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Drones, Uncategorized

Britain to require licensing, registration, allow police to issue fines and seize drones

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Exclusion zones around airports will be extended and drone users will have to be registered under the plans.

Source: Police to get new powers to tackle illegal drone use – BBC News

Plus

  • Airport exclusion zones will be enlarged to 5 km (3 miles) (in the U.S., its already 5 miles). Additional exclusion zones will be added.
  • All users must be licensed and their model aircraft registered. (Like Mexico, this may end up prohibiting non-UK permanent residents or citizens from flying drones in the U.K.)
  • Police can order any drone flyer at any time to land the drone. Failure to land a drone or show your license and registration will be a fine-able offense.
  • Police will be allowed to “search premises and seize drones – including the electronic data stored within the device”.

This is done in the aftermath of the invisible drones at Gatwick Airport. At this time, the only provable drones in the air over Gatwick Airport were those operated by the Sussex Police, which they admit, were unmarked and were likely many of the reported sightings. After they admitted this, there have been no further updates on the investigation.

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Sussex Police admit drones over Gatwick Airport may have been the police department’s own drones

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Some of the sightings of drones which kept Gatwick Airport on shutdown may have involved the police’s own craft, a senior officer has admitted.

Source: Some Gatwick drones ‘may have been police devices’

The police chief insists that in spite of this, he’s still certain that there was an illegal drone flight because … well, he has no reasons other than he believes. Ok, fair enough, many of us believe he is an idiot, therefore, this must be true.

The broken drone they found in a field (at unknown location and unknown distance from the airport) – and a second one too – are acknowledged as having no involvement with Gatwick Airport.

The story of the bicyclist seen packing up two drones several miles from the airport? That story has vanished.

The innocent couple they arrested because they lived less than 3 miles from the airport and once flew model aircraft? Oh sorry, they are totally innocent – our bad, oopsie.

140,000+ people at Gatwick on the first day, 21,000 staff, plus police, military and media stakeouts all looking for drones – and not one photo or video clip.

67 or 93 people reported seeing drones? Where are the interviews of these people by the media? Mysteriously, there are none.

During this mass hysteria, some in the media and politics demanded more regulations, and some demanded a ban on all model aircraft – based on hysteria induced paranoia. Will any of the media retract their previous speculation – de facto fake news – reports? Doubtful. And they are shocked when people call them fake news.

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You knew this was coming: “Drone users should be regulated and registered in the same way as firearms certificates.”

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This is in the U.K.:

“A drone in the wrong hands could be just as lethal as a gun.

“They are unregulated and can easily be bought by anyone online for under £30. Even the cheapest has a range of 150 metres and can fly for half an hour.

“Drone users should be regulated and registered in the same way as firearms certificates.”

Source: Motorist says he saw Gatwick drone pilot frantically packing up two craft before racing off on a bike amid airport shutdown

Note – there’s a lot of oddities in this story and some things – like 30 pound quadcopters flying for half an hour – that are not true.

The logic is kind of weird. In the U.S., firearms killed over 30,000 people in 2017 alone. Model aircraft? To the best of our knowledge, no one in the nearly century has been killed by model aircraft.