Quadrocopters in Russia and the USA



    Welcome to iCover Blog Pages. The flights of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) and their registration procedure in the USA, Russia and other countries of the world are regulated by law today. This is understandable: large manufacturers, resellers and inventors of all stripes position their products as toys, but the technical capabilities of modern UAVs allow us to consider them as a full-fledged aircraft. This is indirectly confirmed by the legislative terminology from the Air Code: “unmanned aircraft”, “unmanned aircraft system”, “unmanned aircraft commander” and “external crew”. However, the ways to overcome and the nature of conflict situations that have already been developed due to the lack of a single legal field are capable of crushing any healthy initiative. This affected businessman Oleg Ponfilenkofrom Syktyvkar, which successfully delivered pizza with drones to its first customers in the summer of 2014.

    Financial reports on the annual results of global drone sales indicate that in 2015 alone, about 4 million units of unmanned aerial vehicles were sold. 65% of them went to the USA and Europe, another 15% went to China, and the remaining 20% ​​scattered to other countries, including Russia. About 70% of the total number of civilian UAVs is currently concentrated in the United States. It is not surprising that it is in the States that the most elaborated, albeit imperfect, legislation is available. Until recently, it was not determined in which areas and regions drones can fly, what equipment they can be equipped with and which not, how they should be monitored from the ground, and what measures should be taken with regard to the protection of privacy. This gave freedom for creativity, both to local authorities and to enthusiastic pilots.

    Some work in this direction has already been carried out both in the United States and abroad. Today we will retrospectively touch upon the topic of legal regulation of flights and the requirements for registration of quadrocopters, which are currently presented at the legislative level in Russia and the USA. We will touch upon those realities and prospects that, in the opinion of experts, open up the multicopter market. US

    Registration



    In the US, quadrocopters register the owners themselves. The applicant sends the full name and contact details by e-mail, the information is entered into the database, and the owner is assigned a personal number. The applicant receives registration with this number by reply email. All subsequent unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are assigned to the owner’s personal number. Registration is free, but will soon be paid. The conditional amount is 5 dollars.

    Russia

    According to the Air Code of Russia (VK RF), a quadrocopter is an aircraft like a Boeing or a Superjet. The permission to fly is issued by RosAviation. Starting March 30, the applicant is required to submit a flight plan and pilot's license. That is, to launch any 250 gram radio-controlled toy is trusted only to a person with a flight time of at least 50 hours, including night landings and instrument control.

    Chronology

    2011


    September

    USA : September 28, in the vicinity of Boston, the FBI arrests Rezvan Fergaus. He planned to blow up the Capitol and Pentagon buildings with explosives delivered on a quadrocopter.

    2012


    February

    USA : Federal Aviation Administration (FAA, FAA) promises to establish rules for the use of drones for commercial purposes until the end of September 2015. For non-commercial purposes, flights are permitted at an altitude of up to 152 meters.

    Russia : Aircraft lighter than 115 kg are considered ultra-light and are not subject to registration. With a system for detecting other flying objects, UAVs can be launched in flight space.

    2013


    February

    USA : Hollywood asks for permission to shoot with quadrocopters. Representative of the American Film Association, Howard Gantman, appeals to the safety of shooting from drones instead of cranes and helicopters.

    Virginia adopts the first law restricting municipal authorities from buying or renting any quadrocopters.

    June

    USA : Drones first used as couriers. They delivered beer to South Africa, and DHL parcels to the United States.

    August

    USA : Certificate for commercial filming is now issued only by the FAA. Before sponsors could certify - the main thing is that the drone should not be "nameless".

    October

    USA: In Manhattan, an UAV hits several buildings and crashes. The owner is found by video on a drone and fined $ 2,000 for flying in a restricted area and threatening national airspace.

    Following Virginia, restrictions on UAV flights are introduced in the cities of Iowa and Minnesota.

    December

    Russia : Russian Ministry of Defense announces upcoming legislative changes. Together with other ministries, they are developing new rules for the use of UAVs and amending the Air Code (VK RF).

    2014


    June

    Russia : The transport prosecutor’s office and the regional branch of the Gosavianadzor make claims to the pizzeria in Syktyvkar, which managed to deliver 6 orders with a drone. The prosecutor's office promises to fine the pizzeria for 200 thousand rubles for violating the rules for using the airspace of the Administrative Code of the Russian Federation.

    September

    USA : California Senate restricts law enforcement in UAV use. Except in emergency cases, services are required to obtain permission to shoot.

