Mochaboy

RC

, Sudbury

, Massachusetts

, United States

Posted on
2020-02-19 11:23:34
“Flying drones is just one aspect of the hobby that is the culmination of a host of other related and complimentary skills. Each of those skills, whether it’s programming, fabrication, electronics, or assembly all work together to produce a vehicle that can give the operator an experience they might not otherwise have access to. While I concede there’s a danger to allowing uncontrolled proliferation of flying devices, the hobby community has historically worked with our congressional leaders to craft common sense regulations that allows both commercial and personal and private interests to be serviced. My understanding of the regulation is that it is necessary to pave the way for commercial drone regulations to go into effect which would have the added penalty of pushing hobbiests quite literally out of the sky. I simply don’t understand how decimating an entire law abiding hobby along with the billion dollar industries that support it would be worth the trouble just so that consumers can get their packages a day faster. Family I’ve been in this hobby for close to 15 years and my kids all partake in this, and all of our family friends and class friends are introduced to this hobby along with many aspects of it through various outreach efforts our local groups conduct on a regular basis. These are all events designed to get kids excited on the various aspects of STEM related activities and help to push the next generation of engineers and scientists that will take this hobby and this industry even further forward. Camaraderie We live in an age where no matter what you’re interested in, no matter how niche you think it is, or how off the beaten path that passion may be, there’s a group of like minded people out there. I have quite literally dozens of friendships with people across the states and even the globe who have done just incredible things with this technology and make those capabilities accessible to everyone. Without that back and forth exchange of ideas, I can’t imagine that the industries that support the drone hobby would even exist because it’s those ideas that fuel that product cycle. FPV Industry Without a hobby community to supply products to, you will inflict irreparable financial harm to dozens of US based companies (ReadymadeRC, GetFPV, AltitudeHobbies, RacedayQuads just to name a few). When these retailers sprung up a decade ago, they realized the financial opportunity in servicing a growing niche of a hobby industry and with thoughtful investments and product designs that the communities wanted, they’ve grown into their own multimillion and even billion dollar companies. These aren’t just companies that push products. There are people behind these companies who have a passion for what we do and participate in the hobby as well. Commercial This steady proliferation of consumer grade off the shelf drones has brought us to the decision point we’re currently at. I understand there are commercial interests at play here, all we ask is that YOU ask the question – How does penalizing already law abiding hobbyists make the skies around the areas we operate in safer than they already are? Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you do in fact agree to tag every hobby drone in the sky with a device that costs 10x what the drone costs, please consider tagging every gun in America while you’re at it, that might actually go a longer way to preserving human life rather than wasting your time grounding hobbyists so packages can arrive at their destinations a few days faster.”