This is the only sensible (but temporary) decision that the FAA could have done. The next step is to research reliable methods of navigation and air traffic rules for unmanned and autonomous aerial vehicles, and when that can be made demonstrably safe, this regulation can be revisited.
If FAA would have allowed commercial drone operations without further regulation, and the technology would have had widespread adoption, there would be great risks involved.
Before there are the equivalents of traffic lights, air traffic control and airways and regulations to how much and what you can carry, there are risks involved. ("hello Amazon, I'd like to have 5 kilograms worth of lithium batteries, drone delivery to this busy urban address." what could possibly go wrong?)
Of course, things can be relatively safe if common sense is applied, but you can't expect commercial operators to apply common sense when there are potential profits available.
And common sense is not always correct either, back in the 1930s when the state of the art in aviation was relatively comparable to the state of the art in drones today, most people thought that pilots should fly by the seat of their pants and flight instruments are only supplemental (which is deadly wrong, and today all planes have doubly redundant gyroscopic instruments).
The reality is that the technology to fly unmanned and autonomous drones exists but it's not mature enough to work in large scale commercial operations safely and effectively.
If FAA would have allowed commercial drone operations without further regulation, and the technology would have had widespread adoption, there would be great risks involved.
Before there are the equivalents of traffic lights, air traffic control and airways and regulations to how much and what you can carry, there are risks involved. ("hello Amazon, I'd like to have 5 kilograms worth of lithium batteries, drone delivery to this busy urban address." what could possibly go wrong?)
Of course, things can be relatively safe if common sense is applied, but you can't expect commercial operators to apply common sense when there are potential profits available.
And common sense is not always correct either, back in the 1930s when the state of the art in aviation was relatively comparable to the state of the art in drones today, most people thought that pilots should fly by the seat of their pants and flight instruments are only supplemental (which is deadly wrong, and today all planes have doubly redundant gyroscopic instruments).
The reality is that the technology to fly unmanned and autonomous drones exists but it's not mature enough to work in large scale commercial operations safely and effectively.