WASHINGTON — If you find a
drone under the Christmas tree next week, it may also come with a list
of U.S. government guidelines for safe flying and even software to keep
the device away from airports.
Sales of the small, unmanned
aircraft are soaring this holiday season, prompting fears that
first-time users could accidentally crash them into people, buildings or
even aircraft. Retailers, including Amazon.com Inc., are taking steps
to educate buyers of the high-tech toys.
“I do not want to be
flying in my airplane and be run into by one of these things,” said
Cliff Whitney, a private pilot and owner of Atlanta Hobby in Cumming,
Georgia, one of the largest independent suppliers of civilian drones in
the United States.
Atlanta Hobby has
seen business jump to about $20 million in annual sales, a 10-fold
increase from five years ago that prompted Whitney to start a
drone-training school. The explosion in sales is worrying some airline
pilots and even drone advocates, who said that newly minted unmanned
aircraft operators don't understand the risks.
“The more frequent
the operations of these unmanned aircraft, the higher the risk factor
is, especially as folks explore the edges of the envelope,” said Sean
Cassidy, the national safety coordinator for the Air Line Pilots
Association, the largest pilots union in North America.
The
Federal Aviation Administration reported drone safety cases for the
first time last month, showing incidents had grown to more than 40 per
month.
Just in November, a drone struck and injured a woman at a
Florida antique show, and a small copter flown at a TGI Fridays
restaurant in New York cut the nose of a news photographer. In
September, a man was arrested and charged with flying a drone within 50
feet (15 meters) of a New York Police Department helicopter, and an
airline pilot reported a flight into New York's LaGuardia Airport almost
hit a drone.
“It's out of control,” said Patrick Egan, an editor
at the website sUASNEWS.com who has mostly been on the other side,
pushing the FAA to expand permission for drone flights while crafting
clearer rules.
“I was at the grocery store and you can buy a drone,” he said. “Everybody's selling them now. It's going to get weird.”
Whitney
said sales “are smoking right now,” as Best Buy and Apple have jumped
into the market, and Amazon has even set up a Drone Store.
While the FAA permits hobbyists to fly drones for fun, the equipment being sold goes far beyond the agency's parameters.
The
FAA prohibits hobbyists from guiding a drone by video images, insisting
they be flown only within line of sight. Yet such video equipment is
widely available and marketed to drone buyers. Long-range radio links,
which allow drones to fly far from a user's view, are also available.
Three
of the largest drone makers, closely held SZ DJI Technology Co.,
France's Parrot SA and Berkeley, California- based 3D Robotics Inc.,
said sales are strong as new models arrive for the holiday-buying
season.
Revenue at DJI, the leading drone manufacturer, has grown
by a factor of three to five times per year since 2009, said Michael
Perry, the company's Hong Kong-based spokesman. While he wouldn't
provide specific numbers, the South China Morning Post reported the
company had sales of $131 million in 2013.
Colin Guinn, 3D
Robotics' senior vice president for sales and marketing and a former
partner with DJI's North American unit, said the attention drones are
getting this holiday season is a function of that growth.
“That pie is growing so fast that it's very noticeable to people who are not in the industry,” Guinn said in an interview.
Amazon
is selling more than 10,000 drones a month, according to two industry
officials who asked not to be identified because they aren't authorized
to speak about the company's sales.
A spokeswoman for Amazon, Mary Osako, didn't respond to email and telephone message seeking comment on drone sales.
The
drone manufacturers and some retailers like Whitney's company have
begun efforts to better educate users and to use technology to limit
dangerous flights.
The latest versions of DJI's Phantom, which
sells for as little as $600, includes software automatically preventing
flights within 1.5 miles (2.4 kilometers) of major airports around the
world, according to DJI's website.
Parrot's new Bebop Drone and
other company models can't be flown more than 400 feet above the ground,
Peter George, vice president of sales and marketing in North America,
said in an interview.
Amazon's Drone Store includes instructions on how to “Fly Responsibly,” including a link to a hobby group's safety guide.
Still,
in some cases flight limits can be overridden and they don't always
match up with the FAA's restrictions. For example, the FAA says drones
shouldn't be flown within five miles of an airport without permission
from agency controllers.
Enthusiasm over the new devices has
shown up in the halls of Congress, even with growing controversy over
safety and privacy posed by the devices.
“I've got a quad-copter
on my Christmas list as I suspect quite a few people do,” Representative
Blake Farenthold, a Texas Republican, said at a Dec. 10 congressional
hearing.
Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment