Steven

Straker

, Tucson

, Arizona

, United States

Posted on
2020-02-23 19:47:15
“Since I was a kid, I have always been fascinated with models that move. I enjoy taking apart and putting back together to see how it functions. Back in 2012, I’ve watched numerous videos about drones on YouTube. I told myself I have to get myself one of those. A few months rolled by, I was able to obtain all the parts together to build my first one. After successfully putting it together, I enjoyed the outcome and had a blast. With a lot of reading and research from the drone community, I was able to follow up with all the regulations and abide by those rules as strictly as possible because I know among other pilots, we all cherish the hobby to keep our interests alive. I was diagnosed with PTSD that caused me to freak out easily that reminded me of the past incident and flying is part of my stress reliever. As the drones became popular, there were a lot of uneducated, “pilots” aka the noobs have the advantage to fly out of the box with no research, damaging the hobby itself that started way back in 70 years ago. Seeing the news about drones almost crashed into planes, helicopters, and military bases were nerve-wracking and an eye-opener to see how bad to see this hobby getting a bad reputation and to see it crumbling to the ground. When I learned about the proposal of remote Identification, I thought it was poorly executed due to the fact it was like, asking your parents, “Can I fly my drones outside of the house?”. Most people are not going to care. There are a lot of drone pilots who are either enthusiasts or professionals and I am sure we all are concerning the same way as you; invading the privacies, damaging properties, and crashing into people. Even us, the experienced pilots would willing to solve the issue by reimbursing the damages we have caused and move on. That being said, I haven’t heard those who crashed into something big like properties were from responsible pilots and not paying for the damage they made. Majority of the pilots who crashed into something that would cost more than they can afford more likely those who didn’t do their research.”