250g Limit... where is the science?

[SSgt Duramax]

I am going to preface this by saying that I thing a 250g limit is arbitrary, stupid, and probably being overly safe.

It also doesn't take into account the shape of the vehicle, density, composition etc. Look, I have about 2/3 of an engineering degree and I dont talk about it a ton because well, you dont need one to understand stuff like this and frankly, Ive forgotten more than I learned. So don't look to me for complex answers, I can barely use CAD programs these days.

Do then I found this article in my search.

https://www.vox.com/2017/3/6/146419...nfluences-todays-drone-weight-regulations-250

As we all know 1960s science does little to help with modern day problems. Look at our diabetes epidemic. Fueled by flawed 1960s nutrition research that the government and medical establishment refuse to back down from to this day.

However, wouldn't it seem logical that we factor in not only weight, but things like composition, density, speed capability, and other things if safety were our true pursuit. (we know it isn't, but lets pretend for a sec that it is). At the very surface, shouldn't fixed wings have a different set of requirements then multirotors, which I feel that most of these requirements are geared toward.

For instance, my daughters trainer.

This thing weighs over 250g..... barely. It poses little to no risk to anyone or anything it hits especially since there would be very little chance that the prop would be engaged if it did hit something. It would probably hurt more getting popped by a nerf dart. Meanwhile a 2oz rock dropped from 300 feet can cause serious damage.

Im not trying to get to some multi rotor vs fixed wing debate going here either, but merely illustrating a point.

If theyre insisted in making remote ID a rule "for safety" shouldn't we apply the rules in such a way to minimize infringement on rights if there is no danger?

So, where is the science. I dont think it exists.

 

[Monte.C]

Oh it's arbitrary alright. It's a bunch of different parties together in a room, each with their own agenda, and they needed to draw the line somewhere.

 

[LitterBug]

It's not about safety. It has laways been about selling out the airspace..... Safety was used as an excuse that would get those with no clue to demand legistlation.

 

[FlamingRCAirplanes]

yeah

 

[Flightspeed]

And the people who made the rule more than likely have never flown absolutely anything lol. Amazon and others want a chunk of airspace and the government will do absolutely anything for some money.

 

[SSgt Duramax]

Oh it's arbitrary alright. It's a bunch of different parties together in a room, each with their own agenda, and they needed to draw the line somewhere.

I know, I work for the government. Once they roll out stuff they never go back on it, no matter how flawed the logic is, if they do, it is in tiny, small steps. Actually, Mark Sisson pretty much lines the argument of "conventional wisdom" out perfectly.

https://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-definitive-guide-to-conventional-wisdom/

It is 100% "Give us something that works, and we will err on the side of safety" which is a fundamentally incorrect way of how the government should operate. They should have to provide us with vigorous evidence in support of whatever infringement of our liberties they seek to impose (especially in the pursuit of "safety"). If I ever get elected president (you can write me in, I am 36 now) I am not sure whether I would defund the NIH/CDC/HHS or the DHS first.

However, we as a people just sit back and take it, but I realize folks like me are a minority these days, and most are more than willing to sing along with the chorus of consent to avoid any sort of confrontation or disagreeable circumstance.

"Feel free to search me like a criminal so some bad dudes don't hijack a plane"

"It is ok to spy on me as long as it catches terrorists"

"I'll gladly wear a T Shirt over my face, stop working and be told I am not essential, and take experimental medicine so god forbit I don't get a virus you told me to be scared of"

It's not about safety. It has laways been about selling out the airspace..... Safety was used as an excuse that would get those with no clue to demand legistlation.

I wonder what you could do with a few 6oz drones dragging a lightweight net through the air... If I thought of it you know the criminals already have. Not that they would care about the weight limit.

And the people who made the rule more than likely have never flown absolutely anything lol. Amazon and others want a chunk of airspace and the government will do absolutely anything for some money.

Oh no... they will totally give that money back to the people.....

 

[SSgt Duramax]

Oh, off my rant and back to the point.... They were talking about using incrementalism to get what we want (which we shouldn't have to do, see my rant above) in the FTCA/flite test life podcast so that is somewhat my suggestion.

So we start with this idiotic heavy handed 250g "weight limit."

Then we approach them say about flight dynamics of fixed wing vs multirotor and lobby for there to be a difference....Like:

If a multirotor loses a motor it becomes unflyable (I think, correct me if I am wrong, at the very least it would fly poorly) however a fixed wing is unlikely to plummet to the ground like a rock, lessening the impact, if not being completely recoverable.

More surface area for the same weight would effectively lower terminal velocity due to wind resistance, and if an undesirable impact were achieved, the force of the impact would be distributed over a larger area reducing the pressure of the impact. (Getting whacked by a pool noodle or a fishing pole).

