When is a Drone not a Drone?

[Hands0n]

I think this, found on Google+, sums it up rather succinctly ::)

[Opto-Mystic]

I rather liked calling my f450 a ';drone'; publically but since being educated and being ';grown up';, I have now call it a UAV
(Privately, I call it all sorts of names, specially when it doesn';t do what it should... )

[dp106]

Someone asked me why the phantom is not a drone and I have to admit it';s difficult to say... Is it just that the term drone is something that is ';slang'; for a military uav?

[fruitsalad]

sums it up perfectly hands0n..
its not a drone...i call mine an fpv rig... ::)

[simon]

I really like the word Drone as generally members of the public instantly know a "drone" is something that flies by remote control.

www.droneography.co.uk

[Flying Tech]

Good question! My latest blog post talks about the subject. Here is an extract:

When most people hear the word ';drone';, they think of war and spying. When most people hear the acronym ';UAV'; (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) they think of robotics and technology. Yet these terms aren';t inseparable, they are interchangeable; drones are UAVs, and UAVs are drones. While it is true we are generally more familiar with the ';war drones';, that maybe all about to change. Take another term, ';multirotor';. Until recently most people wouldn';t have had a clue what it meant.....

For the full post please go to:

http://www.flyingtech.co.uk/blog/drone-start-ups-and-innovation

[HowDoIfly]

Foreword: I have a problem with the OP poster/graphic/meme. The weaponised drone is not just dangerous to terrorists, it has killed many innocent people to date. I know that wasn';t your intention when you posted and that it';s getting into politics, sorry but I have very strong feelings on this.

As such, I basically agree with the premise of the OP, that there should be a distinction between our hobby craft and a military one.

[Hands0n]

Foreword: I have a problem with the OP poster/graphic/meme. The weaponised drone is not just dangerous to terrorists, it has killed many innocent people to date. I know that wasn';t your intention when you posted and that it';s getting into politics, sorry but I have very strong feelings on this.

Much truth is carried in political humour, no matter how dark that actual truth can be.  The hook is that humour tends to catch people';s attention and the message can be implanted quite deeply in the conscience.  So I personally do not have much of a problem with the the specific meme.  The intention being to cause a separation between hobby UAV and any and every single other use of the technology.   

Some of us fly model winged aircraft, and it was one of those that dropped the first nuclear bomb on civilian targets.  Yet the great unwashed do not generally equate aircraft with that gross atrocity.  But mere mention of, or sight of, a hobby UAV and all the negatives come out.

That said, I 101% agree with you and anyone else who has strong feelings about the core topic.  There is so much wrong with mechanised remote controlled warfare that it is difficult to express without writing a 10,000 pages on it! Forget even semi-sentient Drones (and these already exist), but the very notion of a Air Force pilot sitting comfortably in his leather chair, air conditioned premises, cup of coffee by the keyboard whilst performing human kill routines is completely unacceptable in a civilised society.  And don';t even get me started on so-called "collateral damage".

Sorry, but I suppose the political message in that meme is inescapable.

[teslahed]

That said, I 101% agree with you and anyone else who has strong feelings about the core topic.  There is so much wrong with mechanised remote controlled warfare that it is difficult to express without writing a 10,000 pages on it! Forget even semi-sentient Drones (and these already exist), but the very notion of a Air Force pilot sitting comfortably in his leather chair, air conditioned premises, cup of coffee by the keyboard whilst performing human kill routines is completely unacceptable in a civilised society.  And don';t even get me started on so-called "collateral damage".

Sorry, but I suppose the political message in that meme is inescapable.

I picked up on that too and feel the same way. But decided i was probably reading too much into the meme and the guy who made the picture wasn';t thinking in terms of justifying the use of military kill enabled drones so much as trying to make a clear distinction between military and civilian.

Personally i feel that with the right oversight it should be possible to use remotely piloted aircraft in a war in a ';responsible'; fashion. But that isn';t how they are being used at the moment. They seem to be being used as a way of reducing risk to american pilots thus allowing them to take out higher risk targets of opportunity which often results in the wrong people being killed.

Every time another wedding gets hit in the middle east another generation of terrorists is born. The fact that they might hit a bunch of real terrorists every known and again isn';t worth much if they create more than they kill.

But there is no question that military drones are here to stay. No one likes a fair fight and you';d never start one if you could help it. Drones are all about asymmetric warfare and giving us the advantage and i doubt our governments and military will ever pass that up.

I would suggest campaigning against the use of drones in war is a waste of time but campaigning for some kind of revised ';drone Geneva convention'; that might restrict their use against targets of opportunity in civilian dense populations - might help in the long run.

