So when those two people are the SAME person, using the same equipment to acquire the exact same images - how does that work? You're saying that regulations should be applied not because of any material difference in skill, flight, equipment, or any circumstance other than motivation? You're actually cool with prior restraint based on thought crime? Really?

That's your reason? You're exhausted by the burden of your doubts? That's why you can't muster the energy to cite a single example of something you say history is full of, that would explain why two identical operators doing exactly the same things in the air and on the ground with identical equipment should be either let off the hook or subject to an enormous fine? If you were watching me twice fly exactly the same route, with the same procedures, the same care and the same equipment, and didn't know which of those two flights was for fun or for compensation, how would you (and I mean you, yourself) decide which of those two 10 minute flights over a farm field should result in my being fined $10,000 just for having done it, and which of the two identical flights was just fine with you? Would you flip a coin?

Regardless, it seems a little silly to speculate about whether I'd come away from your actual explanation with a different perspective when the only explanation you'll provide boils down to, "The government has its reasons, and they're good, and you wouldn't understand."

How about this: try actually mentioning the real reason. Saying that the FAA's reason for subjecting a kid flying his 3-pound plastic RC model to a $10,000 fine if he enters a prize-giving contest at his local AMA hobby club is that the feds consider his motivation to be much more dangerous than the motivations of a totally inexperienced, uninformed noob who just unpacked his first multi-rotor and makes exactly the same flight ... but without your personal righteous condemnation because there's no prize involved ... that doesn't cut it. Provide a rational explanation.

Saying, "Tust me, there are good reasons ..." might work on people who respond well to patronizing platitudes, but it doesn't work with people who want to know what those reasons actually are. The FAA's recently published interpretation document outlines a policy position that is going to kill off a multi-billion dollar industry (unless you're a defense contractor) and the retailers and service providers who are engaged in commerce that involves testing, showing, and using RC models (unless of course the $10/hour-earning employees at your local hobby shop are going to look under their sofas for some spare change so they can spring for a commercial license, right?). The feds are doing their best to chase innovation out of the country (sorry, all you engineers who want to work for companies developing and employing this technology - you can't actually touch it, try it, or work to improve it in the field unless you walk away from your hard-won profession and work instead to become a licensed commercial pilot!). But of course, all you engineers... you can go out on your lunch break and fly exactly the same equipment, in exactly the same way, and FlyHelicopters is OK with that, because your motivations are pure if you fly while you're chewing your ham sandwich.

How did you sustain employment in that industry without being able to articulate something as central to your entire position on this as... what it is that the engineer trying to squeeze in a recreational flight on his lunch hour is doing that is so much safer than the same guy would be if he were on the clock, doing his job. Why is he more dangerous when he punches back in at his lab? Specifically. A former manager in the aviation industry, like you, should be able to mention at least one specific thing he'd be doing when he walks back in the door to his office that makes the FAA so convinced that he should be fined $10,000 for operating exactly the same equipment that he just used - with their blessings - as a hobbyist on his lunch break.

Oh, right. The answer is: because that's the way it is, and has to be, for important reasons involving the motivations that Mr. Engineer holds deep in his heart at 1:15PM, compared to his motivations and care at 12:15PM. Or are you just looking to preserve the value of your commercial license in the face of a transformative technology? Are you the mainframe operator from 1979 that thinks normal people shouldn't be allowed to operate their own computers, because, you know, there are good reasons for that and that's all we need to know.

They've come right out and said that things like any use of hobby RC aircraft by people who are in any way compensated during their use would bring fines. They've already sent out Cease & Desist letters to one-man operations doing things like photographing farms out in the middle of nowhere - what makes you think they'll ignore businesses that sell lots of hardware and have multiple employees? If you think they put a lot of effort into the Pirker case, imagine how happy they'll be to go after people who (unlike Pirker) actually live in the US and have real money in the bank. And no, they haven't dropped (or lost) that case. They've appealed it up the food chain from that administrative judge's finding, to the full NTSB panel - and it's the NTSB that also just said they're leaning towards outright banning of this stuff.

If history is full of examples that show how the same pilot operating the same quad copter twice in the same hour, making the same exact flight in the same exact place using the same exact equipment is suddenly less safe when an exact repeat performance is compensated, then I'm sure you can provide an example. Or, you can just say why YOU think that operators second flight is more dangerous than his first one. Really - assume I'm just dumb, and can't guess at which step of the second flight the danger increases. Why not just tell me, instead of making me guess, or comb through all of history for an example? Because I can't think of what action the operator is taking in the second flight that is less safe than the first. Or, more likely in terms of your view, what is it about that first flight that is more safe? Which extra safety precautions is the operator taking when he's flying his same exact equipment for fun? Please, be specific about that exact scenario.

