Tag Archives: FAA

December 1, 2025 · 03:03

Where’s the outrage?

That was the question I raised to myself when I got the news (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c741mpdyw9no) where we see ‘Venezuela condemns Trump airspace closure warning’ with the text “Venezuela has condemned US President Donald Trump’s statement that the airspace around the country should be considered closed. The country’s foreign ministry called Trump’s comments “another extravagant, illegal and unjustified aggression against the Venezuelan people”.” President Trump might think he is a rockstar, but in what universe does he get to tell another country how to use its airspace? Is American in a state of war with Venezuela? And beyond that, between the United States and Venezuela there is Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia. So where’s the outrage of the media condemning his word? We also get “Trump wrote on Truth Social: “To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY.”” Apart from this rather weird person to let go of his CAPS LOCK key, and when I see the text “Some Democratic and Republican members of the US Congress have expressed anger that Trump has not sought legislative approval.” And the operative word is ‘some’ the fact that President Trump is telling the people of Venezuela that their airspace is closed is weirdly appealing. For that matter, as America has (in light of yesterdays article) “U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis announced Monday it will not publish the delayed initial estimate of third-quarter gross domestic product, originally scheduled for Oct. 30, due to a prior government shutdown” (source: Bitget) as such, as it is already a month late and might that report show (I have no idea what it shows) that the American GDP has now moved from first to third position? Would be a nice gesture that his beautiful bill is now set against a GDP lower then the EU. But that is for later. What I do despite is the absence of media reporting on the Venezuelan setting and reporting on where the American people have the seemingly right to close another nations airspace. Want to do that to China? That be a real joke, it will have 1.43 billion people laughing their pants of. 

And with the setting that comes next a few things are ‘loose’, we see “Trump’s comments come just days after the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) warned airlines of “heightened military activity in and around Venezuela”, leading to several major airlines suspending flights there. Caracas then rescinded their take-off and landing rights. Venezuela’s foreign ministry urged “the international community, the sovereign governments of the world, the UN, and the relevant multilateral organisations to firmly reject this immoral act of aggression”, in a statement on Saturday.” On second thought, where is the outrage of the United Nations? They are probably to busy scolding Israel for acting against terrorists. It is not the BBC article that has me outraged, it is the lack of media holding President Trump to account, at the very least they should scold him on the use of the CAPS LOCK key, but that might merely be my setting, or as my mother used to say, that is an issue that can merely be found between your two ears. And she might be right on the CAPS LOCK thing, but I digress, I am not alone in this. Venezuela also gave us “Venezuela’s foreign ministry urged “the international community, the sovereign governments of the world, the UN, and the relevant multilateral organisations to firmly reject this immoral act of aggression”, in a statement on Saturday.” And as far as I see, Venezuela is right, there is no official war called from either Venezuela or the USA and as far as I know, US Congress is not the one saber rattling. 

And it is the silence of the UN is even more annoying, I am not sure how useful they are, but their usefulness might have become a thing of the past. Any delay by them calling America to order is another day that the usefulness of the UN is now a thing of the past and global budgets can get go of the 130,000 people that work for these organisations, as well as cut the budgets of these people in New York, might be another let down of the economy in the USA. 

Overall I wonder where the media outrage is in all of this. For me there is no real setting for Venezuela, it is a country 15,272 km away from Sydney and its 28.3 million people have no call on me, or does it hold any interest to me, but I believe in any nation to exercise its freedom and the the skies over Venezuela belong to the Venezuelan people, not President Trump. Should he be closing it due to an impending war, then he forgot to tell US Congress about it and should the USS Gerald R Ford and the 15,000 soldiers start a war with Venezuela, they better be prepared to deal with the assistance that Venezuela might get from its neighbors Colombia, Guyana and heaven forbid Brazil. A setting that might be the start of World War III, all that because he wasn’t eligible for the Nobel peace price? So you might think that I am overreacting, but the setting is almost prime to that, with the setting so close to Cuba, the mission of Steve Witkoff, United States Special Envoy to the Middle East might have had a second setting when talking to the Russians in regards to the Ukraine. And the might be a little frightening, because this reminds me of the 1997 movie Wag the Dog, where the President of the United States is caught being inappropriate, and what happens when this is a different spin, one that takes focus away from the abysmal economic state America is at now? Is it too far fetched, or does this scenario sound eerily true?

