Drones In News

[Big Country News 435]

In recent years, drones have been the buzz of politics and the industry. Recently drones have been investigated by the FAA, and may be cleared for commercial use, not limited to news operations.

 

My Question Is: Will drones replace news helicopters in the near future?

 

News helicopter crashes in recent years have brought questions about the safety and practicality of the eyes in the sky. If drones are cleared, many stations could buy them and use them to gather news. This means small stations is even smaller markets could be able to capture video, maybe even live, for the public.

 

 

Privacy concerns always come about in conversations like these, but when private, non-government contracted companies are involved, it seems to not be as furious.

 

What are your opinions?

[TennTV1983 804]

So long as the drones don't have weapons installed and they are solely used for news-gathering purposes, then I'm all for it. The question left to ask would be how much range these things would have without losing a quality video signal?

[Weeters 1916]

In recent years, drones have been the buzz of politics and the industry. Recently drones have been investigated by the FAA, and may be cleared for commercial use, not limited to news operations.

 

My Question Is: Will drones replace news helicopters in the near future?

 

News helicopter crashes in recent years have brought questions about the safety and practicality of the eyes in the sky. If drones are cleared, many stations could buy them and use them to gather news. This means small stations is even smaller markets could be able to capture video, maybe even live, for the public.

 

 

Privacy concerns always come about in conversations like these, but when private, non-government contracted companies are involved, it seems to not be as furious.

 

What are your opinions?

I don't think they'll completely replace news helicopters, as there's still a benefit to having a photog/reporter that can look out the window and see everything going on. I think the smaller stations will benefit, though, just from having a more affordable option to get a camera in the air. Also, I wouldn't think this would come about from the handful of news helicopter crashes. There's nothing special about news helicopters that make them more likely to crash compared to other specialty helicopters or civilian ones.

 

And the people who are concerned about "privacy" from drones have never seen how powerful some of these ENG helicopter camera lenses are. :awesome:

 

The question left to ask would be how much range these things would have without losing a quality video signal?

Depends on what the drones end up looking like. The bigger it is, the better hardware (i.e. microwave transmission vs. cellular transmission) you can mount on it. I'm positive, though, that you will see a lot more GoPro-on-a-RC-helicopter footage around the second these things are approved for commercial use.

[T.L. Hughes 890]

The FAA does have rules in regards of the distance in which aircraft can come close to inclement weather conditions. Here in Oklahoma, news helicopters are used to track severe thunderstorms, the May 20th Moore tornado last year is one testament to how helicopters are valuable in this respect. Drones, though, are much smaller and I'm not sure if they're sturdy enough. How would it be possible to fly a drone to capture footage of severe weather events, since helicopters have human pilots navigating the aircraft, trying and generally succeding to stay safe from things that could cause the chopper to lose control and/or crash such as hail or strong wind inflow/outflow. How would drones fare in those same conditions?