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Why Keeping Drones Out of No-Fly Zones Is Harder Than You Think

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Two days after a small drone crash-landed on the White House lawn Monday, its manufacturer, DJI, vowed to erect an electronic fence around downtown Washington, D.C. Any DJI drone that gets a new software update, the company says, won’t be able to enter this new no-fly zone.

But DJI’s so-called “geofencing” technology isn’t new. The company began developing the feature as early as 2012, when drone fever flared out from hardcore hobbyists to a growing number of more casual users. Market research firm CEA Research estimates shoppers will purchase 400,000 small drones this year. That means there are lots of new flyers out there unfamiliar with the rules of the sky.

“It’s moving from a more niche space to a consumer product where you have a lot of people who may not necessarily know what the rules are,” says DJI spokesman Michael Perry.

So rather than send drone hobbyists a packet of federal aviation regulations, DJI set off to build a few basic rules into its software. Airports, for instance, have a 5-mile Federal Aviation Administration flight restriction, so DJI nabbed a list of more than 10,000 of them and began building digital fences around their coordinates. When DJI erects its fence around Washington, D.C. in the coming days, it will roll out similar barriers around those airports, too.

For DJI, the move might help prevent one of its drones from being involved in something unsafe or outright catastrophic. “We are pushing this out a bit earlier to lead in encouraging responsible flight,” Perry said.

But that still leaves a raft of aviation regulations out of the picture. Flights over military bases, national parks, international borders and crowded stadiums are all verboten. Then there’s the FAA’s constantly-changing list of temporary no-fly zones around stuff like passing presidential motorcades. Drone flyers in Corpus Christi, Texas, for instance, may not have gotten Wednesday’s memo about a flight-restricted swath of their city. And even outside of these FAA rules, there are tort laws governing privacy and personal injury issues. A flight by a camera-equipped drone outside a neighbor’s bedroom window could be legally murky airspace, for instance. This list of moving and abstract targets makes it nearly impossible for drone makers to hard-wire a fool-proof flight path for their customers.

“There really is not a good comprehensive source of places where the FAA is saying not to fly,” says Brendan M. Schulman, a special counsel who specializes in drone casework for law firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel.

Drone Country: See America From Above

House boats appear next to the shoreline of Bidwell Canyon on Lake Oroville in Northern California on November 25, 2014. Lake Oroville is California's second largest reservoir, and is currently 70% empty as a result of the state's severe drought.Tomas van Houtryve—VII
Campers appear in an RV park in Fernley, Nevada on November 25, 2014. The nearby Amazon Fulfillment Center recruits people living out of RVs to work on the floor of their warehouse during peak holiday shipping season. Many of the campers are senior citizens whose homes or savings were wiped out by the 2008 economic crisis.Tomas van Houtryve—VII
A parking lot for an Amazon fulfillment center appears in New Jersey on November 11, 2014.Tomas van Houtryve—VII/Pulitzer Center
A residential apartment complex appears in Poughkeepsie, New York on November 9, 2014.Tomas van Houtryve—VII/Pulitzer Center
Vacation homes appear on the New Jersey Shore on November 11, 2014.Tomas van Houtryve—VII/Pulitzer Center
An empty drive-in movie theater appears in Poughkeepsie, New York on November 9, 2014.Tomas van Houtryve—VII/Pulitzer Center
A farm house and field appear outside Trenton, New Jersey on November 11, 2014.Tomas van Houtryve—VII/Pulitzer Center
Cows gather for water and alfalfa distributed by a rancher in a drought-devastated pasture in Merced County, California on November 26, 2014. As with many areas of the Central Valley of California, these cows would not be able to survive without this kind of supplemental nutrition.Tomas van Houtryve—VII
A run-down neighborhood appears in North Camden, New Jersey on November 23, 2014. In 2012, the FBI ranked Camden as having the most violent crime per capita of any American city with a population of over 50,000. The local police installed millions of dollars of surveillance equipment in residential neighborhoods, including cameras and microphones that detect the exact location of gunshots.Tomas van Houtryve—VII
Horse stalls appear near Fernley, Nevada on November 24, 2014.Tomas van Houtryve—VII
A swamp appears near Brookfield, Connecticut on November 8, 2014.Tomas van Houtryve—VII/Pulitzer Center
Beachfront vacation units appear on Cape Cod, Massachusetts on Nov. 7, 2014.Tomas van Houtryve—VII/Pulitzer Center
The USS New Jersey, a decommissioned battleship, appears on the Delaware river off Camden, New Jersey on November 23, 2014.Tomas van Houtryve—VII
A college campus appears in Poughkeepsie, New York on November 9, 2014.Tomas van Houtryve—VII/Pulitzer Center
Lacrosse players warm up before practice in Clark County, Nevada on January 20, 2014. The nearby Creech Air Force is the main command center for overseas drone strikes.Tomas van Houtryve—VII/Pulitzer Center
Wiggins Park Marina appears in Camden, New Jersey on November 23, 2014.Tomas van Houtryve—VII

That’s problematic for drone pilots, too. Getting acquainted with all the dos and don’ts of flying, Schulman says, “is really asking a lot of people who are really just flying toys in their backyard.”

Even an obvious rule, such as steering clear of airports, may not be so apparent to amateur flyers. “You can just go on YouTube and see that they’re flying into areas where there’d be a restriction,” says Colin Snow, CEO of trade blog Drone Analyst. One enthusiast flying a drone through downtown San Jose, Snow says, clearly didn’t realize the San Jose airport was less than a 3-mile cruise away.

In other words, there’s no quick, technological fix for wayward drones, short of education and common sense. Schulman is quick to point out that for the most part, the recreational drone community seems to be a responsible lot, a few headline grabbing cases notwithstanding. He says among hundreds of thousands of flyers, he’s aware of only a handful of pending cases by the FAA.

Aviation enthusiast groups, such as the Academy of Model Aeronautics, are also working to teach their swelling ranks how to fly their new drones safely. Richard Hanson, the AMA’s government and regulatory affairs director, praises geofencing, but he also worries too many flyers might think they’re just fine sticking to autopilot: “[Geofencing] sets a mindset within the user that says, ‘I don’t have to worry about that because the manufacturer has taken care of that.”

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