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We have already seen a handful of stories involving drones that managed to injure people, but a new FAA report claims that having one fall on you is probably nothing to worry about. Apparently, it took a “consortium of universities” to figure this out: drones, they reveal, fall more slowly due to their shape, and they also tend to have safety measures (e.g., blade guards) that further reduce painful incidents. The actual point here is that the FAA is making preparations for new rules that should make drones even safer around people.
The Federal Aviation Administration is expected to continue to seek input from the public and industry experts on how drones should be allowed to fly over people, beyond line of sight of the operator and at night. The current threshold for determining if a drone needs to be registered with the FAA — unmanned aircraft weighing more than 250 grams — was decided in part using Cold War-era military projections on the lethality of being hit with debris in a nuclear fallout, as Recode reported last month. The FAA will begin a new phase of research on drone safety in June, the results of which will be used to develop tests for drone manufacturers to certify their aircraft for safe flying over people.
The Federal Aviation Administration is expected to continue to seek input from the public and industry experts on how drones should be allowed to fly over people, beyond line of sight of the operator and at night. The current threshold for determining if a drone needs to be registered with the FAA — unmanned aircraft weighing more than 250 grams — was decided in part using Cold War-era military projections on the lethality of being hit with debris in a nuclear fallout, as Recode reported last month. The FAA will begin a new phase of research on drone safety in June, the results of which will be used to develop tests for drone manufacturers to certify their aircraft for safe flying over people.
