The pilot Raphael Pirker or "Trappy" as he is know from the Black Sheep videos is a Swiss citizen either living or operating a business in Hong Kong. He and his pals already had a run in with the National Park service for flying in restricted airspace earlier or during this trip. Their popularity with the youtube videos apparently has given them a feeling of empowerment. I think they do damage to the hobby or sport and ultimately to any commercial application. They simply go about it the wrong way. They just go operate any way they want.
The FAA makes about 11 points in their charge. all of which I can see on the video which is clearly a reckless operation. At least twice he makes diving passes over the UVA Hospital helipad which is an active and sometimes busy pad. Don't think he coordinated anything with them or the university to do this flight. (it is a Ritewing Zephyr ... a powered glider not a quad copter). The passes towards vehicles and especially the bus at one point could have cause drivers to make sudden evasive move that may have resulted in injuries. The one pass was within just a few feet of a pedestrian and at a high rate of speed could have resulted in serious injury to that individual had a failure in some component occurred at the right time or sudden wind gust affecting the judgement of the pilot as to the actual position of the aircraft.
In any case this was piss poor judgement on his part and he should be made to pay the penalty. The charge is he violated Section 91.13(a), which states that no person may operate an aircraft in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another. After viewing the video I feel comfortable that this is exactly what he did. The FAA is doing its job in this instance.
Got my first flying model 57 years ago. Had strings attached to it. Watch the hobby grow and technology expand. It's awesome but never have operators done stupid stuff like this. Involved pedestrians have a right to not expect 4 pound missiles to come flying by their heads at 40 knots just so some thoughtless Euro-trash idiot can make a buck off his video's and hobby shop sales.
Right now Modelers operate under FAA Circular AC 91-57 written in 1981. There have been little or no problems up until now. Now recently the FAA has issued a policy statement:
The current FAA policy for UAS operations is that no person may operate a UAS in the National Airspace System without specific authority. For UAS operating as public aircraft the authority is the COA, for UAS operating as civil aircraft the authority is special
airworthiness certificates, and for model aircraft the authority is AC 91-57.
The FAA recognizes that people and companies other than modelers might be flying UAS with the mistaken understanding that they are legally operating under the authority of AC 91-57. AC 91-57 only applies to modelers, and thus specifically excludes its use by persons or companies for business purposes.
The FAA has undertaken a safety review that will examine the feasibility of creating a different category of unmanned “vehicles” that may be defined by the operator’s visual line of sight and are also small and slow enough to adequately mitigate hazards to other aircraft and persons on the ground. The end product of this analysis may be a new flight authorization instrument similar to AC 91-57, but focused on operations which do not qualify as sport and recreation, but also may not require a certificate of airworthiness. They will, however, require compliance with applicable FAA regulations and guidance developed for this category.
Feedback regarding current FAA policy for Unmanned Aircraft Systems can be submitted at
http://www.faa.gov/uas.
I hold an Airline Transport Pilot Certificate with Rotorcraft-Helicopter Instrument-Helicopter ratings and have been in this business 47 years. I've seen my share of pinheads and bureaucrats at the FAA but they are few, far between and generally don't last. The FAA generally does a good job and without it our airspace would be chaos. They are not there to pick on us poor ol Phantom pilots. (frankly they could care less and would rather not have to deal with us) They are charged with protecting the life and property of the public when it comes to things entering the airspace and under the control of an operator or his surrogate (i.e. programmed flight path) .... it's idiots like this who will cause possible regulation that may restrict your flights.
I say if you are doing this for a hobby, stay under 400 feet and away from airports, flight patterns and don't endanger the public you will have fun. If you want to make a buck and deviate from that standard then lets get some regulation in place that makes sense, establishes acceptable safety standards and is not overly prohibitive. Meanwhile we are in a gray area and if you enter the realm of Commercial flight you better know and understand the regulations under FAR part 91.
Standing by for incoming.
