I had never read the website called Motherboard before, but I stumbled on to an article called The FAA Is Trying to Ban First-Person View Drone Flights and the information they provided about both the FAA’s attempts to regulate the use of drones, and the FAA’s apparent lack of authority to regulate UAVs make for interesting reading.
According to the article:
Basically, in that law {the “FAA Modernization Act”, passed in 2012}, Congress said that the FAA is not allowed to make any regulations that restrict model aircraft that are being flown for hobby use, are less than 55 pounds, operate within line-of-sight of the operator, give way to manned aircraft, are operated at or under the guidance of a national flying club, and are operated at least five miles away from an airport (or with permission from air traffic control). What the FAA argues in the statement {included in the article} is that if an aircraft does not meet all of those provisions, it already has the legal authority to regulate them as it would a normal plane.
The FAA is trying to assert that First Person View flight (FPV) of remote control planes is not permitted under its rules. So it would seem that the FAA considers quadricopters like the Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 to be illegal when flown with the FreeFlight app that’s available in the iOS App Store and Google Play. As far as I know, this is the main way to fly the Parrot AR.Drone, and it may be the only way to fly it.
The FAA is really being aggressive about stopping commercial use of drones, and the people behind the regulations apparently don’t feel they can do that without hamstringing some non-commercial drone flying as well. They apparently point to some clear cases of extremely dangerous non-commercial drone use, such as the four minute video embedded in another Motherboard article, which shows a drone flight over the Grand Central Station neighborhood of Manhattan, in which the drone bounces off of the windows of highrise buildings.
The pilot of the drone shown in this video is apparently a repeat offender, having been fined at least twice by the FAA, with one of those fines apparently thrown out of court.
But the problem with trying to stop this behavior at the Federal level is that the rule changes that are necessary represent an unprecedented expansion of FAA regulations.
I think any reasonable person could see the extreme danger associated with the flight around Manhattan depicted in the video. I’m not surprised that the New York City Police Department apparently charged the pilot of the drone with reckless endangerment. They should be doing that.
But, making every R/C airplane hobbyist who owns and operates a quadcopter into a violator of Federal regulations who is potentially subject to fines is neither appropriate nor sustainable.