I have no idea what is going on, but to send the USS Gerald R Ford and 15,000 troops tend to make people nervous, especially when it is this close to Cuba and I wonder why the BBC is not asking a few loud questions on this setting. And as we consider the setting “to combat drug trafficking” is an overreaction to say the least. It might be true that the BBC reported that “other leaders in the region have welcomed Trump’s stance”, so who are they, or is it merely the president of Argentina? The lack of media in all this should get all your outrage, because Latin America is merely one step away from WWIII. If Venezuela gets any support, that setting is merely one step away, if Russia at all gets involved (because of Cuba) that fence is brought down and in that case this world has a new problem and I reckon that to avoid this Steve Witkoff might have had a different agenda then the world was told about in Russia. So whilst the Guardian reported (4 days ago) ‘US representatives call for Trump envoy Witkoff to be fired after leaked Kremlin call’ I wonder if this ‘leak’ incurred so that no one considered closing at the Venezuela setting in all this. It is all speculation, but the 15,000 men and that dinghy called the USS Gerald R Ford to fight drug dealers seems like a massive overreaction, as such I wonder what truly is going on and the media absence to all this is making me wonder more and optionally is making my speculations a little more extreme than even I like it to be. 

In terms of end setting, it might need more ‘examples’ and in this I call for the Running Man, a movie after the 1982 book by Richard Bachman (not the Vancouver hockey goalie), in this Arnold Schwarzenegger takes the lead as a blamed police officer. It is relevant as the movie starts with:

“By 2017, the world economy has collapsed. Food, natural resources and oil are in short supply. A police state, divided in paramilitary zones, rules with an iron hand”

considering that Richard Bachman wrote this 43 years ago, it is interesting that he is off by less than a decade. Quite the achievement if you ask me (I know, no one asks). But that setting is seen all over this field and Venezuela isn’t even the largest setting here, but it all adds up to that story and we are given these ‘truths’ by two movies is a little too awkward to consider. 

You all have a nice day, 360 minutes until breakfast for me.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Media, Military, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

May 15, 2025 · 07:08

Operation Maybe

Yup, that happens. Although for the most we adhere to the two certainties in like (death and taxes), we automatically assume that hotlines remain available. It is just an automatic response, it is almost like the setting you get from “Our house was broken into, but the dog was home?” kinda like that. So when the news came to mind all the way from London (about 180 minutes ago) ‘Pentagon hotline linked to DC airport ‘inoperable’ since 2022’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvgdmx1g1vzo) I initially thought the someone at the BBC had dropped the ball. But no, the hearing that followed gives clear voice that the BBC was on the ball. My initial thought was that both the airport and someone (likely reduced in rank a few minutes later) at the Pentagon were both equally to blame. The setting of “A hotline supposed to connect the Pentagon with local air traffic controllers in Washington DC has been “inoperable” since 2022, a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) official has testified.” It pains me to see the Pentagon advertising “At any given moment in time, we are ready to serve and come to the aid of Americans all over the world as well as out allies (pending hotlines operations)” it just doesn’t have that sparkle that finish has on your glasses in the dishwasher. Now before we go into the blame game (everyones favourite game), lets be clear. If the hotline was no longer ‘essential’ and someone switched off that hotline, it would have been nice to alert the US Senate before editors got “At a Senate hearing on Wednesday, FAA officials said they only learned of the problem this month after controllers at Ronald Reagan national airport had to wave off two flights attempting to land because of a nearby US Army helicopter.” Which gives light to the fact that the airport is every bit to blame was well as the (likely) degraded person at the Pentagon.