If you watch some of the leaked kill cam videos on youtube with included voice overs - you can hear how much fun the American pilots were having in their manned ground attack aircraft as they shot up the Iraqis. Put that same mentality in charge of a drone aircraft where there is zero risk to the pilot...

I wont post up the links because it';s a bit grim but you can easily search youtube for ';Collateral Murder - Wikileaks - Iraq'; if you want to see for yourself. I can assure you i don';t watch such videos as ';entertainment'; 

And here';s a video to an interesting albeit highly opinionated viewpoint on the whole ';Drone'; issue from a liberal american perspective;

http://youtu.be/lUf5i6pbyg8

There are far too many talking heads like this on youtube now and it';s important to take everything they say with more than a pinch of salt - critical thinking for the win - but he makes some good points in places in this video.

As such, I basically agree with the premise of the OP, that there should be a distinction between our hobby craft and a military one.

This is the kind of view the general public have of ';drones'; and the reason why i tend to avoid the word too.

[Jumpy07]

On a serious note...

The CAA have now changed the term used to describe them to RPAS - Remote Piloted Aerial System .. the term SUAS, UAS and UAV is being replaced with RPAS.   

[teslahed]

The CAA have now changed the term used to describe them to RPAS - Remote Piloted Aerial System .. the term SUAS, UAS and UAV is being replaced with RPAS.

That just sounds terrible to me. I can see people referring to them as RPAS on their official documentation but i can';t see anyone ever coming up to me in a park and asking me about that cool RPAS that i';m flying.

Drone, UAV, remotely piloted aircraft, all seem to make sense and rolls off the tongue to a certain extent.

RPAS has an uphill battle to gain that kind of acceptance.

[Trev2971]

Call mine a quadcoptor ... been into RC planes /cars/trucks /Heli';s for over 25 years ... its just an extension of my RC arsenal ... giving them ';grown up'; names
and trying to make them sound more ';real'; than a bit of fun (hate the phrase toy) wont help .... most people will think you are a big kid anyway (so what)

dont find them any different than an RC plane ... a drone as I see them is plane shaped but dont get people frowning  at RC planes wondering if they are getting filmed or watched ...Is it the case then that anything that flies by RC is classed as a UAV? ... even one of those hideous Ikarus shockflyers? lol

Media hype blown out of proportion and the ';share'; culture that we are all doomed  ....

Be safe and Fly on!

[Ross]

Can';t say I will loose much sleep over what they are called.
Don';t think its anything to get too anal about.
However, due Press publicty  people call them drones and  besides  how many of the public look up and exclaim
"Ah Ah!   An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle"
The Press have conditioned them to drone.. irrespective..

......and besides the wives and girlfriends call them toys for boys anyway...


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[nub]

A drone is not a drone when its being flown in manual mode IMHO.

[dp106]

A drone is not a drone when its being flown in manual mode IMHO.

Don';t think you can make that distinction as the military ';drones'; are flown manually?

[nub]

it';s not really a drone then is it, it';s an UAV

drone to me suggests a mindless robot that does what it been told to do, as in it follows some sort of pre programmed routine.

[Hands0n]

According to the Oxford dictionary a Drone is "A remote-controlled pilotless aircraft or missile."  http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/drone     Which seems to fit in with the masses'; idea of what one is.

There may be a specific word for an autonomous aircraft or missile but I';m not aware of one; (ie. the X-47 series, LRASM (Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile), the infamous Cruise Missile and others.)

[nub]

which would them mean your phantom is a drone then?

[flybywire]

Maybe it';s more to do with the fact that multi-rotors do not (yet) have a real-world full size counterpart?  I think when folk see a fixed wing or even a ';conventional'; heli buzzing about, they just think ';radio controlled model aeroplane/heli';, ho-hum.  But when they see a multi, they are stuck for a pigeon hole to put it in, and so get a little suspicious, especially with the video cam';s onboard and all.

I can only react to the folk who have stopped to watch mine fly, and they (so far) have been just plain fascinated, in fact most have actually been unaware of the camera onboard, and become even more fascinated when the concept of fpv is explained/demonstrated to them.

I find it very odd how that guy, who confesses to being interested in aviation to the extent of buying a helicopter, has only disdain/contempt/chagrin for small multi-rotor aircraft.

 

There are words for that kind of folk, now what are they....???

[Hands0n]

which would them mean your phantom is a drone then?

Well, in essence that is the plain fact of the matter.   

As @flybywire says, without a specific category to put these in that little Phantom is the dictionary equivalent of a Cruise Missile and the rest.  A bit like a plane is a plane, is a plane, is a plane. When we all know they are not quite the same thing when viewed in any kind of reasonable context.