    October

    Russia: The court fines a logistics company that delivered pizza in Syktyvkar by 50 thousand rubles. Instead of violating flight rules in the airspace, companies are charged with air cargo transportation without a license. However, there is no aircraft category suitable for drones in the RF VK; therefore, it is impossible to obtain a license for cargo transportation.

    December

    USA : FAA permits 4 companies to use drones for commercial purposes. Trimble Navigation, Clayco, and Woolpert design, build, and repair buildings, and VDOS only inspects the environment using UAVs.

    2015


    January

    USA : CNN's News Network company gets the right to shoot drones. Representatives of the FAA say they will consider the possibility of unhindered news shooting.

    February

    USA : New Jersey forbids law enforcement officials to take photos and videos from UAVs without permission, except in emergency situations. The decision obliges to remove the captured material within two weeks. Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Montana, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin also restrict law enforcement in the use of drones.

    Barack Obama obliges law enforcement agencies to publicly disclose the location and purpose of shooting from drones. The FAA reports that if the law is approved, approximately 7 thousand companies will be able to remove from UAVs for commercial purposes.

    March

    Russia : State Duma considers bill on UAV registration. If approved, the law will enter into force in a year, and the category of unmanned aerial vehicles with a maximum take-off weight of 30 kilograms or less will appear in the Air Code.

    June

    Russia : The State Duma adopts a bill on the registration of UAVs in the first reading. According to the bill, it is necessary to register aircraft with a maximum take-off mass of more than 30 kilograms.

    December

    USA: The FAA obliges actual UAV owners to register devices heavier than 250 grams by February 19, 2016. Registration is simple: the owner sends the passport data, phone number and UAV model by e-mail. Until the end of January, the service was provided free of charge, after this date - $ 5. For UAV owners under 13 years old, the device is registered by parents or legal representatives, from 13 years old you can register yourself. For a flight without registration, the owner will be fined $ 27,000, and if the drone without a number participates in a crime, the owner will be fined $ 250,000 or a prison term of up to 3 years.

    On December 21, the Federal Aviation Administration opened a special section on its website for drone owners who wish to register their drones in the official registry. In the first two days alone, 45 thousand drones were registered.

    Despite serious restrictive measures taken by the government in coordination with the FAA, experts are confident that the desire for an experiment and a lack of understanding of the possible consequences will lead to the fact that the adopted laws will be largely ineffective. The International Association of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems (AUVSI) thinks differently. At the same time, emergency rescue services forbid to neutralize drones with the help of FAA radio-electronic suppression systems.

    Russia : State Duma adopts amended UAV registration law

    The concepts of “unmanned aircraft”, “commander of an unmanned aircraft” and “external crew” appear in the RF VK. The external crew may consist of several pilots, the owner of the UAV appoints the commander of the vessel. The commander makes the final decisions about take-off, landing the drone, returning to the airfield or emergency landing. All crew members are required to have a flight certificate. The law will come into force not a year later, but 90 days after its publication.

    2016


    February

    United States : After requests from Google and Amazon to allow drone flights, the FAA collects a commission. The members of the commission will develop new rules for UAV flights over densely populated territories and with a high degree of probability will meet the IT giants by approving the rules for commercial flights.

    March

    Russia : The law on registration of UAVs heavier than 250 grams comes into force. Now the most famous DJI quadrocopter series - Phantom and Inspire - need to be registered. But you can organize races and make new friends without a flight certificate - quadcopters for first-person racing (FPV) or amateur shooting , including shooting in HDweigh less than 250 grams and do not require registration.

    The work of a drone pilot in the USA. Prospects and Realities


    After UAVs were integrated into the US airspace system, in just three years, 70 thousand new jobs were created that were directly or indirectly related to the UAV industry. According to experts, within a year or two, the active use of drones for commercial purposes will create an additional 100 thousand new jobs. In this rather niche commercial area, professional drone pilots already today receive salaries of up to $ 50 per hour and above. Therefore, the US Federal Aviation Administration is considering in detail all possible commercial ways to use them.

    The number of areas where UAV capabilities can be used is growing in proportion to the technical development of the industry itself. For assembling drones, training operators, directly for piloting for industrial purposes and further servicing the fleet, a sufficiently high level of qualification is required. One of the most promising markets where the capabilities of drones can be increasingly used in the very near future is precision farming. The ability to receive operational information from the sky will allow farmers to optimize the process of growing crops and spraying methods, reducing the amount of fertilizer used.

    The economic effect of the use of drones in agriculture in the USA by the end of 2015 amounted to $ 2 billion. Other promising areas where copters could be successfully used are weather monitoring, cartography, oil and gas exploration, telecommunications, monitoring of the habitat of wild animals, disaster management, mountain aviation, cinema, sports broadcasting, the advertising industry and, of course, cargo delivery. Given the fact that specialties are appearing today, about which 25 years ago no one suspected, the listed opportunities are only the tip of the iceberg.

