paul the original - 6/3/2016 10:39 I think I've written 5 replies, and not posted a one, they never come out quite right. This one likely won't either. We are getting a lot of new technology, the aircraft (drones) the cars and trucks and tractors and trains that drive themselves, and so forth. It will be an interesting world in a few years, when robots - computers - will be doing all this hauling and data collection for us. No humans at the wheel, or stick. Won't be a wheel or a stick.... Or drivers seat, or cockpit...... I think lawyers will have a good time until many of the details get sorted out. When the roads are occupied by human drivers and computer controlled cars and pedestrians and pot holes and snow falls, its going to be a really different deal. Seems the sky's will also be a really different deal. I don't know how we get from here to there, in either case. But, something will have to be worked out by those that know. On YTmag the common opinion there is the only good drone is one with a 12 gauge slug going through it because anyone with a drone is a bad person. Here it is common to suggest any farmland 1 foot above the crop is 100% the domain of crop sprayers no one else has any right to that airspace ever at all. Perhaps I will be arrested for playing softball in my pasture if I hit anything higher than a line drive, I'm violating someone's air space.... I'm not sure how the fella above that wants to skim my farm 10 feet off the ground all day long because its his right deals with birds, I would think there are a lot more of them than their are drones over my farm..... I think something new will need to be sorted out. Some give on both sides. Crop sprayers are just like farmers, lot of time sensitive work, short times between weather, and every foot of movement costs money, the goal is to get done fast and as short as needed movements. I understand why crop dusters do what they do, and in times past nothing was being taken away from me, so no big deal. As drones become more useful for real needs, and since farming is a likely candidate for a lot of those uses, the shared airspace over farm land will need some new rules. That will infringe upon drone owners, and it will infringe upon crop dusters. You might need to fly higher during travel time, you might need to do some registry yourself. I don't think it will be a one way street, as some of the crop dusters wish, that drones are legislated into oblivion? If I 'stick up for drones' that doesn't mean I don't care about crop dusters or the work they do. It is just, I hear some pretty silly ideas from them about drones as well..... My farm has maybe 12 crop dusters fly over it per year as they travel to distant fields to spray. They could be 500 feet up, and I have no need for avoidance technology. That would be my solution. A decade ago I didnt need my airspace, and so the pilots got laws changed so they could buzz right over me. No big deal then. Today, its become more of a big deal. I now have uses for my 400 feet of airspace, just like city people have uses and restrictions on their airspace. I won't presume to say how you should do your job. But I will now wish to have some of my airspace back, and will support legislation to get it back now that I need it. Airports, fields actively being sprayed and a surrounding buffer need to be protected for you. And other situations. I recall a helicopter spraying the neighbors field in the 1970s, they landed in our oats stubble without asking to reload. Crop didnt grow in that spot of our field for 3 years, I don't know what or how much of something they spilled on us. Two neighbors away have had their fields fall sprayed when it was wet a couple years ago for fall bugs, he flew up and down in a swooping hammerhead at both ends, don't know that he needed an extra 500 foot buffer over any neighbors. Otherwise my farm never has a need for a spray plane to go over it under 400 feet, so I'm not sure why all the costs, rules, everything, should be on my shoulders. I think things should change a bit. Just stay out of the airspace of mine, when you don't need to be in it and it all works out fine - as you said in your other message, person has to look out for oneself mostly. Rules change, they can be changed again.... I guess that sounds rude or ignorant of me - no more so than some of the replies tho and comments about drones I've read other places? I understand the rules of today, but they have changed in the past and can change again in the future..... And ultimately, someday, crop dusting will be done by drones, so somehow some way it all will merge. My thoughts come from a list of rather bold and odd comments I've heard on the web about drones. Perhaps that isnt the best gauge of reality, but after a time it gets frustrating. The drone side of things should be heard and represented as well. I draw parallels to how farming has changed, as urban and rural get closer to using the same roads, the same spaces, we see more and different rules on road travel, dust issues, smells, and so forth. But, those thoughts were ignorant I guess, according to the other fella. As drones and airplanes and helicopters become more common in the same areas, things likewise will need to change some. On your side as well? I enjoy and respect your comments on this, you've explained some stuff and have some good ideas. Always two sides. Paul