The scale and scope of the revolution in the use of small,
civilian drones has caught many by surprise. In 2010 America’s Federal Aviation
Authority (FAA) estimated that there would, by 2020, be perhaps 15,000 such
drones in the country. More than that number is now sold there every month. And
it is not just an American craze. Some analysts think the number of drones made
and sold around the world this year will exceed 1m. In their view, what is now
happening to drones is similar to what happened to personal computers in the
1980s, when Apple launched the Macintosh and IBM the PS/2, and such machines
went from being hobbyists’ toys to business essentials.
That is probably an exaggeration. It is hard to think of a
business which could not benefit from a PC, whereas many may not benefit (at
least directly) from drones. But the practical use of these small,
remote-controlled aircraft is expanding rapidly.
After dragging its feet for several years the FAA had, by
August, approved more than 1,000 commercial drone operations. These involved
areas as diverse as agriculture (farmers use drones to monitor crop growth,
insect infestations and areas in need of watering at a fraction of the cost of
manned aerial surveys); land-surveying; film-making (some of the spectacular
footage in “Avengers: Age of Ultron” was shot from a drone, which could fly
lower and thus collect more dramatic pictures than a helicopter); security; and
delivering things (Swiss Post has a trial drone-borne parcel service for
packages weighing up to 1kg, and many others, including Amazon, UPS and Google,
are looking at similar ideas).
A glance at the academic world suggests many more uses await
discovery. Because drones are cheap, geographers who could never afford
conventional aerial surveys are able to use them to track erosion, follow
changes in rivers’ sources and inspect glaciers. Archaeologists and historians
are taking advantage of software that permits drones fitted with ordinary
digital cameras to produce accurate 3D models of landscapes or buildings. This
lets them map ancient ruins and earthworks. Drones can also go where manned
aircraft cannot, including the craters of active volcanoes and the interiors of
caves. A drone operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, in
Massachusetts, has even snatched breath samples from spouting whales for DNA
analysis. And drones are, as might be expected, particularly useful for
studying birds. A standard shop-bought drone can, for example, be used
unmodified for counting nests high in a forest’s canopy.
Police in Michigan are considering using drones for mapping
the scenes of accidents, so that roads can be reopened more quickly. And drones
can save lives, as well as keeping parks clean and traffic moving. In June, for
example, Frank Roma, a fireman, rescued two boys from a river in Maine with the
help of a drone. The boys were stuck on a rock in the middle of a powerful
current. Mr Roma employed a drone to carry a line out to them, along which he
passed life jackets that they were able to put on before an inflatable boat
went out to perform the tricky manoeuvre of picking them up.
Other roles for drones are more questionable. Their use to
smuggle drugs and phones into prisons is growing. Instances have been reported
in America, Australia, Brazil, Britain and Canada, to name but a few places. In
Britain the police have also caught criminals using drones to scout houses to
burgle. The crash of a drone on to the White House lawn in January highlighted
the risk that they might be used for acts of terrorism. And in June a video
emerged of KATSU, a pseudonymous graffito artist, using a drone equipped with
an aerosol spray to deface one of New York’s most prominent billboards.
How will all this activity be regulated and policed?
There are implications for safety (being hit by an
out-of-control drone weighing several kilograms would be no joke); for privacy,
from both the state and nosy neighbours; and for sheer nuisance—for drones can
be noisy. But the new machines are so cheap, so useful and have so much
unpredictable potential that the best approach to regulation may simply be to
let a thousand flyers zoom.
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