How is this trolling? Not everyone who disagrees with you is a troll. Their intent doesn't seem to be to anger their reader, but to change their opinion. It is political propaganda.
Calling it trolling instead of a nation state trying to influence you belittles the phenomenon.
Historical argument: Model R/C aircraft have been around for longer (including a video downlink and limited autonomous flight like return-to-home) than the term drone has been applied to them, even if it existed before as you said. Since the capabilities of these R/C aircraft didn't change, it is logical that their name doesn't change either.
Usefulness of the definition: Aircraft which are the size of a van and shooting rockets at brown people in the middle east are also called drone. Since capabilities, dangers and use case differ so radically from a 600g aicraft crashing into trees because it's fun, it is logical that they have a different name.
Political argument: Because drone is associated with the aforementioned military aircraft, it makes it easier to call for more regulation of hobbyists by playing on the public's fears.
> Usefulness of the definition: Aircraft which are the size of a van and shooting rockets at brown people in the middle east are also called drone. Since capabilities, dangers and use case
And yet, in that very argument you used the word "aircraft" to refer to military UAVs. That word "aircraft" is also used to describe vehicles of vastly different designs, sizes, and capabilities, but I don't think there's much confusion caused by this term.
It's okay to have words that describe large groups of things, along with words which describe more specific subsets of groups of things.
People can be pretty stubborn about that, look at the title of this website. :-)
The battle about the meaning of hacker (vs. cracker) was lost in the 80ies, yet some communities continue to use it in the old sense of the word to set themselves apart.
>The battle about the meaning of hacker (vs. cracker) was lost in the 80ies, yet some communities continue to use it in the old sense of the word to set themselves apart.
Part of the reason for that is the hacker community made up a word that no self respecting person would use to describe themselves. The modern 'computer hacking' culture came out of the phreaker community and IMO is the proper description for this activity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phreaking
Rereading this hours later, I realize that the way I wrote it makes it sound like I'm talking about the word hacker. I'm actually talking about the word cracker, which was essentially a made up term that I'm fairly sure no 'hacker' ever used to describe themselves. The actual 'cracking' community broke DRM schemes and was affiliated with but basically orthogonal to the hacker/phreaker community.
If used recreationally, they're R/C flying models, no matter how much the DJI marketing dept likes the term.
So will the the hobby that has been fine for decades be hit too?
Will you have to register a Cheerson CX-Stars that weighs 8g?
What about the congressional Special Rule for Model Aircraft? "Technically it's not the FAA so we can regulate everything!" or what?
They're also not that hard to build yourself and the components are shared with other things (e.g. motors are shared with R/C cars and the first popular flight controller was an Arduino with the sensors from a Wii Motion Plus or Nunchuk) so you can't ban the part sales.
The registration will probably only apply to drones of a certain gross weight. I'm guessing it'll be somewhere around 20 lb, given that's how much the frozen turkeys weigh that they use for birdstrike testing.
A 20lbs object of metal packed with a highly energetic battery that turns into a powerful explosive when destructively smashed to bits. These things a far more dangerous than a typical bird or debris strike.
I'm delving deep here, but it seems that section primarily states what the FAA will not regulate or "not promulgate any rule or regulation regarding". To my reading, it does not state that operation outside those guidelines necessarily does put a craft under the FAA jurisdiction. I admit I could be reading it completely wrong.
But then if you look at this page[1] on the FAAs web site, it says only that operators are "strongly encouraged" to follow certain restrictions like line-of-sight operation. It doesn't say they have to.
Mind you, I follow all those rules myself when flying rc planes, and prefer that other in the hobby also do. I think they're good rules. I'm just playing with interpretation.
The section 336 says that the FAA will not "not promulgate any rule or regulation regarding" if certain criteria are matched. For example that the aicraft is a model aircraft. and c) (2) says that a model aicraft is "flown within visual line of sight of the person operating the aircraft".
So if you exceed visual line of sight it becomes a normal aircraft, just like every other plane. And they all have to be registered.
That would hold if we assume all things which fly (aside from animals, obviously) are under the jurisdiction of the FAA by default. And then then only certain itemized exceptions (like model aircraft as they define them) are not.
Austria's drone law basically is making differences by weight and purpose of flight. I expect it to be similar. Heavy drones and sith purpose of filming require a flight picense light which means you are aware of regulations and will follow them.
That is actually better for private operators (aka R/C aircraft hobbyists). In Germany for example: Autonomous flight not allowed, using video downlink to fly (FPV) not allowed, in France extensive licensing is needed for aerial imagery even if you would only take a shot of your own backyard, etc.