Then when you get that victory, maybe some addendum can be made for material. Would a falling quad surrounded by lightweight foam reduce impact and damage to whatever it hit and distribute force more evenly and reduce pressure on impact? I think it would.... could safety features count as maybe -100g or so? Foam is good enough for my car bumper, is it not good enough for an RC plane? Failsafes which would lessen damage with contact to an unintended target should help, but you need testing to support that. For instance "wrapping my 500g quad in 1 inch of EPP foam gives an equivalent of a 250g impact" or something like that.

Also, I don't mind there being different limitations for beyond LOS. If you can see a problem, you can more properly mitigate or avoid potential damage as opposed to watching your plane or quad spinning out of control on a FPV camera and having no clue what is causing it, and worse, not being able to assume manual control. That should get you some leeway too.

Just thoughts. They use incrementalism on us, it works on them too. You just have to do it.

 

[FlamingRCAirplanes]

Oh, off my rant and back to the point.... They were talking about using incrementalism to get what we want (which we shouldn't have to do, see my rant above) in the FTCA/flite test life podcast so that is somewhat my suggestion.

So we start with this idiotic heavy handed 250g "weight limit."

Then we approach them say about flight dynamics of fixed wing vs multirotor and lobby for there to be a difference....Like:

If a multirotor loses a motor it becomes unflyable (I think, correct me if I am wrong, at the very least it would fly poorly) however a fixed wing is unlikely to plummet to the ground like a rock, lessening the impact, if not being completely recoverable.

More surface area for the same weight would effectively lower terminal velocity due to wind resistance, and if an undesirable impact were achieved, the force of the impact would be distributed over a larger area reducing the pressure of the impact. (Getting whacked by a pool noodle or a fishing pole).

Then when you get that victory, maybe some addendum can be made for material. Would a falling quad surrounded by lightweight foam reduce impact and damage to whatever it hit and distribute force more evenly and reduce pressure on impact? I think it would.... could safety features count as maybe -100g or so? Foam is good enough for my car bumper, is it not good enough for an RC plane? Failsafes which would lessen damage with contact to an unintended target should help, but you need testing to support that. For instance "wrapping my 500g quad in 1 inch of EPP foam gives an equivalent of a 250g impact" or something like that.

Also, I don't mind there being different limitations for beyond LOS. If you can see a problem, you can more properly mitigate or avoid potential damage as opposed to watching your plane or quad spinning out of control on a FPV camera and having no clue what is causing it, and worse, not being able to assume manual control. That should get you some leeway too.

Just thoughts. They use incrementalism on us, it works on them too. You just have to do it.

Why go through all that trouble? Just do whatever you want anyway! Like me! 1000g aircraft and not one license. My license is intelligence.

 

[SSgt Duramax]

Why go through all that trouble? Just do whatever you want anyway! Like me! 1000g aircraft and not one license. My license is intelligence.

I think we all know I will. But many people don't want to, lots of rule followers. Plus, many folks don't want to join up in something and be immediately illegal.

 

[luvmy40]

“A rational anarchist believes that such concepts as ‘state’ and ‘society’ and ‘government’ have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame… as blame, guilt, responsibility are taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluation, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world… aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge and self-failure.”

“I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them."
~ Professor de la Paz

 

[Flying Monkey fab]

“A rational anarchist believes that such concepts as ‘state’ and ‘society’ and ‘government’ have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame… as blame, guilt, responsibility are taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluation, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world… aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge and self-failure.”

“I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them."
~ Professor de la Paz

Being handed this book by a friend at work one day 30 years ago literally changed my life.

 

[quorneng]

Given the grief that imposing regulations on UAVs caused I am not surprised that a somewhat arbitrary line was drawn at 250 g quite early on to concentrate of establishing the more complex rules on the rest. It could be argued that many of those rules are equally arbitrary, however a simple weight limit is both easy to both understand and to measure.
The result of the 250 g rule? You can now buy a fully functioning and cheap FPV multi rotor under 250 g!

 

[SSgt Duramax]

“A rational anarchist believes that such concepts as ‘state’ and ‘society’ and ‘government’ have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals. He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame… as blame, guilt, responsibility are taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else. But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluation, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world… aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge and self-failure.”

“I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them."
~ Professor de la Paz

I haven't read that. Looks like a good read. I thought Atlas Shrugged and 1984 was all I needed, but it combines Sci Fi and libertarianism, so it has to be somewhat good.

