the definition of "model aircraft" and in accordance with their rules. Anyone in the US using a model aircraft type "drone", even if they aren't going to join the AMA, should probably read this...

Unfortunately if it relies on WiFi from a phone as it's only control method then the range will be very limited. Basically it sounds like it may be equivalent to the Parrot "AR drone" which has issues.