{"id":22812,"date":"2016-06-27T07:00:18","date_gmt":"2016-06-27T11:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.adorama.mom\/alc\/?p=22812"},"modified":"2022-05-24T16:45:24","modified_gmt":"2022-05-24T20:45:24","slug":"bought-drone-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adorama.mom\/alc\/bought-drone-now\/","title":{"rendered":"I Bought a Drone, Now What?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I remember the early 80s -the music, the hair (sniff), the clothes and, for me, my introduction to remote control (RC) cars, planes and helicopters. The biggest concern then was building it correctly, tracking the smell of gas through the house and getting yelled at by my mom. We could fly anywhere (for the most part) and people would come up to us in fascination, armed with tons of questions: how fast does it go? How high have you flown it? How long did it take to build?  I\u2019d lower the volume on my Walkman and answer their questions because this made me the cool guy, even for just a few minutes. I had no paperwork to fill out, no training classes and I could surround myself with like-minded folks who would help me tinker until it flew perfectly. A stellar landing in gusting winds made me a hero for a few weeks at the flying park.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to 2015. The RC community has never been larger, never been so well trained, and never been the brunt of so much intense media and public scrutiny. Nowadays, many local flying parks are closed, victims of new rules, regulations, federal involvement and, frankly, fear of what we think we know and the fear of the unknown. I have been doing this long enough and have ample experience safely interacting with media, law enforcement, other pilots, the general public, and large crowds at fun events. The crazy thing here is, since 1982, I have never flown over large crowds, near an airport or a federal building,  never buzzed kids in a playground, and never taken photos of anything that would make someone else uncomfortable -because the one tool I have that is always in my toolkit is common sense.<\/p>\n

Nothing has taken this world to a darker place faster than the lack of basic common sense. A  putz crashes his drone into The White House, another putz hits a passenger plane landing in London, another  putz crashes into a crowd at a major sporting event, another putz flies his drone into the face of his best friend at a wedding. This list, unfortunately, grows every day. YouTube alone could just live on videos uploaded by putzes doing dumb things with their drones. Fortunately, the  putzs are a small number compared to those of us that fly safely every day.  But it\u2019s  putzs that get all the media attention and all the shares on Facebook and that, my friends, ushered in a new era, an era of THOU SHALL NOT accompanied by lots of new rules, regulations and laws.<\/p>\n

Mandatory registration
\n<\/strong>After I order my drone from Adorama, it arrives in record time and I get to enjoy the one thing that can\u2019t change, the new RC smell when I open the box.  After I open it is when the changes begin. The good news is, most of these Remotely Piloted Vehicles (RPVs), now called Drones (don\u2019t get me started on why drone is a dumb name), come already assembled so you are able, just not allowed, to fly it right after the battery charges. Now we have steps to follow which include, but are not limited to, mandatory registration of all RPVs\u2026er\u2026drones that weigh between 0.55 lbs. (250 grams) and 55 lbs. (25 kg). The FAA site says clearly: You will be subject to civil and criminal penalties if you meet the criteria to register an unmanned aircraft and do not register and unless you are flying a micro-drone.<\/em> This means you!<\/p>\n

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Drones, the FAA and You : DRONE-O-RAMA with Nils Granholm<\/div><\/div>
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