Given the grief that imposing regulations on UAVs caused I am not surprised that a somewhat arbitrary line was drawn at 250 g quite early on to concentrate of establishing the more complex rules on the rest. It could be argued that many of those rules are equally arbitrary, however a simple weight limit is both easy to both understand and to measure.
The result of the 250 g rule? You can now buy a fully functioning and cheap FPV multi rotor under 250 g!

That I will. But the issue is, if it weighs 251g I am now a criminal. Do I think there will be FAA people going around with scales? No. It is the principal.

In all fairness, the 4th amendment is a good argument, and I agree on principal. It kind of ranks up there with registering my weapons, not something I want to do. It is none of your business where and when I want to fly, and what happens if someone is up to something nefarious?

What if someone in my area doesn't like me, and wants to take my UAS out then stage an accident, or worse, wants to use the information to find my location and inflict some harm on me? I fly at a school, I'm not supposed to have a gun there. It would be pretty easy if it works like ADS-B.

For Example - I have an app I run from my car for radar countermeasures, it talks with my radar detector, waze, google maps, my laser jammer, and a super cheap ADS-B box I built (although it could just use any number of online databases).
Every single aircraft within 10 miles of me it alerts me and the plane pops up on my navigation screen in their location with all their info and provides a special alert if it is a government owned aircraft, and even has algorithms built in if the plane is flying in a suspicious pattern that traffic monitoring aircraft fly in.

I can't just go look up anyones license tag that pisses me off in traffic and get their info, and for good reason. The same thing should apply here.

What if there is an incident with an unregistered craft? Maybe they are dropping off some illicit material, spying on someone, or knock out some infrastructure, it is equipped with a weapon, etc. I happen to be legally flying in the area. Who are they going to come after? Me. I'm put in the spot of being guilty until I can prove myself innocent.

But lets say that I do want to be compliant, shouldn't whatever transponder be provided to me if it is genuinely for safety? A simple, lightweight transponder (you wouldn't want to add a 2 oz transponder to a 9oz plane, would you?) that just transmits your FAA number out as well as location and altitude, should weigh less than an ounce, and be self powered and not interfere or interface with any of the aircraft systems. No one needs access to who owns said FAA number unless there is probable cause, and could be only accessed by law enforcement on a case by case basis after establishing probable cause. This also removes the need to put a number on your craft.

Then the politicians need to explain to the public why they are funding geolocators for toy planes. Although they can spend money on funding studies about how cocaine effects the sexual activity of japanese quail and put lizards on treadmills to study how they walk and they never really answer to anyone.

 

[FlamingRCAirplanes]

I haven't read that. Looks like a good read. I thought Atlas Shrugged and 1984 was all I needed, but it combines Sci Fi and libertarianism, so it has to be somewhat good.



That I will. But the issue is, if it weighs 251g I am now a criminal. Do I think there will be FAA people going around with scales? No. It is the principal.

In all fairness, the 4th amendment is a good argument, and I agree on principal. It kind of ranks up there with registering my weapons, not something I want to do. It is none of your business where and when I want to fly, and what happens if someone is up to something nefarious?

What if someone in my area doesn't like me, and wants to take my UAS out then stage an accident, or worse, wants to use the information to find my location and inflict some harm on me? I fly at a school, I'm not supposed to have a gun there. It would be pretty easy if it works like ADS-B.

For Example - I have an app I run from my car for radar countermeasures, it talks with my radar detector, waze, google maps, my laser jammer, and a super cheap ADS-B box I built (although it could just use any number of online databases).
Every single aircraft within 10 miles of me it alerts me and the plane pops up on my navigation screen in their location with all their info and provides a special alert if it is a government owned aircraft, and even has algorithms built in if the plane is flying in a suspicious pattern that traffic monitoring aircraft fly in.

I can't just go look up anyones license tag that pisses me off in traffic and get their info, and for good reason. The same thing should apply here.

What if there is an incident with an unregistered craft? Maybe they are dropping off some illicit material, spying on someone, or knock out some infrastructure, it is equipped with a weapon, etc. I happen to be legally flying in the area. Who are they going to come after? Me. I'm put in the spot of being guilty until I can prove myself innocent.

But lets say that I do want to be compliant, shouldn't whatever transponder be provided to me if it is genuinely for safety? A simple, lightweight transponder (you wouldn't want to add a 2 oz transponder to a 9oz plane, would you?) that just transmits your FAA number out as well as location and altitude, should weigh less than an ounce, and be self powered and not interfere or interface with any of the aircraft systems. No one needs access to who owns said FAA number unless there is probable cause, and could be only accessed by law enforcement on a case by case basis after establishing probable cause. This also removes the need to put a number on your craft.