The setting of an at alert Pentagon is seemingly a ‘nice to have’ and not an essential issue. Lets face it, we can’t have a building consisting of with about 6.5 million square feet (600,000 m2) of floor space, 3.7 million square feet (340,000 m2) of which are used as offices with almost 25,000 headless chickens running around, that just won’t do. As such there are issues with the hotline not working. 

And the excuse “Deputy air traffic control head Franklin McIntosh told senators that the hotline was operated by the defence department and that his agency had been unaware of any problems” does not hold water with me. Hotline testing is an essential task I reckon that on an airport it would be once a day, but I’ll accept that once a week might be enough. As such at least 1226 checks were failed (optionally a mere 175 checks) and that is a much bigger issue, as such the nice game blamer Franklin McIntosh might wanna hang on to his retirement for dear life. Unless it is his first month they screwed the pooch on that one and I am not saying that the Pentagon is without blame, because a hotline has (at least) two ends and they were both missed. Just imagine that the get the setting of “Oi people, al-Qaeda is at it again” only to be missed because the hotline was out. As such we get the setting of “Peter, is your brother still delivering pizza at the Pentagon? Tell him there is an issue at the airport” which could be averted by dialing (703) 692–7100 and see if someone considers an attack by (a presumptuous) Al-Qaeda important enough to press the alert button. This is what could happen. What seemingly needs to happen is that people need to be purged (I still prefer self-flagellation as a solution, as Pope Urban II was a fan of it). There is the question that it should not affect me so intensely. But we have been shown that the Pentagon could be attacked, in other settings there are a number of flights that emerge from Washington DC, many of them connected to high ranking officials at any of the given Alphabet units (not Google), might be nice that immediate assistance is at hand (usually through a hotline). I just gave a few ways how this hotline might have been essential. As such when we see “The FAA, along with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are investigating the recent near-misses.” All this in regards of a issue surrounding the 64 people aboard the American Airlines-operated plane died, as well as three crew members of Blackhawk Helicopter which had taken off from Fort Belvoir in Virginia on a training mission. At this point the setting of “In the more recent incidents earlier this month, two aircraft from Delta and Republic Airways were told by air traffic controllers to perform “go-arounds” because of an approaching Army helicopter, similar to the one that had been involved in the crash.” And at that point the Hotline was not an issue (or perhaps it was the instigator of the Senate hearing). Whatever the reason, I reckon a complete investigation (and overhaul) of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport is needed and I would say that an investigation in the Pentagon hotlines is equally needed, because if this was missed, other issues are likely to be found.

But it could be as simple as the maintenance hotline that ran out of battery power and a mere 2 AA batteries are needed.

Have a great, not hotline dependent day today.

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Media, Military, Politics

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,

August 24, 2024 · 21:06

The price of fake stability

It is the question that flew my mind as I read a BBC article (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy3lxqlwl1o) here we are given the ‘plight’ (for the lack of a better word) of Boeing. The once heralded brand of a saviour of technology. Most will wonder about “A US campaign group has accused Boeing of concealing information about electrical problems on a plane that later crashed” , as well as “The organisation said more than 1,000 planes currently flying could potentially be at risk of electrical failures as a result of production problems. The foundation’s claims relate to an aircraft which hit the ground minutes after take-off from Addis Ababa in March 2019” yet whether the truth is a given here, remains the question. We are given a host of other settings in this partial boxing ring, which leads to “among the apparent issues indicated by the documents are a lack of electrical parts, missing and improperly installed wiring, and employees being placed under extreme pressure to rework defective parts” It is anyones guess how accurate these settings are, and my thoughts are that the once great airplane brand has fallen so far. Yet at this point my speculating self started to fill doubt with conjecture, a partial presumption on my side with a larger dose of speculation. And let there be no doubt, I am about to speculate, which is what one does when the facts are not completely to be trusted and when you fail to optionally see the good in people. Yet the BBC does not entirely fail to give the goods. And it does so in the last paragraph of the matter. We are given “Mr Pierson said reports from people within the factory alleged that efforts to improve conditions on the production line had so far been “woefully inadequate” – largely because FAA inspections were known about well in advance and could be prepared for”

