The Logical Progression of Drones

Aviation is a funny thing.  We see repeated patterns in history and markets.

In a commercial aviation sense, we've seen cities thrive and then be bypassed in aviation as technology has enabled faster aircraft with longer range.  It happened to Gander in Newfoundland, Canada, and Shannon, Ireland and Prestwick in Scotland.  It's happening currently to London, Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam as the Middle Eastern airlines deploy high capacity, long range aircraft to operate routes such as Dubai-Los Angeles.  And their day will come as well sooner than anticipated, as BA has a scheduled London-Sydney non-stop on the books and Singapore Airline re-inaugurates Singapore-York.  (And you thought a 5 hour flight was long in economy, try 22+ hours)   In the future, the concept of the airline hub being ideally placed won't be something we think of any longer - like long distance phone charges.

But drones - surely they are different ?  Not so fast.  We're in a quickly evolving world where small remotely controlled flying machines are being tasked with various activities.  They'll one day make our local airspace look as congested as our highways no doubt.  It's compounded of course with casual or sport flyers - now drones are equipped with WIFI and cameras and can go where people can't - subtly and stealthily.  The 'observation-only' is a specific use-case for drones, and as the 'only' role of drones, its coming to a fast end - much as passive flying machines with people in them came to an end in WW1.  100 years ago, these flying observation platforms quickly became viewed as ideal places from which to throw a small bomb, or take some shots.  In return, ground defense started to appear, to defend against such unwanted incursions.  I guarantee some kook right now is looking to equip drones with automated weaponry capable of shooting or exploding a target from a safe distance for the operator.  There's lots of military precedence, the only thing missing is the operator that elects to commit a crime this way.

The logical reaction is the authorities being allowed to shoot down drones, legally.  And that set of laws is being enacted in Salt Lake City as we speak.

As drones become more mainstream in their uses and applications, we're going to see more and more rules, infrastructure (FAA-Drones?) and legislation around them.  And when the first terror activity is perpetrated by drones, everything will change.