OK, it's easy for me to say this from across the Atlantic, but, hey, "Calm down, America!" We in the UK went through a drone scare and, you know what, it was fine. In fact – after the more shouty news sites and our legendary tabloid newspapers settled down – we had to accept that it might not have happened at all.
It didn't stop it from ruining 140,000 people's travel plans in the run-up to Christmas and costing over £20 million ($25m USD) between flight compensation, the on-the-day costs to the airport, and the cost of installing all kinds of drone countermeasures in the aftermath.
All this for a drone no one is entirely sure they actually saw.
In the UK drone users need to follow the Drone Code, rules set out by the CAA, the British equivalent to the FAA. The rules people need to follow are very similar, including (you won't be surprised to learn) not flying near airports, yet someone reported seeing a drone near Gatwick in 2018 and – better safe than sorry – the world's busiest single-runway airport immediately ground to a halt.
At an airport with around 800 flight movements per day, 5 days before Christmas, that very quickly puts extreme pressure on the system. Flights very quickly need to be diverted to London's other airports, most of which are also operating close to capacity. Think Die Hard 2 without the snow, or the terrorists, or Bruce Willis. Just no planes going to or from anywhere from the UK's second busiest airport.
As you can imagine, a lot of people wanted someone to blame.
Someone was arrested, but there was no evidence that they were responsible save for the ownership of a drone. That ended up costing the police £200,000 when the Sussex police eventually settled out of court, acknowledging wrongful arrest and false imprisonment.
This despite the fact that Sussex police said at the time the investigation included 129 separate sightings of drone activity (109 of these from credible witnesses). I can't help but wonder who felt the need to mention the 20 incredible witnesses. Are we talking livestock? Perhaps just who might have had a few to drink?
The point is that the solution wasn't to ban drones.
There was a look at the size of the Flight Restriction Zones around major airports, and the move toward ADS-B (self-identifying beacons in drones), but all of this common sense and tech has been arriving in the US too.
The US, also, has reasonably sensible rules about overflying civilian areas and indeed airbases, on the FAA's Where can I fly page.
The addition of a temporary drone ban in New Jersey (until mid January) might also have been a smart move to calm tensions.
The key lesson, though, is that things can get overheated fast. In the UK, the police picked an individual. Sitting here, writing an opinion piece, I'm really hoping that – in the season of goodwill to all – America can find itself not to blame too many individuals or, worse still, a whole nation based on little or no evidence.
All I'm saying is it'd be a very silly thing to start a war over, especially if it turned out to be an American flying diet pills to another American. (And I say that as a Briton – someone from a country that was technically war with America, in 1859, over fertile land for pigs on San Juan Island. It was called the Pig War. (Look it up on Wikipedia if you don't believe me). In that war, incidentally, German arbitrators sided with America. To be fair, neither London nor Washington wanted that war. Let's hope things in DC are as relaxed today!
Anyway, perhaps it's just early sleigh sightings?
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DJI drones are not banned in the USA (for now), so pick up the best beginner drone or best camera drone feeling safer! (On the other hand, there is a temporary Drone Ban in NJ).
