Special delivery Ian's Rural Ramblings
Science fiction has become science fact. Drones, they’re here. Not only are they here but a quick cruise through Amazon and one could be on its way to your door for between just shy of $60 to over $28,000. Pretty much whatever your spending, there is a drone for you.
I always knew drones as UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) and it was actually a civil invention that turned to military and back again. Nicola Tesla was the first to patent a remote control for unmanned vehicles, I believe.
For the sake of this article I’m going to stick with the drone tag. For anyone with a kick for flying stuff and technology, drones are cool. Drones are useful for all kinds of other work too, aside from the military applications, especially for agriculture and land management.
Increasingly, medium to high end drones make very stable platforms for other equipment such as cameras. Some drone quadcopters can carry impressive payloads too, up to 20kgs I’ve read, equivalent to a large bag of potatoes from the supermarket. Amazon has started making commercial parcel deliveries using drones. I’m not convinced that this business plan will fly (pun intended). But maybe in the cities it will work. I await to be convinced. It’s bad enough looking around on the ground for traffic let alone watching the sky too.
With the fun stuff comes misuse around airspace and regulations kick in. There have been and continue to be incidents with drones and commercial aircraft because of irresponsible and ignorant users that either are unaware of regulations or chose to ignore them. There is a disaster waiting to happen here. Check out Transport Canada for the regulations (https:// www.tc.gc.ca/eng/civilaviation/opssvs/flyingdrone-safely-legally.html).
I’m not a killjoy but I thought a while ago when drones were presented as toys in stores that drones could have more sinister uses. I was right. Sometime ago I saw a video on social media of a drone sporting a handgun. The weapon could fire, the drone platform was steady and dealt with the recoil. The shots looked to be chillingly accurate. Yes, there is a military application here, yet there is also a terrorist/criminal application too.
Furthermore, I know that so called ISIS has been converting commercially available drones to carry and drop explosives on civilians and soldiers in the Mosul area. Even with a three to four-pound payload a toy can become a deadly weapon. I honestly didn’t think the widespread, virtually unregulated, availability of drones to the general public was ever a good idea and, if possible, something needs to be done before someone or someone’s get a special delivery that they really don’t want.