    To get a drone pilot certificate today, it’s enough to take a 50-hour training course. Of course, to obtain the UAV engineer status, you will already need a master’s degree, and in order to be appointed captain of a mountain aviation team, in addition to the first-class FAA medical certificate, you will need to meet more stringent requirements for the number of flight hours worked (including piloting drones in a team), transport pilot certificate . aviation (Airline Transport Pilot (ATP) Certificate ) , etc.

    At the moment, American universities and colleges already offer the first UAV - educational electives that Otley ayutsya both in value and direction over a wide range.

    US drone pilot starting salary, according to data provided by the official websitePilot schools , ranging from $ 50 to $ 60 thousand per year. The average is approaching $ 100 thousand. At the same time, it is likely that working outside the United States, the drone operator will be able to receive significantly higher salaries. People starting their career as a drone pilot today will have significant advantages over those starting in five years. UAV engineers, as a rule, earn more than the average pilots, while specialists providing maintenance, processing analytics and payload calculation can earn slightly less.

    image

    Russian multicopter market


    According to the most conservative estimates, the number of drones in Russia is estimated at 50 thousand. But today no one can name the exact number of UAVs purchased during the year. According to reports, about 70% of purchases came from the most popular Phantom UAV series, while Inspire series drone sales accounted for 10% of total sales. The share of professional custom assembly models (Matrice and Spreading Wings) did not exceed 8% of the turnover, and the remaining 12% were “toy drones” without cameras. At the same time, the territorial distribution of demand looks quite indicative: Moscow and St. Petersburg have become absolute leaders, while in other regions it is difficult to talk about growth in sales activity. So for the millionth Volgograd for the whole of the past year, only 2 drones were acquired.

    What are the prospects for building a business on the multicopter market in Russia? Today, about 80% of the total number of owners purchased UAVs for entertainment purposes. The Phantom series is difficult to categorize as professional aerial photography solutions due to the technical limitations of camera control. Inspire-1 can be considered such a solution, although its camera is capable of recording with a resolution of 4K, it is almost incapable of guaranteeing a high-quality shooting result in difficult weather conditions, and even more so at night. But with good lighting and skillful post-production, getting a decent picture in 1080 resolution, i.e. a commercial product, is quite real.

    image
    High Level photo agency

    The scope of drones as a means of professional photography is very diverse - from shooting architectural objects and industrial complexes to mass events, weddings and technical inspections by “non-destructive testing experts” of hard-to-reach places, such as pipes of thermal power plants, radio masts, etc. Orders for such works can be found through advertising agencies or through direct sales to interested organizations.

    The insignificance of the share of custom solutions that can cope with their tasks in the domestic professional commercial market is associated, first of all, with the cost of assembly from 600 thousand rubles and above. Entrepreneurs have no firm confidence that the invested funds will pay off.

    The low-budget video sequences of presentation clips from drones suffer from the same problems: “littered” horizon, excess “gray”, “noise” and, of course, unprofessional editing. Significantly, such videos are quite common even among state corporations and large companies. But there are very few high-quality products created using aerial photography in the domestic market. On the other hand, the cost of a professional commercial of 200-300 thousand rubles for the vast majority of companies seems excessive. As a result, orders are sent to more accommodating amateurs, stamping low-quality video on stream.


    A video shot and edited by a professional operator

    Already today, one more very promising area of ​​industry development can be outlined - advertising on drones. Test flights for advertising purposes have demonstrated that the public refers to such a way to advertise the product positively, while attracting attention is guaranteed. According to experts, with the professional development of the direction, a new advertising trend may be formed in the coming years. And a brilliant example of the opening opportunities - a commercial for the “Black Friday” from the Camisaria Colombo store:



    The prospects for building a high-tech business related to the design of new UAV models in accordance with the requirements of customers - rescue services, police, farmers, municipal utilities, etc., look somewhat more foggy for the domestic market. But, in the future, each of these and related areas subject to the legal protection of the designer could bring a stable and constant income.

    Niche is waiting for professionals. The development of these areas in Russia most directly depends on government support for programs. Many professional teams were waiting for the adoption of a law that allows legalizing commercial activity, but its announced edition, in their opinion, only complicates the situation. And how could it be otherwise, if the registrars themselves answer the questions addressed to the representatives of RosAviation, that "... they have heard about such a law, but no one knows how to register it ..."

    image
    High Level photo agency


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