So why does the FAA give Boeing the goods? I believe it to be the faltering lines of the American economy. Another failing setting to NASDAQ would throw the American economy in a sliding scale towards an abyss. Whilst we are given that there is a positive year to year change, the reality is that Boeing hasn’t been positive since 2019, thats a 5 year thumper of debt when we see that Boeing had a revenue of 76.5 billion dollars and a net income of minus 600 million, we see that the numbers grow to a 77.8 billion with a net income of minus 2.2 billion. As such the Boeing numbers are not a good message and now we see that the FAA allegedly tells Boeing when they are coming for a ‘visit’? I believe that these firms are against the wall. And the previous CEO Dave Calhoun, who wielded the sceptre from January 2020 to August 7, 2024 has a lot to explain. He took over from Dennis Muilenburg who was fired amid safety concerns with the Boeing 737 MAX following two fatal crashes that claimed the lives of 346 passengers and crew on board. It is here that I personally believe that Dave Calhoun allegedly played a very dangerous game, the unsubstantiated believe that he played with lives using a set of dice. And as I see it, the FAA was willing to play with the lives of people. With the safety setting of Boeing at play, the FAA had no business to give advance warning. A setting we need to give rise to, so far 346 lives are lost and the economy is seemingly more important that hundreds of lives lost. America has an apparent 334,914,895 (2023) lives. Who cares how the Americans keep their population high, a few hundred is all that is needed, so fuck around and find out. And with another (speculated) 800 lost, due to the next 2-3 planes. the media will use all the soundbites to create flammable stories. In the mean time we see a system that is all about keeping the appearance of an economy high, does it matter how many lives are lost? In the end, when Boeing goes down, Airbus and Lockheed Martin. In retrospect United Airlines is waiting on 497 planes from Boeing, I reckon that they might want to change their order to Airbus (no idea if that is a valid option). The larger setting is that Boeing makes military aircrafts making it a touchy subject. I wonder if any media will truly take a look at how (as well as why) the FAA played chicken with American lives and the American economy. Is any of it a given? No, as I said there is a lot of presumption (read: in part speculation) on the subject. But anyone in Business Intelligence would have had similar thoughts. The problem is that this article by Theo Leggett is 15 hours old. I wonder what more information will be divulged to the people in the next 5 days. In addition there is a lot we do not know about Ed Pierson, a former manager at Boeing’s 737 factory in Renton, Washington State. I speculate that the FAA will face a serious shake up, the card will most likely fall against Michael Whitaker, but that is not a given. Someone will be buried alive for playing footsie with Boeing, of that I have no doubt, who? It will be anyones guess but it will be someone high up. And the stage between Boeing and its stock for the sake of stability. A faltering fake setting of a nation that couldn’t bring its debts about and merely try to play a longer game. If they did this to Boeing, who else what given some level of protection? I don’t know, but the American media is not keen on truly digging into that hornets nest.

As I said, plenty of speculation/presumption, the facts? Well, as I see it the media is no longer to be trusted, so who is? It is anyones guess I think.

Have a great day and try to enjoy tomorrow, that is, if you are not being a passenger on a Boeing.