No, I think a lot of the push back is from small businesses - specially, old-school AP operators who have taken on the overhead of operating commercial full-scale, team-based rigs in order to do things that can now be done for some uses with a $500 piece of equipment carrying a $300 camera, flying lower and more safely than full-scale operators can. The FAA has come right out and said that some of their choices to shut down certain RCAP operators came as a result of competing full-scale operators finding web sites for RC-based competition, and writing to the FAA to get them shut down. Shocking, no doubt.

But regardless of the legislative history, the pending court decisions, and the FAA's often contradictory and foot-dragging responses to congressional requirements ... I want to hear you explain, in simple specific terms, why the same guy using the same equipment is suddenly more dangerous when doing exactly the same thing minutes later. Really. We both operate equipment in the real world. Explain it in real world terms, not in vague "because the government says so" terms.

Except the FAA's most recent published position on this is that ALL radio controlled flying machines are the same. They make no distinction between a hobbyist's 4-pounder and a much larger machine. This is why large organizations populated by mostly hobbyists are currently freaking out - because the FAA is gearing up to ban their events, meets, contests, etc. It's not about "drone"-ness, it's about "it flies in the air, period." Other government entities, like the Department of the Interior and all of their sub-departments, also lump them together. That's why you're no longer allowed to operate ANY sort of RC device on any of the millions of acres, ten thousand miles of coastline and river boundaries, etc., that fall under the administration of that agency. They don't care if you're getting paid or if you have a camera or downlink - it's just about whether you're flying something by remote control, period. The FAA's current position would prevent any hobby store from testing a 1-pound palm-sized quad in their parking lot, or prevent hundreds of decades-old model clubs from ever again holding contests where you might, say, win a free radio. No professionals will be allowed to demonstrate new products at events, no kids will be allowed to be sponsored as they fly RC. Why? Because like you, they can't draw any sort of rational distinction between that sort of "commerce" and FedEx flying an RC 747 at 30,000 feet.

No, the FAA says that if you're a farmer, you can't do that - it's commerce. Flying over your own soybean field to look for dry spots is using an RC aircraft to help your farm business. You now owe $10,000 or worse. But if your friend asks if he can fly the exact same device in exactly the same way, and wants to use your bean field as a place to goof around - that's OK. And you're saying that's OK because the hobby guy has "more skin in the game" than the farmer does? Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds?

So, if two guys who OWN THEIR OWN DEVICES are flying right next to each other in exactly the same way, with exactly the same risks to their identical devices as they fly with exactly the same level of experience, you're saying that the guy who happens to be helping out the farmer for a small fee is the more dangerous one, and the hobbyist is by definition safer? Or better yet, what about ONE guy who flies a lap around a stock pond just for fun (hey, it's a hobby!), and then ten minutes later makes exactly the same flight while allowing the pond's owner to look over his shoulder at a high-def downlink display so he can see where the algae is blooming and pay $15 for that useful information - the EXACT SAME GUY FLYING THE EXACT SAME RIG MINUTES LATER - that that guy should be free and clear at 12:15 PM, but at 12:25, when the farmer is looking over his shoulder with a $20 bill in hand, he should be subject to a $10,000 fine? Yes or no, please. The FAA has already said yes - that the 12:25 flight is more dangerous and should be subject to life-altering financial damages, while the 12:15 flight is just fine, and that's because the 12:25 flight is inherently more risky because ... well, they never actually explain that part, because they can't.

They won't say what differentiates those two flights - in terms of equipment, practices, safety, risk, experience, or anything else - but perhaps you have the secret knowledge. When does the 12:25 risk begin? As the operator checks the props? Is that when he's a poorer judge of the status of his equipment than he was ten minutes earlier? Is it the extra 10 minutes of age on the batteries he's using? Is it because the sun is at a different angle? Is it because he can't concentrate with the farmer looking over his shoulder, but he CAN concentrate when a friendly fellow RC enthusiast does the exact same thing and it's all for fun? When, specifically, does the 12:25 flight become the risk that the 12:15 wasn't?

