Look Up!
Air rights: Drone delivery’s inconvenient truth
On its surface, this topic seems incredibly boring BUT it IS incredibly important. The future of package delivery hinges on future legal battles over property rights and the ability of powerful companies like Amazon to literally capitalize on the greediness and neediness of individual property owners and towns in rural areas, particularly, which may be in need of outside funding to replace/repair old and decaying infrastructure. Stockton, where I live in Illinois, comes readily to mind.
Air rights: Drone delivery’s inconvenient truth
Technology isn’t the problem here. That’s easy. That’s been done.
The problem is airspace rights.
It works like this — basically, everything above 600 feet in the air is owned by governments. This is where your commercial vehicles operate. Airplanes, helicopters, etc. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has the authority to regulate air traffic, and impose all sorts of restrictions and requirements on aircraft, such as type, speed limits, routes, etc.
Airplanes soaring above your property are not trespassing, because they are flying in what Congress has declared as a sort of public highway.
But the airspace below 600 feet isn’t owned or regulated by the government. Nope, in most of the developed world, this space is owned by landowners.
And this is exactly the airspace where most of the new air services are trying to operate:
Drones In New Jersey, New York And China
Using Constitutional Property Rights Leads To Growth
On the United States East Coast, drones are flying around without restrictions or permission. The reports are sketchy, but dozens of drones appear to be coming off the ocean with no heat signature. The data collection seems jammed, and the legally required emitter to intercept their details is not in place. The drones have a 10-foot wing span and can evade the police drones. Residents say they are experiencing electromagnetic interference on the radio in cars near the drones.