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, IT, Media, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

November 19, 2020 · 21:17

Citizens of Jahannam

Yes, the bulk of us transgressed to a new village, a new town, optionally a city. We all moved to the city of Jahannam, we enabled the politicians who diverted the laws that enabled the corporations. And as Eve spoke to the guy on her needs of an apple product, she stated, yes that would be nice. So he got her a iPhone 7 SE (Swedish edition) and to make sure that it would last longer, the maker of Apple products slowed the battery down, to enable it to be older. Does it sound familiar? The story (at https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-54996601), give us ‘Apple to pay $113m to settle iPhone ‘batterygate’’, basically it took 76,000 victims to break even. Yet the news gives us “Millions of people were affected when the models of iPhone 6 and 7 and SE were slowed down in 2016 in a scandal that was dubbed batterygate”, and as such we see the first part, the second part is seen in the Verge who gave us “11 million customers that didn’t need to buy a new iPhone”, you still think that crime does not pay? Yes, there will be all kinds of noise that there wee more cases, more settlements, but all that money is TAX DEDUCTIBLE, as such we get to see a larger stage and it is high time that the people involved get the limelight. When we consider “Any legal fees or court costs incurred will be deductible as well as the cost of resolving the suit, whether the company pays damages to the plaintiff or agrees to settle the dispute”, So this is how you get to become a trillion dollar company, you set the stage in one direction, and as long as it cannot be proven, you tell the people something fitting, take the profit and pay the fee which is a tax option, so can we come to the conclusion that in this world criminals are better protected than the victims ever will be?

That consideration comes (in part) from “Two fatal crashes of Boeing 737 Max aircraft were partly due to the plane-maker’s unwillingness to share technical details, a congressional investigation has found” (at https://www.bbc.com/news/business-54174223), with the additional ““Boeing failed in its design and development of the Max, and the FAA failed in its oversight of Boeing and its certification of the aircraft,” the 18-month investigation concluded”, even as we suspect t the there is something wrong with the statement ‘the FAA failed in its oversight of Boeing’, yet could that ever be proven? What does matter the the lives of people are optionally ignored when the bottom line of a corporation is under fire, just like the USS Zumwalt that cannot fire any of their smart bullets (at $1,000,000 per shot). As such, when we read the “The nearly 250-page report found a series of failures in the plane’s design, combined with “regulatory capture”, an overly close relationship between Boeing and the federal regulator, which compromised the process of gaining safety certification”, I wonder what the optional price was of ‘an overly close relationship between Boeing and the federal regulator’, several ideas come to mind, none of them really proper for vocation, yet the setting is there. Again corporate needs are protected as the courts seem to be in a stage of protecting those who do not deserve it and fail to protect those who were in need of protection. And the people wonder why we do have become so distrustful of governments, really?

We might have a few questions on the unrealistic minimum-cost estimates of the USS Zumwalt, yet will those who heralded the unrealistic minimum-cost estimates the inside of a court having to explain their actions, I doubt it, as such is the thought that we have become Citizens of Jahannam.
Too much of a leap? 

Consider the issues that we face, the political egos we allow for and ask yourself, how much more will we have to accept before the law does what it showed do and protect victims? As such, we need to ask the questions we at times fear to ask. And even as we accept the pragmatism is at times the safest course of action, yet the acts of Apple and Boeing give us a very different story, the story of pragmatism being the death of far too many people, yet that is a side we are seldom to see, is it?

I merely wonder what corporations are saved from facing next, I wonder if my choices to be slightly selfish were so bad in the end. If Apple can become a trillion dollar company the way it did, could I not become slightly less rich without dec option and by keeping my (slightly stubborn) disposition of fair play?

Leave a comment

Filed under Finance, Law, Politics

Tagged as , , , , ,

July 29, 2015 · 10:14

Freedoms removed by Amazon

One of the most outrageous articles of the year hit me this morning, via the Guardian off course! The piece in question is ‘Amazon proposes drones-only airspace to facilitate high-speed delivery’ (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jul/28/amazon-autonomous-drones-only-airspace-package-delivery). In the first, since when does a company decide on traffic rules? Can anyone explain that to me? In the second, since when is a company allowed to set FAA rules (or in general rules of flight regarding safety of airspace)? In the third, how in the name of all blazing hell does a company decides on how amateurs, hobbyists and innovators do their work?