Yes, it's a rhetorical question. Because you're not being honest about your actual agenda. You want the feds to come down hard on the would-be commercial operators as round one, and to ban hobbyists from using equipment they've already been enjoying for years, which they use in EXACTLY THE SAME WAY, because that's what really pisses you off - people having fun with things that fly without having to go through the expensive hoops you had to jump through to operate the gear you operate. I'll bet that the local AMA clubs flying 500mm toy helicopters have been getting under your skin for years. And, of course, you don't want smaller, safer-than-you competition able to do things like aerial real estate photography from the far more useful altitude/perspective of tree-top-level flying. At least be honest about it.

Why should it matter if the camera's output can only be seen after the fact vs. live via downlink? The ability to frame the camera's shot in real time during the flight makes the flight more efficient, shorter, and safer. A live video downlink provides the operator with telemetry that shows the orientation, movement, battery health, GPS status, and other important information - all of which greatly improves the safety of the flight, whether it's for fun or for money. The with/without camera concept is an absurd distinction when it comes to separating a hobby flight from a commercial one.

Why? That's the issue here.

Picture two guys with their 4-pound quads, standing at the edge of a soybean field. Exactly the same equipment, exactly the same experience, exactly the same safety precautions, and about the fly the exact same route 50 feet off the ground with a GoPro looking down at the field. They'll each be in the air for under 10 minutes. One guy is doing it for fun, and the other guy, doing exactly the same thing is doing it for $100.

Which if them is doing the thing that the other is not, which is somehow making the flight riskier? Which of those two operators presents a risk to general aviation or a kid on the ground that the other does not? Specifically. Provide details that explain why one of them should have to spend huge amounts of money before making that exact same 50-foot flight over the soybeans, using exactly the same equipment in exactly the same way, that the other guy does not. You can't point out a difference in any single thing about how they operate or what they're using, or what the chances are of one of them making a bad judgement call or having equipment failure. Stipulate that everything is exactly the same except for one of them helping the farmer out with spotting dry spots in his field as an enjoyable favor, and the other one doing it for pizza money. I want to know how the physical presence of some twenty dollar bills in the one operator's pocket is suddenly causing his flight to be so much more dangerous than the empty-pocketed guy standing right next to him doing exactly the same thing. Again, please be specific.

You're responding to the wrong person. I don't think that doing the equivalent of mowing someone's lawn for $10 (like millions of teenagers do for their neighbors every day, using dangerous gas-powered machines with spinning blades, no less!) should suddenly be pushing the guy who owns a 4-pound quad copter into a position where he's subject to a $10,000 fine from the FAA for not having a commercial pilot's license that it costs thousands of dollars to obtain, not even including medical exams, hundreds of hours of training, etc. Don't you see how absurd that is?

Why would a hobbyist using a GoPro to take some landscape pictures from 100' in the air be instantly considered - by you - to be a commercial operator?

Consider, say, Harry Homeowner who is using his hobby drone (say, a 4-pound DJI Phantom) to fly 50' in the air to see if his house's gutters are clogged with leaves. He's line of site, he's flying hundreds of feet below any air space used by "real" aircraft, and he's just using his little flying robot like the fun tool it is. The fact that he's got a tiny camera onboard, looking at his own roof, makes that commercial use, and reason to have the FAA fine him for not having acquired an actual commercial pilot's license? Are you even listening to yourself?

And for that matter, how is the safety of the situation any different if he's doing that, and then Neighbor Bob says, "Hey, Harry Homeowner! I'll give you $10 and a cold beer if you'll fly that little camera 50' to the right, and check out my chimney for me, OK?" How does Harry's acceptance of that $10 make what he's doing suddenly more dangerous? Be specific.

How? What mechanism do you have in mind that will stop somebody from throwing together $200 worth of parts and flying a nice little camera-carrying quadcopter anyway? The ONLY people you're looking to give trouble to are the ones who will already be informed, and operating with safety in mind. I suspect that your actual agenda is to preserve some piece of the AP market for yourself, at the expense of people willing to run a cheap little machine over a farmer's field or rooftop for pay.

But in practical terms, I'm more interested in your truly strange sense of what makes something suddenly commercial (carrying a camera? really? have you never used or even contemplated the use of a video downlink as a way to make the hobby more fun and more safe?), or why you think that people operating commercially aren't already doing so far more safely than somebody who just clicked "buy now" at Amazon because a little flying-drone-thing looks like fun to play with.

