Aardvark Daily

Please visit the sponsor!

Corruption is rife?

In Texas, an 36Kg drone fell from the sky and lay smoldering on the ground near the steps of an apartment block.

If that drone had landed on someone's head, they'd almost certainly have been dead.

The public have been told for over a decade now that "drones are dangerous" and as a result of this fear, very strict rules have been put in place to control the recreational use of such craft -- in the name of safety of course.

Now most recreational drones weigh less than 1Kg and more recently, the drones that are most popular tend to weigh a quarter that amount.

As anyone familiar with the basics of physics will confirm, the mass of an object in a collision is a factor in the amount of energy involved and the damage produced.

With this in mind, it's pretty obvious that a 250g drone will be far safer than one weighing 36Kg. In fact, if you do the math, if both drones were to fall from a height of 12 metres then the energies involved at impact would be 30 joules and 4,300 joules respectively.

That's over two orders of magnitude difference!

Yet here's the kicker...

The rules governing the recreational use of 250g drones prevent, in most cases, the flying of these craft over people, roads and in ways that could constitute a danger to the public.

The 36Kg drone that smashed into the ground outside a Richmond Texas appartment building however, was legally allowed to do all of the above -- despite the fact that the consequences of it falling from the sky are hugely greater.

What's going on?

Well the crashed behemoth was one of Amazon's delivery drones.

You've all heard of Amazon, right?

It's the company that recently made a very flattering documentary (YouTube trailer) about the US president's wife.

Amazon is also the company that just received huge tax benefits from Mr Trump's government.

Is it any wonder therefore, that in a country where money buys privilege, Amazon are allowed to operate outrageously dangerous delivery drones in urban and suburban environments where they are flying over people, roads and property with impunity -- while hobbyists are ever-increasingly restricted to smaller and smaller areas under tighter and tighter regulation?

I made a video about this situation yesterday and even if you don't watch the 11 minute talking-head monologue, please read the comments for just how the hobby community views this situation.

The undeniable takeaway from the fact that Amazon keeps crashing these huge drones into significant objects such as cranes and buildings, is that they seem to be given special privilege to imperil the safety of the public -- for some reason.

Even though they are in violation of one of the key tenets that the FAA themselves laid down as a requirement for this sort of operation, there has been no move by the FAA or any other regulatory authority in the USA to ground these craft until they can prove compliance.

It is a sad indictment of the modern world that money is seen as a mitigation in matters of public safety. If you or your corporation are rich enough, you can seemingly do whatever the hell you want, regardless of the risks to public safety. Grease the right palms, stroke the right egos and bingo, the world is your oyster.

Put this alongside the number of rich and powerful people who've been associated with Epstein and I think we should all be very worried about just who is running this planet right now. It seems that there is a very powerful cabal of the elite who can do whatever the hell they want and to hell with the "ordinary people".

When will the public finally wake up and demand better of our political and corporate leaders?

Carpe Diem folks!

Please visit the sponsor!

Here is a PERMANENT link to this column

Rank This Aardvark Page

Change Font