Well, it seems that Amazon has stepped up to the plate to ‘suggest’ a few changes. Let’s face it, Amazon is a place of nothing, a mere grocery store for parchment products. In the UK they paid £11.9 million in taxation and the year before that £4.2 million, so why should we give them even the slightest consideration? The Australian Amazon site is limited to kindle stuff, so they pay even less there. You know, they are big in Luxembourg, so there is every possibility that they can pursue their drone packaging strikes in that country. But to give any consideration outside of Luxembourg and the US is a little too strong, so the quote “Amazon is proposing that a pristine slice of airspace above the world’s cities and suburbs should be set aside for the deployment of high-speed aerial drones capable of flying robotically with virtually no human interference” should not be taken too seriously.

We cannot fault Amazon for having vision, but it comes at a cost. You see “It envisages that within the next 10 years hundreds of thousands of small drones – not all of them Amazon’s or devoted to delivery – will be tearing across the skies every day largely under their own automated control” shows us that there would be a massive drop in the need for delivery people, which is not good for job security. Now, in opposition, these things happen, when people started to correspond through their computers, the people did not think it would grow beyond the realm if Geeks and Nerds, now, the bulk of the population has not touched parchments, quills and ink for a long time. Less postman were needed and on a global scale dogs were in mourning for nearly a decade.

Now we get the part that Amazon thinks is visionary “The company’s aeronautics experts propose that a 200ft slab of air – located between 200ft and 400ft from the ground – should be segregated and reserved for state-of-the-art drones equipped with sophisticated communications and sensing equipment and flying at high speeds of 60 knots or more. A further 100ft of airspace – between 400ft and 500ft – would be declared a no-fly zone to act as a buffer between the drones and current conventional aircraft such as passenger and cargo planes, thus mitigating fears about the impact on manned flight or dangers posed to people on the ground“.

I wonder how these aeronautics experts got their degree, perhaps it was added to the side of the pot of vegemite in an effort to market the product to Americans? Perhaps their degree was the wrapper for Troyer Roll Butter (if you know the product, the joke makes sense, Google it!). You see, the sky is filled with these weird things, that need to be all over the place, they are called helicopters, the police uses them, the press uses them and oh, yes, the emergency rescue services uses them all over the world, also in city areas. So this ideas hold a few operational holes even before it is seriously considered.

There is an additional concern. We do not deny that drones will be the big thing in the next decade, which also means that indie developers and visionaries will emerge, so is the quote “segregated and reserved for state-of-the-art drones equipped with sophisticated communications and sensing equipment” anything else than an attempt to crush market growth and keep it in hand for a few established brands? How will that ever be any good for innovation? Furthermore, the image gives way that hobbyists, rural hobbyists will be pushed from their rural live to little spots, just like the Native American Indians were. In my view, if you want to be top dog, you’ll just have to create a superior product that can anticipate these events. By the way, helicopters come in all these areas, including in the no fly zone, so this idea is saturated with bad insights from even before day zero. Not a good start me thinks!

So in reference to the position papers where the call states “It calls for a “paradigm shift” that will allow hundreds of thousands of small unmanned aircraft to fly under their own technological steam without the current involvement of humans through air traffic control“, that part could only work if there is one player, once there are more, if becomes a technological jungle of miscommunications and lost handshakes due to iterative updates, flaws and glitches. So how about letting drones work above the freeways and major lanes? It would not hinder anyone, hobbyists and innovators continue and unless a helicopter absolutely must land on a highway (likely medical emergency) they can continue without any hiccups.

Wow, I just solved the ‘lack’ of free airspace in 7.2 minutes. How clever am I?