Except that the witnesses (who went to the police, quietly and in hopes of remaining anonymous out of concern about retribution by the kind of people who burn down businesses out of spite) who related the events in a way that - what a shock! - was completely consistent with the physical evidence ALL said that there was no point at which Wilson was shooting at Brown from behind. Rather, that he was yelling, loudly and repeatedly, to stop - and that he (Wilson) was backing away from the 6'-4", 290lb Brown who has NOT stopped when told, and was instead charging at him. So, yeah, the people who said he was shot in the back, and the people who said that Wilson was shooting from his cruiser window, and the people who said that Wilson stood over a kneeling, hands-up Brown "pumping bullets into him" - were, indeed, lying.

They didn't need a video. They had abundant physical evidence that debunked the obvious BS that a bunch of the Get Me On The TV types were trying to sell. And then there's the number of witnesses who finally admitted they hadn't seen anything at all, and just told what they assumed (hoped?) had happened, or heard from somebody else.

There were a core of witnesses who said very similar things, and whose observations were right in line with the physical evidence. It's very telling that most of those witnesses wanted to be sure that their reports would be kept private, and out of the media. Gee, I wonder who they're scared of? Not the police - they went TO the police.

No, you're just not thinking about it. If something that currently doesn't cost you anything, and which does a job you need it to do, and which other people occasionally make better at no cost to you ... suddenly becomes something into which you have to invest a lot of the finite hours you have available in your short life, then the cost to you of being involved with that hunk of software suddenly goes way, way up. In many cases, you can't even contribute a useful suggestion without doing a lot of homework that - as a simple user - you'd otherwise not have to do. Don't know about you, but time is the single most precious thing I know.

Well, I suppose it's possible that his parents played a roll in making sure he had the intellect and ambition necessary to be self employed since he was young. I've certainly met kids (and the associated parents) like that. Mostly it just has to do with not being lazy and resentful.

Ah, nothing like someone who sees the entire world in terms of how much he hates the people who make something of themselves.

Reading comprehension. Try it.

It's not people "like me" (I have about $15,000 tied up in flying camera robots - you?) that will take rights away. It's people who run around saying that anything that might inconvenience them (like being told they can't fly their 15lb octo in the approach path of an airport) is having their liberty taken away in the context that that the "deserves neither" quote was originally made. People trot out that platitude without having any understanding of why it was first said. You're clearly in that group.

If lasers are a problem, stop flying? Really? So if I stand out side and shoot a rifle into targets around your driveway, you should just decide to give up driving a car because my liberty to sling lead anywhere and anytime I want to trumps your right to pass by without getting hit? Do you even listen to yourself?

So you're all for letting idiot kids shine lasers into cockpits, right? Even better, much bigger ones! In fact, they should be able to park their cars right at the edge of the runway, and use massive generator-powered lasers that can blind pilots from miles away. Why? Because out of context quote about liberty. I mean, if you give up your liberty to paint incoming aircraft cockpits with lasers, then you obviously want to live in a police state.

Without a wildly higher-than-average rate of violent crime among young black men in some areas, cops in those areas wouldn't be having to face every situation like another one in which they might get killed doing something simple like a traffic stop. And do you really think that there'd have been riots in Ferguson if the breathless media reports immediately in the wake of what happened had been reporting the observations of credible witnesses instead of the absurdly transparent lies of the criminal running buddy of the guy who had just assaulted the cop? But why did the crowds there, and social media, and some mainstream media outlets catch on fire with the obviously false narrative? Because the honest people who saw what happened were afraid of what would happen to them if they got caught telling the truth. Those witnesses weren't afraid of the cops (they went to the police as soon as they could do so quietly), they were afraid of people in their own neighborhoods.

What sparked violent protests was a bunch of deliberate BS that got trotted out in an attempt to gloss over what that 6'-4", 290 lb "sweet child" and his store robbing, warrant-out-for-him sidekick had just done. If he hadn't stood there in front of cameras and spouted a bunch of self-contradictory nonsense about Wilson shooting out the window of his cruiser, or chasing Brown down and shooting him in the back, or shooting while he was on his knees with his hands in the air and on and on about stuff that did not happen, don't you think that might have been a little different? If the people who live right there weren't so scared of guys just like him and Brown, don't you think the many witnesses who were standing right there and saw what actually happened might also have been on video, talking down the idiots? That would have been great. But they're scared - for their lives - of the very people that the cops also have to confront on a regular basis.

You're right, it's not a single incident. It's years and years of people growing absolutely terrified of the rudderless, violent young men in their own neighborhoods. And when the cameras role, those voices of reason are nowhere to be seen, because they don't want to be another statistic in the huge problem of black-on-black violence - numbers that completely dwarf even the most demonstrably real cases of some dumb cop (white or black ... black cops kill black men, too, not that you'd know that from hearing the coverage) acting rashly.