Fear Is In The Air,

as,

on Monday, citing a congressional mandate and reports of drones near airplanes, the FAA announced that any unmanned flying vehicle heavier than half a pound would have to be registered with the government by February 19th, 2016, this is a huge change for the hobby, and one the FAA says it’s implementing out of an overriding concern with safety, well this did not seem right to Eli Dourado, an economist and technologist at the libertarian Mercatus Center, using data pulled from the FAA’s own database of wildlife strikes, he created the chart above and posted it on Twitter earlier today, since 1990, the FAA recorded 198 airplane-and-turtle collisions, and exactly zero drone-and-airplane collisions, even when the FAA warned about an increase in drone and airplane “encounters” earlier this year, the encounters were limited to drone sightings, not actual collisions, so collisions with drones 0 collisions with turtles 198, from 1990 through to July 2015, the strange thing is it has already been establish that drones under three pounds show no more risk to airplanes than small birds, especially if flown below 400 feet and more than 5 miles away from airports, as the law already requires, registering drones smaller than that means flying toys are now more controlled than ducks, but no deadlier, which leads to a couple of questions, like why is it not law to register wild and captive turtles and ducks? and does the FAA actually read it's own aircraft collision reports? still it does keep everyone in a climate of fear!