Then we see “Amazon sets out five capabilities that drones must meet if they are to be allowed to fly inside the new 200ft high-speed corridor“. well let’s just agree that this is not up to Amazon to begin with, the fact that they precede this with “to realise that futuristic vision safely“, implying that they are working on a solution only they will offer, laws must abide with… In my view it is not up to them, many nations know that drones will be the new slave labour force (read: unpaid population that will drive others away from a job), which is a little out there (the way I framed it), but the reality is that this market will massively evolve over the next 2 decades and we have to give space to innovators and visionaries, not limit their scope to the need of “sophisticated GPS tracking that allows them to pinpoint their location in real-time and in relation to all other drones around them“, which is basically stating that drones must be a product made by DJI, Raytheon or Northrop Grumman to be allowed in this airspace. Amazon does NOT get to make THAT call!

the additional quotes “Online flight planning that allows them to predict and communicate their flight path” and “Communications equipment that allow them to “talk” and collaborate with other drones in the zone to ensure they avoid each other” give additional notice to forcing us into a one player path. That is not what innovation is about. First the TPP is pushing innovation to the mercy of big business, now Amazon add more limitations here? That is not a playing field that the world signed up for.

So as we see that hobbyists and indie developers (and visionaries) are slowly pushed into reservations like the Native American Indians by the quote “Under Amazon’s proposals, by contrast, hobbyists would only be allowed to fly within the new 200ft-400ft corridor if their vehicles were equipped with the latest hyper-sophisticated gadgetry for autonomous flight. Otherwise, they would have their activities confined to geographically demarcated airfields in relatively unpopulated areas that would be set aside specifically for the purpose” we have to wonder what Amazon has up his sleeve. Because either the US government is so bankrupt that it will agree to anything to not collapse before the results of the next elections, or is Amazon just waving in the air to be noticed?

The quote by Brendan Schulman, drone lawyer and senior executive and DJI gives us additional issues regarding the Amazon statement “by far the greatest use of unmanned aerial vehicles today was by amateurs. That’s currently by far the most common use of the technology, so before you disrupt their experience you want to think carefully about what slice of airspace would really be needed by these new technologies“. I would say ‘Amen!’ to that, because the issue that the article danced around (perhaps intentionally) is that Amazon needs to adhere to established safety protocols, we do not change protocols because of Amazon. I can agree that down the track changes will have to be made, but that time is not now and especially as the paper ignored several basic avionics issues.

Which now gets me to the paper where in a mere flash something stood out to me. Consider the quote “Amazon believes the current model of airspace management will not meet future sUAS demands, particularly highly-automated, low-altitude commercial operations. A paradigm shift in airspace management and operations is necessary to safely accommodate the one-operator-to-many-vehicle model required by large-scale commercial fleets“, in that apart from a massive dose of arrogance, we see “the one-operator-to-many-vehicle model required by large-scale commercial fleets“. So it is already on the premise for big business where one controller manages 100-200 drones. The shift of a workforce that only requires payment in cc’s of fuel.

In my view, the air is for now still empty, it will change, that much is certain, but it will be the people that decide on how far this goes, it is not Amazon to make that move. I am not entirely certain that Amazon should be the lead at all, but that is perhaps a discussion for another day.

What is in the last part an issue is the small part privacy activists were given. They are all up in arms regarding police and spook drones. Which is massively farfetched as these people have already given away their liberty through Facebook and other social means, so these two parties receive via e-mail all you did, including the amounts of times you ogled the ass of the neighbours wife (and teenage daughter). We seem to forget the massive danger that follows, it is not Amazon with its non-human package delivery system. It is the fact that in any innovation, organised crime follows pretty quickly, because they know that it takes the government up to 5 years to catch up, so in the first 5 years they can strike it rich. Drug deliveries, via cheap drones to penthouses. The paying clientele gets balcony to balcony delivery via a $499 drone and there is no link between the parties. Crime is already making a nice killing here, so the proper focus is not here and when it gets to be in the right place it is already too late.

