Whether we like it or not, drones are here to stay. No matter how absurd some countries' legislation is, the wheels of progress have been set in motion and they cannot be stopped.
So, the question is: are drones good or bad?
Let's analyze some use case scenarios...
First, what is a drone? A drone is a UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle). Considering this definition, drones come in many different shapes and sizes. Although already widely used in military applications, for the purpose of this article I'll focus mainly on the civilian use, but some of the considerations we are about to discuss can also be applied to the military use side.
One of the major concerns is privacy. Many people see a drone and the first instinctive reaction they have is that they are being spied and that their privacy is at risk. Let's get back a few dozen years when the first portable camera was invented. People said exactly the same! Nowadays, we have cameras in our cellphones, we take photos and record our daily lives and put them on the internet for everyone to see or to show it to our friends. It's not that people are not worried anymore about privacy, it's that after all we didn't need to be worried about it because the conspiracy of half the humanity wanting to spy on the other half wasn't true and now using a camera in the street has become perfectly normal.
So, why should it be different with drones?
Many of the people that use drones are passionate about photography and filming. They are mostly focused on their art, having fun, than spying on their neighbors.
It's perfectly possible that someone with bad intentions can use a drone to record their hot neighbor in her underwear (you lucky bastard) but ultimately, the same can be done with a regular camera and a lens with zoom. What I mean is that someone with bad intentions will find a way to perpetrate his intentions and they will use the tool closest to hand.
So, it's not about the tool but the one that uses it.
Now let's talk about safety, another major concern. Very bluntly, let's put it like this: we drive cars everyday and everyday many people die in accidents, and many more get severely injured. I don't see cars getting banned. Why? Because the benefits largely surpass the dangers.
Many people are worried about a drone falling into their heads. What about an airplane? what about an helicopter? When one of those falls down people die that's for sure. I've never seen anyone dying because a drone fell from the sky... Incidents between drones and airplanes? Let's put it like this: I've seen airplanes with severe damage due to them hitting a bird, not a drone. The only incident with a drone ever, in the entire world, since they exist, was with a military helicopter. The drone was caught by the helicopter's rotor blades. The blades got a few scratches in them, that for safety reasons had off course to be replaced, but the drone was completely destroyed, obliterated. They could only recover a motor with a little bit of an arm attached. This collision was the best thing that could happen because it proves once and for all that even in collisions with other aircraft, drones are safe! When evaluating the risk of impact, one cannot only take into account the speed and weight of the drone, but also that it brakes quite easily and because of that a big amount of the force generated on impact is dissipated.
Continuing on the topic of safety, there are reports that drones have been used to get weapons inside of prisons. Before drones, there were already weapons among the prisoners, and drugs too. Again, someone with bad intentions will find a way to perpetrate his intentions and they will use the tool closest to hand. It's not about the tool but the one that uses it.
There are also reports that ISIS also used drones to carry explosives and detonate them at a distance. If we consider everything that they have been doing, using conventional and non conventional warfare, the use of drones should be the least of our concerns. They blow up a lot of stuff even without using drones... Once again I tell you, someone with bad intentions will find a way to perpetrate his intentions and they will use the tool closest to hand. It's not about the tool but the one that uses it.
Flying a drone is like flying any other radio controlled aircraft model, and I've never seen before anyone worried about these. What I see is many people overreacting, mainly due to fear and ignorance.
But this is nothing new. With time, people will see that they have nothing to fear, because in time, drones will be a tool used daily for different purposes.
One of the most tested applications is order delivery. Many times, we are waiting for an order delivery but we're also busy, so there's no one at home to receive the package. Now you have to call the transportation company and arrange a new delivery date, or go to the local post office to pickup the package. This means additional work and wasted time. Now imagine that a drone just delivers the order into your backyard, the front of your house or your balcony! You would get home from work and there it is, your precious order smiling at you, waiting for you to open it, hassle free! Pretty neat uh? ^^
Also, drones, right now, are already a big part of general entertainment. There's a competition/racing side to drones that many people don't know about, and there are already some major sport networks transmitting drone races all over the world, like ESPN, Eurosport, Sky Sports, etc. There are professional pilots that make a living out of this exclusively. And some major leagues like DRL, DCL and DR1 are making such quality and professional content that it can rival any major race transmission worldwide. This is the sport of the future!
So, in a short sentence answering the main question that spawned this article, we can conclude that just like any other tool, it's benefits or downsides depend on who's using it.
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All in all, they are great fun. I enjoy flying them and building for last few years.
Me too! ^^ Me and some friends really enjoy this hobby! I don't know about you but I'm more into the racer part of the hobby, but what's important is that we are having a lot of fun without endangering anyone or anything. On the plus side, everyone in the community is helpful. I'm really enjoying this...
I fly FPV. Planned to do racing but when I saw the level of other pilots here in Ireland, I realized I have no chance. I only practice on weekends when it is not windy, so I cant improve. besides I probably have no reflexes to get much better. I like flying micros around the trees. It is a good training. I also built this custom Star Wars quad, you can see on my profile, I made 2 posts about my quads so far.
I fly FPV too. Why don't you get/try some simulators, connect your radio to your PC and practice that way? Some sims are extremely good and realistic. We can't all be pro pilots, but what matters is that we have fun, even more so if we do it with other friends. But at least using simulators, you could practice even if it is for just a little, everyday. That's what I'm planning to do during the winter, so that when the new racing season comes I have my skills sharp.
I used one at the beginning but it feels like computer game. It helped me very little. I prefer to use that time on other things, maybe design and build another custom quad. The skills will improve to some point at its own time. The simulator don't give the trill at all.
In my case and also a friend of mine, the sims were what gave me the necessary skills to do my first flight and we both did it without crashing. But everyone is different. What works for some, doesn't work for others. But I know what you mean about the thrill and I agree with that. The adrenaline pumping when you fly the real thing is a unique feeling.
Ha, I crashed a lot :) I even sunk one of my quads with gopro camera in the sea :( Still crashing more than my friend who I fly with. Maybe I will revisit this idea with simulator. They probably improved since my last try.
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I think calling them drones is bad branding. Back when I was starting in university, we called consumer drones "quadcopters", I think something closer to that would be better to remove a lot of the stigma from them.
A quadcopter is a drone that has 4 rotors. You have drones with 3 rotors, 6 rotors, 8 rotors, and even some crazy stuff with dozens of rotors... So, I'm using the general term here and using what people know the most, because ultimately that's what will make people recognize it. I want to remove the stigma from all drones. I could be selfish and just talk about FPV racing quads, because that's mainly the kind of drones that I'm interested, but I want to reach further and so I did a more generic article to reach a more generic audience.
Yeah, okay. Fair point. And yeah, Drone is the all-encompassing term, I just wonder if there's maybe a better term that sounds less ominous, just on it's own.
I can't think of any right now, though.
Just like you, When I'm referring to my racers, i call them quads, but even on instagram, my photos get mixed with quad bikes when I use the #quads tag. XD But hey, we share peacefully the tag. No harm done. XD
Thanks! ^^