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All this red tape keeping us alive! How dare they not let me put tons of material into the sky, let it move around as fast as I like and expect me to be liable

All this red tape keeping us alive! How dare they not let me put tons of material into the sky, let it move around as fast as I like and expect me to be liable if it lands on some toddler’s head. Aviation is fucking dangerous. I know, I knew many private pilots of experimental aircraft growing up, some of which died in accidents. One guy died when his seat slid backwards while climbing out from takeoff causing him to pull back on the yoke and cause a stall. This is a stupidly common way to go. Another died when his twin lost engine power on one side, again during takeoff, and he spun into the ground. The list, unfortunately goes on. Neither of those particular two on the list died in experimental aircraft, although the pilot of the twin did survive an earlier crash in an experimental during landing, where he misjudged the time it takes to spool up a jet engine. Do not take private companies putting things I to the sky lightly.

anthony_r 4y ago
Lol, indeed. Imagine that you have to explain to drone pilots that even a very small drone is completely unacceptable in an airport vicinity. Yes, your 0.5kg drone can seriously damage the compressor of an engine!
- trhway 4y ago
  > if it lands on some toddler’s head > in an airport vicinity GP's and parent's strawman fallacy based line of argument reminded a video where Putin was explaining why it is so hard to get a protest permit in Russia - "Imagine if your protest happens in front of a children hospital, and thus it can block a live saving delivery."
  - infinityio 4y ago
    out of interest, in the hypothetical situation where drones are allowed near an airport, and a kid tries to film a plane landing and accidentally takes out a plane engine, doing 10s of millions of damage, who do you think should be responsible? Would insurance be required for things like this?
    - trhway 4y ago
      why would be drones allowed near airports? I mean, of course, in the future with drones integrated into automated traffic control where it makes sense, and it would make sense in sensitive areas, there can be imagined a need for the drones to fly near airports, yet today why everybody brings airports up when there are huge swaths of other space where drones and other stuff could have been flying if not for prohibition?
      - anthony_r 4y ago
        I do not know what your point is. But there are lots of cases where people fly cheap commercial drones around an airport, and that is completely unacceptable. It could easily result in a criminal charge and even prison time.
throwaway744678 4y ago
"Move fast and break things" would be an appropriate and fun motto, though.
trhway 4y ago
>Aviation is fucking dangerous. in particular because many aspects of it is technologically half a century behind. Stone age regulations prevent any meaningful advancement. It is like all the cars would still be manual transmission, no ABS, nor traction control... >pull back on the yoke and cause a stall VTOL multicopter wouldn't have such a stall >Another died when his twin lost engine power on one side Instead of cemented in time by regulations twin, having say 10 electric engines would mean that loss of one would result in just small automated readjustment of trust/power distribution.
- MichaelZuo 4y ago
  Regardless of how advanced technology becomes, flying objects have inherently more momentum and since momentum is based on velocity squared, the strictness of regulation of flying vehicles should never be less than an order of magnitude more than ground vehicles of the equivalent weight.
  - trhway 4y ago
    speed/energy and reaction time of human or control machinery dictates separation distance. Thus drones for example can hover much closer to each other than say a separation distance between human controlled cars doing 90mph on highway. Most of the new aircraft development would contain a lot of automation to the point of self-flying. The dense network of automated traffic control for such new aircraft would be another thing that only billionaires could really do. That would allow to take out of equation a lot of human errors that make current aviation dangerous.
    - MichaelZuo 4y ago
      And when the automation fails or the vehicle malfunctions who will take on the liability? And the liability is inherently far greater than ground vehicles. For example, right now it’s practically impossible to accidentally drive a ground vehicle, certainly not something less than a ton, into highly sensitive places like the pentagon/nuclear weapons storage facility/military base. But it’s very easily imaginable that an automated aircraft less than a ton could fly itself into such a place, accidentally or intentionally, and cause a serious kerfuffle. Or to put it another way, it’s thousands of times more costly to protect airspace from intrusion than ground space. To cover the possibility of the owner being unable to pay out to cover the costs of disruption, liability insurance similar to car insurance would likely be mandatory, just thousands of times more. If flying vehicles became deregulated and instead had a mandatory minimum insurance requirement for $1 billion of liability then it’s effectively the same. Because that’s the realm of very serious folks with large legal teams anyways.

anthony_r 4y ago

Lol, indeed. Imagine that you have to explain to drone pilots that even a very small drone is completely unacceptable in an airport vicinity. Yes, your 0.5kg drone can seriously damage the compressor of an engine!

trhway 4y ago
> if it lands on some toddler’s head > in an airport vicinity GP's and parent's strawman fallacy based line of argument reminded a video where Putin was explaining why it is so hard to get a protest permit in Russia - "Imagine if your protest happens in front of a children hospital, and thus it can block a live saving delivery."
- infinityio 4y ago
  out of interest, in the hypothetical situation where drones are allowed near an airport, and a kid tries to film a plane landing and accidentally takes out a plane engine, doing 10s of millions of damage, who do you think should be responsible? Would insurance be required for things like this?
  - trhway 4y ago
    why would be drones allowed near airports? I mean, of course, in the future with drones integrated into automated traffic control where it makes sense, and it would make sense in sensitive areas, there can be imagined a need for the drones to fly near airports, yet today why everybody brings airports up when there are huge swaths of other space where drones and other stuff could have been flying if not for prohibition?
    - anthony_r 4y ago
      I do not know what your point is. But there are lots of cases where people fly cheap commercial drones around an airport, and that is completely unacceptable. It could easily result in a criminal charge and even prison time.

throwaway744678 4y ago

"Move fast and break things" would be an appropriate and fun motto, though.

trhway 4y ago

>Aviation is fucking dangerous. in particular because many aspects of it is technologically half a century behind. Stone age regulations prevent any meaningful advancement. It is like all the cars would still be manual transmission, no ABS, nor traction control... >pull back on the yoke and cause a stall VTOL multicopter wouldn't have such a stall >Another died when his twin lost engine power on one side Instead of cemented in time by regulations twin, having say 10 electric engines would mean that loss of one would result in just small automated readjustment of trust/power distribution.

MichaelZuo 4y ago
Regardless of how advanced technology becomes, flying objects have inherently more momentum and since momentum is based on velocity squared, the strictness of regulation of flying vehicles should never be less than an order of magnitude more than ground vehicles of the equivalent weight.
- trhway 4y ago
  speed/energy and reaction time of human or control machinery dictates separation distance. Thus drones for example can hover much closer to each other than say a separation distance between human controlled cars doing 90mph on highway. Most of the new aircraft development would contain a lot of automation to the point of self-flying. The dense network of automated traffic control for such new aircraft would be another thing that only billionaires could really do. That would allow to take out of equation a lot of human errors that make current aviation dangerous.
  - MichaelZuo 4y ago
    And when the automation fails or the vehicle malfunctions who will take on the liability? And the liability is inherently far greater than ground vehicles. For example, right now it’s practically impossible to accidentally drive a ground vehicle, certainly not something less than a ton, into highly sensitive places like the pentagon/nuclear weapons storage facility/military base. But it’s very easily imaginable that an automated aircraft less than a ton could fly itself into such a place, accidentally or intentionally, and cause a serious kerfuffle. Or to put it another way, it’s thousands of times more costly to protect airspace from intrusion than ground space. To cover the possibility of the owner being unable to pay out to cover the costs of disruption, liability insurance similar to car insurance would likely be mandatory, just thousands of times more. If flying vehicles became deregulated and instead had a mandatory minimum insurance requirement for $1 billion of liability then it’s effectively the same. Because that’s the realm of very serious folks with large legal teams anyways.