Then the politicians need to explain to the public why they are funding geolocators for toy planes. Although they can spend money on funding studies about how cocaine effects the sexual activity of japanese quail and put lizards on treadmills to study how they walk and they never really answer to anyone.

Even if they supplied it I would not put it on my plane.

 

[SSgt Duramax]

Even if they supplied it I would not put it on my plane.

I would struggle with it to be honest. If it was non invasive, free, and not heavy, and all of that criteria were met, I would consider it. If any shmo could look up what I was doing on a cell phone, no. If it were too heavy? No. If it controlled any aspect of my flight at any time? No. Of course, if I were going to do something I wasn't supposed to, it would get disabled or removed.

I would still struggle because I would run the risk of some unidentified craft doing something illegal, and it getting pinned on me, or just having been in the area something happened, which automatically loops you into it.

Now could I accept it as a compromise for the ability of doing beyond LOS? Sure, maybe, but that isn't even an option right now.

So the way it sits now, it would be about the same as if I operated a HAM radio illegally. Pretty hard to track down and no one is really looking for it unless I was just being blatant and obnoxious with it. That is why I don't even bother to put my FAA ID on most of planes. No one is checking for it. Police really don't know or care, and if something does happen, it is more of a liability because it is easily linked to me.

On a side note: If you do operate a HAM illegally, and you cause enough trouble, the local enthusiasts will triangulate your location and hunt you down.

 

[FlamingRCAirplanes]

I would struggle with it to be honest. If it was non invasive, free, and not heavy, and all of that criteria were met, I would consider it. If any shmo could look up what I was doing on a cell phone, no. If it were too heavy? No. If it controlled any aspect of my flight at any time? No. Of course, if I were going to do something I wasn't supposed to, it would get disabled or removed.

I would still struggle because I would run the risk of some unidentified craft doing something illegal, and it getting pinned on me, or just having been in the area something happened, which automatically loops you into it.

Now could I accept it as a compromise for the ability of doing beyond LOS? Sure, maybe, but that isn't even an option right now.

So the way it sits now, it would be about the same as if I operated a HAM radio illegally. Pretty hard to track down and no one is really looking for it unless I was just being blatant and obnoxious with it. That is why I don't even bother to put my FAA ID on most of planes. No one is checking for it. Police really don't know or care, and if something does happen, it is more of a liability because it is easily linked to me.

On a side note: If you do operate a HAM illegally, and you cause enough trouble, the local enthusiasts will triangulate your location and hunt you down.

Yeah, but I wouldn’t even bother, at this point I already am not complying with everything else. But, not having anything to do with the system is a protection, if I was to have a FAA ID but did nothing else I would be in bigger chance of being tracked down. But, if I go completely under the radar, the only way I can get in trouble for anything is if I somehow go to court for something like crashing into someone and hurting them or something and then they would find I was breaking all the rules. But I am safer this way because I would never fly somewhere where I have a chance of hitting someone

 

[FlamingRCAirplanes]

On a side note: If you do operate a HAM illegally, and you cause enough trouble, the local enthusiasts will triangulate your location and hunt you down.

Yep they will, but this is not ham radio, and no RC airplane pilot would hunt you down.

 

[Monte.C]

I'll name my next plane LAWLESS. And I'll add weight until it reaches 251g. And I'll smile whenever I fly it.

 

[LitterBug]

Yep they will, but this is not ham radio, and no RC airplane pilot would hunt you down.

If someone was flying FPV over top of my FPV signal, I as a HAM and pilot would hunt them down. The vast majority of FPV is HAM.

 

[CappyAmeric]

September 2023, a local LEO approaches you on the soccer field after you’ve landed your 2 pound DIY foamboard masterpiece.

In an antagonistic voice, he says, “May I ask why I could not see your UAS on my screen? Does it have RemoteID?” You respond, “Sure officer. I’m not sure why it wasn’t visible on your equipment…” Upon removing the battered battery hatch, you whistle. “Oh wow, it must have dropped out in that inverted pass over those trees. Want to help me look for it?”

After January 1, 2019, when ADS-B was mandated, if a primary radar return without ADS-B data was noted, it could be tracked and after landing, an inspector could ask to see the aircraft logbooks, which would note whether ADS-B was installed or not. If it was installed, the inspector would advise the owner to get it fixed before flying again. No foul. If it wasn’t installed, then a warning was issued against the pilot’s license in case there were repeated violations.

Comparing the two examples, shows that the FAA is either completely ignorant of our hobby, and/or RemoteID is really about retail UAS where it can somewhat be mandated at the manufacturer level (which sounds a lot like how fascists maintain control - by co-opting business to restrict individual freedoms).