Comment by WrtCdEvrydy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by WrtCdEvrydy | Hacker News Reader

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Here's the answers for everyone who has questions.

As an FAA Safety Team Member (24891, https://www.faasafety.gov/FAASTApp/directory/view.aspx?appID...), I can shed more light on this. The FAA owns the skies and provides waivers and this was probably a waived operation from the FAA so they were probably coordinating this on the ground.

Cities, and states can pass laws about where it's legal to operate drones, but no city or state may pass a law restricting the "navigable airspace". New York City's ordinance states that it's "illegal to operate drones from NYC and Manhattan" but that's as far as they can go. It's up to the FAA to decide if an operation is a threat to the public and whether it can be done safely. For drone swarms, the controllers are pre-programmed and have RTK modules providing additional accuracy down to the cm or millimeter compared to meters from GPS and once the modules are loaded and launched the flight can be executed autonomously (however, most of these light shows don't have any sensors so collision avoidance is really within the swarm itself and careful planning to avoid manned aircraft and buildings).

If you'd like to see one of these shows in action from the air (self plug), I have a video from the Independence Day show that occurred in Miami on my channel here -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWO3Bo1y3B8

There are plenty of other ways to indirectly ban something

The FAA owns the sky. As long as they deemed the risk of property damage, injury and loss of life was properly mitigated to aircraft and people on the ground, and the operation was performed within the constraints of the waiver they have the ultimate power here... however nothing here is being done in the shadows.

Part 107 (commercial drone operations) waivers are available publicly and can be searched online at https://www.faa.gov/uas/commercial_operators/part_107_waiver.... The waiver for drone swarms will be waiving the drone swarm requirement under "107.35 – Operation of Multiple Small UAS" so you can search there to find who was given the waiver and their contact information.

I bet you could ban an aspect of a stunt like this not related to flight, like advertising without a permit or something along those lines. Has anything like this been tested in court?

The FAA won't ban something unless there's a safety component. Light is covered under the FDA (surprisingly) and there's an interest Defcon talk about jamming Lidar guns (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQtLms02PFM). If you made the argument to the FDA that the lights from the drones are a safety issue... it could be done.

Presumably the city could enact an ordinance banning and fining an organization for an areal stunt regardless of if the FAA approves. Of course a city can’t make laws to alter how a federal agency regulates something, but that doesn’t ban there aren’t other avenues.

Flying aircraft in formation is gonna be hard to argue as a hazard... honestly the "light polution" argument would probably be the best one.

Show me where in your charter it says the FAA owns the sky - it ain’t fucking there so stop writing.

49 U.S. Code § 40103

(1)The United States Government has exclusive sovereignty of airspace of the United States.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/40103#:~:text=49%...

> every citizen of the United States has “a public right of freedom of transit in air commerce through the navigable air space of the United States.” 49 U.S.C. § 403 (1940) (current version at 49 U.S.C. § 1304 (1976)).

I will also add this one as well... as a citizen you have the right to transit in air commerce through the airspace so long as your actions do not cause risk to property or people.

Part 91 means I can fly whenever the fuck I want and the FAA has no authority.

That’s the complete opposite of ownership. So I’m right. Say it.

https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-14/part-91

> Note: The following procedures do not relieve the pilot from see-and-avoid responsibility or compliance with FAR 91.119.

Plenty of things that you must follow.

Yea but you can’t do anything if I follow those things.

Hence you don’t own the sky and hence you’re a shithead for acting like a child telling us your Daddy owns the sky so we have to believe you.

I’m still posed off nobody went to jail after y’all got that woman killed on the SWA flight and traumatized the rest.

You need to get buy j. From the tech side and here you are acting like a somebody. Get back to work.

Sovereignty is not ownership, surely. The United States has sovereignty over its own territory as well, that doesn't mean it has ownership of every parcel of land in the United States.

Stop paying your taxes and tell us the government doesn't own your land.

Change it through voting is possible therefore the sovereign state is the people not the government.

You are using the fallacy of arguing to the absurd.

I’m more correct than an asshole saying “my employer owns the sky listen to me”

> I’m more correct than an asshole saying “my employer owns the sky listen to me”

Ohhhhh.... I get the employer thing... the FAA Safety Team is a volunteer organization tasked with education. We don't work for the FAA... wow, I finally get it.

Even worse you’re part of a volunteer education organization and you spread misinformation. Wow you really are a shithead!

Sovereignty granted by the people that can be revoked.

The FAA are Traffic Cops or Game Wardens.

Don’t let this pompous asshole tell you his employer owns the skies. The FAA doesn’t own the skies and Cops with his same attitude don’t own the streets.

This person should be censured for spreading disinformation that benefits him/her when it is a lie and the audience is sophisticated enough to not need to eve use colloquial English.

Yes I’m still mad at the phrase because it’s WRONG.

> This person should be censured for spreading disinformation that benefits him/her when it is a lie and the audience is sophisticated enough to not need to eve use colloquial English.

The truth that the FAA has sovereignty over the navigatiable airspace... and unless someone wants to litigate it to give the state/city more power it will stay that way.

Semantics, but RTK is GPS too.

That is correct, maybe I mistyped something on the way to writing that wall of text.

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