From seemingly emerging as a high-tech, fun activity for enthusiasts a few years ago, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), better known as drones, have experienced a massive boom in popularity, with the flying devices being used not just for personal use, but for enterprise use as well.
Unfortunately, as fast as drone technology is improving, the laws governing their use has not, with most states in the U.S. not yet having a set plan of action regarding the full specifics of the regulations about drone use.
Drone use is being taken very seriously by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), however, especially since the prospect of thousands of Americans, most of them probably inexperienced flyers, buzzing around in the skies, is a valid cause for concern.
This week, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta stated that so far, the drone enthusiasts' community is being very supportive of the FAA's efforts to regulate the devices' use, with almost 400,000 drone owners registering their UAVs to the FAA.
"No single thing we're doing constitutes a silver bullet. Rather, we're creating a growing toolbox for integrating drones into the national airspace," he said, addressing the concern that the FAA is not creating drone regulations fast enough.
Of course, the regulations that the FAA have been focusing on thus far have been regulations for the use of drones for personal and recreational use. For those who are integrating the use of drones to their business operations, the wait might be longer.
As of March 4, about 3,800 businesses and 74 public service agencies across the United States had announced plans to integrate the use of drones in their day-to-day operations. In Pennsylvania alone, there are already more than 90 local businesses who have managed to get authorization to use the flying devices for profit.
Indeed, the future does seem to involve a time when thousands of remote-controlled aircraft will be flying around in the sky on an everyday basis. If any, the use of drones would most definitely be even more prolific, especially since a recent study from the George Mason University has concluded that drone use does not pose as much risk as originally thought.
"A two-kilogram drone would cause an injury once every 187 million years of continuous operation. It's pretty safe by existing aviation standards," said Eli Dourado, one of the researchers.
This means that in a situation where there are quite literally millions of drones flying in the sky at a given time, the little flying vehicles would only cause an accident about once in every 187 years.
