EDITORIAL: FAA must get with times, loosen drone regulations

As reported this week by the Review-Journal’s Richard N. Velotta, the Federal Aviation Administration released a July 15 notice that a July 9 test of an unmanned aerial vehicle on the Strip violated the agency’s completely unenforceable drone policies. How did the FAA find out? Reading the Review-Journal’s July 9 report on the launch of DroneCast, a Philadelphia-based advertising startup that flew a small banner with an 11-pound octocopter.

Drone technology could revolutionize countless industries, if only the FAA would permit it. The federal government allows people to take photos, transport small items and monitor property with drones, but only if no money changes hands. Those same uses are prohibited by businesses, even though companies use drones all the time.

So FAA bureaucrats search the Internet for reports about drone use and send tersely worded letters to offenders threatening fines. That’s how the FAA halted a Minnesota brewery’s deliveries of beer to ice fishermen. That’s how the FAA stopped the Washington Nationals from taking aerial promotional photographs during practices (never mind that big-league fly balls go higher than drones). That’s how regulators have cracked down on real estate agents who use drones to shoot appealing aerial photographs and videos of properties for sale.

These industries and others, including journalism, agriculture, energy and ranching, to name just a few, are waiting for the FAA to recognize the futility of its efforts and ground its silly drone rules. Unmanned aerial vehicles could send the U.S. economy flying — if only the federal government would get out of the way.