So Amazon should not be setting the pass for removed freedom, it should set pace to create the right atmosphere, an attempt that they failed miserably from my point of view.

My opinion in this matter is strengthened through a previous article regarding Amazon which was published on March 30th (at http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/30/amazon-tests-drones-secret-site-canada-us-faa). The title ‘Amazon tests delivery drones at secret Canada site after US frustration‘ already implies the ludicrous part in all this. A ‘secret Canada site‘. Why? Because a spotter could take a pic? Because of industrial espionage? Actually, that last one is not THAT far-fetched. So let’s leave it for now.

In the article we get two parts that show my view the first is “Into that aerial slice the company plans to pour highly autonomous drones of less than 55lbs, flying through corridors 10 miles or longer at 50mph and carrying payloads of up to 5lbs“, which represents as stated in the article for 86% of all the packages, now that is fair enough, if you want to address 80% of what is done now, yu see a choice that is just common sense. Now part two “The Company wants to offer its customers the ability to have packages dropped on their doorstep by flying robots within 30 minutes of ordering goods online“. Initially that pat makes sense too. Yet combined, we get ordered articles are delivered within a range of 18 miles. Here we account for loss of time for picking up, after which the drone gets 30 minutes, so 18 miles is pretty much the limit, so this is a metropolitan solution, this is less about ‘global change’, but more the need to address the high impact profit places like New York, Vancouver, San Francisco, Honolulu, Seattle, New Orleans, San Jose, Chicago and Los Angeles and a few other congested places. The ‘global’ part was just nice to give it marketing. They need to address congestion and dromes will make sense. Yet the visionary part is that they are trying to address it on a global scale, because if this is accepted, Amazon would be sole player in places like London, Paris, Amsterdam, The Hague, Munich, Berlin, Rome and Sydney for that matter too. That seems to be the reality and it is not a bad idea to have, but in that adjusted view, Amazon does not get to set policy, especially as Europe might develop its own drone solutions. Binding options for developers through ‘sophisticated GPS tracking‘ is what I would call ‘the big No No’.

Brendan Schulman, aka the drone lawyer shows us the merits of my thoughts “Amazon’s Canadian airstrip-in-exile should be a “serious wake-up call to politicians and regulators”. “America has led the world in aviation development,” he said, “but for the first time in history we are at risk of losing out”“.

There is the part, where I made the reference to the TPP. These presentations are all about big business carving their patch making sure no one else can inhabit it. The plane industry is polarised, but drones are another matter, drones can invigorate visionary workers and dreamers, because a drone is not an expensive tool, you can buy them in a game shop and the next kid getting one could be the one who revolutionises that field because he/she thought ‘what if I want to do this, could I alter my app….?’ that is all it takes to create a billion dollar corporation.

The FAA has (according to Amazon) taken much too long to make up its mind, it also stated “it does not believe that drones can be flown safely under their own autonomous control, and is insisting that humans must keep them within eyesight at all times“, which makes it non-profitable for Amazon. For now the FAA is right, but there is no given certainty that this is still a truth in 5 years. The mobile industry, Wi-Fi and sensor market is evolving at an alarming rate, my $699 mobile phone now has the same technological options a $15K digital film camera had 10 years ago, only the lens is the physical difference in quality, so that market will evolve, possibly beyond my comprehension before I die.

I feel certain that the FAA realises this, but they report to others and those people see that drones will be the new orgasmic high for organised crime. Common Law in the US and in the Commonwealth is flawed enough for all players to realise that this opens up massive undeclarable profits for these players. With the one to many option, whatever small chance of successful prosecution of a drug dealer any Districts Attorney had in the past, flies straight out of the window via drone. Here we see how the law has not caught up again.

Should it stop drone development? No! But there are a few sides that need addressing, which cannot be done today, but soon it will be the only blockade remaining. What happens when that day comes?

 

Leave a comment

Filed under IT, Law, Media, Politics, Science

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,