The news has reported recently that the FAA is fast-tracking the process of approving drone flights in US airspace. Until now, drones were limited to being used by the Department of Homeland Security for patrolling the US-Mexico border. Now it seems that drones are on their way to broader use. One proposed idea for using drones domestically is that law enforcement can use UAVs in order to enforce laws. This doesn’t sit well with some privacy experts.

What would be the barrier of entry for a law enforcement individual using drones. UAVs can fly as high as passenger jets, so it seems logical that they would have to be controlled by ATC. Unlike toys or R/C aircraft, UAVs/drones performance parameters will most definitely require clearances, flight plans, and controlled vectors to their destination airspace. Perhaps at this point they could fly similarly to how news helicopters currently fly with respect to maintaining a specific heading, altitude, and speed in order to observe a given target. That seems fine.

BUT, and this is a very big BUT, is it really a good idea to have unmanned drones flying around with General Aviation traffic. Even if the flight profiles of these drones are strictly monitored by air traffic controllers, the person piloting the vehicle is still on the ground. This means that the pilot has no skin in the game. If a drone pilot causes an accident by a missed call, or missed instruction, they can still go have lunch later in the day, whereas any potential victims in other aircraft involved in such an accident may not and most probably will not be that lucky.