Erik
Lindbergs
, Australia
Posted on
2020-02-15 1:59:19
“As a person who works with emergency services the usage of camera drones is both a blessing and a curse. They are an invaluable tool for recon and intelligence, but can ground firefighting or rescue aircraft when used improperly. HOWEVER, in all of the incidents I have attended in urban, semi-rural, rural and remote areas there has never been a problem that wasn’t solved by politely talking to the pilot and asking them to stop, relocate or work for us (never took us more than 10 minutes to rectify an issue).
Of the hobby side I do foam board and machined wood aircraft which often have marginal aerodynamic properties (just because pushing the limits is fun) and the added weight of a remote ID system (which would need to consist of: separate battery [100g+], transceiver module [50g+], antenna [50g+] [potential for significant additional drag], sim card and mobile plan [$50AUD/month++] [inability to function anywhere without reception for your specific carrier i.e. 60%+ of everywhere here]) would cripple most of my aircraft. The most marginal I built had a payload capacity of only 80g after the battery and hardware were added (still flew like a beast though).
As for educational purposes it is so much easier for most people to understand the concepts behind lift, drag, thrust and aerodynamic control if they actually see a physical object reacting to those forces, and being able to tweak design elements to experiment with flight characteristics.”