In the past the model aircraft industry has generally been associated with people flying their machines with a few of their buddies on some remote piece of land outside of the city limits and away from the general populous. The hobby, although reasonably popular, was never what one would call main stream. This is changing very quickly with the DJI quads however. Over the course of the past few weeks an ever increasing number of stories are hitting the wire about people flying their machines over tornado ravaged areas for the purposes of scouting new stories or like the musician from Brooklyn charged with reckless endangerment (and who may finally be charged by the FAA for crashing his quad in NewYork city). I live in a rural area of Canada in the middle of nowhere so flying a machine around my house poses no real public threat to speak of but I can see how this could become a real issue for the millions of city dwellers out there. I get the feeling that as more of these incidents unfold the government agencies may be forced into legislating these birds whether we like it or not. Accidents happen, plain and simple. And there are always a few bad apples who seem to find their purpose in life and ruin it for the majority of us law abiding folk, but after reading post after post of new people crashing their birds, and the fact that these mishaps are happening in populated areas, I just can't see this ending well. Years ago the model hobbyist would never have dreamed of risking so much as to attempt to fly their bird downtown. Now its an everyday occurrence. Things have to change - or they will be forced to.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Just my 2 cents worth.
