I am quite surprised nobody was able to figure this out.

After all we were all told in advance it was going to happen.

Before everyone gets their feathers in the tarball…

Know that I have been building ‘heavy lift’ helicopters for nearly 20 years. But my history with them goes back a decade more. And we have never called them drones but UAV’s.
Over the years, when folks seen me launching or landing them, it was met with much curiosity. Then because of ideas planted in folks head, they became all dubious in objective in the minds of the public, it became very hard to test fly them near any lightly populated area.

In general conversations, people would say to me once they knew I had a company that built and tested them, that if they seen one, they would shoot it down.
I would ask why ? What is the threat to you?

They were afraid I would look inside their windows.

To some of them, when I was getting tired of it, I would say that if I was really interested in what goes on inside your house, I could do it and you would not even see the drone to shoot it down. I have very good camera systems with excellent optics and thermal imaging cameras. You would not know it. But what makes you so certain I am interested in what you are doing in the privacy of your home. I doubt it is interesting at all.

Just to give them something to think about to put it in perspective.

There are more folks gathering much more details on them online and even against warning, keep the same behavior. So are folks interested in them or not ?
If someone has it in there head to do it, you will not likely know it is happening.
This excludes those kids with toy drones. And I don’t know what motivates them to do stupid things, but kids are kids. But adults I have seen in recent years have been doing the same. Many are just perverts experimenting.

I will say that I had been approached by law enforcement as early as 2011 for use in drug task force ans SWAT groups and while I did talk it over with them as far as capability, but declined any contract. So I would consult only. There is a very good reason for that but I will not discuss it.

I kinda knew by 2012/13 that the real money was in stopping this shit eventually.
But that is a different matter.

The matter at hand is all these spotting of drones over key areas ?

Know this, it is not a terrorist or foreign entity.

If you remember back when president elect was shot, the Secret Service told us that they were modernizing and expanding their capabilities when they had to report to Congress on the matter. Gotta have a plan, spend some money.
Where they are with that is taking bids and they must pass the ‘BID SPECIFICATIONS’
But the Pentigon/NSA has an interest in the same. Partners ?

So, live testing to know the bidders can achieve said objectives. Pass the test.
They are testing them under many conditions and seem to be in a hurry to do so.
Kinda understandable considering the risks next year.

Nobody who is using them under evil reasons is going to comply with FAA regulations of their use. But there are a couple of rules I see they are not in compliance with, but I will not talk about that here. The government can create it’s own exemptions.
But I knew the 2nd day of re[ports I first seen them lit-up at night, these were friendly flyers.

But look at the reaction. As always, fear the worst. Propagate the worst.
But this is just how propaganda works and there is always someone ready to capitalize on FEAR !

The government is in a fickle and don’t look for the SS to come clean. It is to be secret right ? Someone will need to explain it away to calm this fear.

Meanwhile, there are senators who want reasons to fund their favorite projects (for their most favorite defense contractors who contribute to their charity) Are going to be very vocal about this.

All in all, you do have to trust the government or you don’t and there has been plenty of seed planting of mistrust been going on for nearly 2 decades.
So, where do you really think this is going with so much mistrust ?

I can tell you that these drones do increase capabilities on the cheap, even though they will likely have quite a bit of extra tech on them.

I do wonder why people were not upset when the government put satellites up that can do the same invasion of privacy day or night even through cloud cover 30 years ago.
But they can’t see everything everywhere right when and where they want at a moments notice.

I guess you can’t see them unless you know where to look and when. But you can see them under the right conditions.
So not so scary ?

People will always fear the unknown, but don’t let yourself be taken advantage of from your own fear

I sit here and laugh at the expected reactions.
But I would say that if we are to have rules, they should be public stated rules that everyone knows and enforced evenly. You can’t make exceptions to ‘some company’, even if it sounds logical reasons.

Well,  I had to write a piece for some other venue, so I though I would share some of the guts of it with you folks.