Berylliosis would be my guess. Beryllium is one of my favorite metals, but if you breathe in Beryllium dust, you'll get a nasty lung disease. It's toxic. But Beryllium alloyed with Aluminum yields a material that is 1/3 lighter than Aluminum, with higher thermal conductivity, that has the same modulus of elasticity as steel. They were making pistons for Formula 1 engines from it about 10-15 years ago, but it was outlawed in the name of cost control. How exotic is a material if F1 outlaws it?

It is particularly difficult to invent in areas with big entrenched players. You would have needed to sell it as an aftermarket product to get any traction

Exactly and it is the constant excuse for the totalitarian state.

I have now knowledge of the pilots union being involved. I do know that there are many who do not know the meaning of common sense use of these things. There are some who will use them as a weapon. Pilots have enough to be concerned about when landing and taking off that they really do not need further distractions. How about all the loonies with their lasers. why not fly kits in open areas near airports? The technology is not being hurt but improper use can hurt.

It is the epitome of "Minority Repot". Move in on the thought of what could happen.

OK, so they get the drones registered. Now what? How is that going to make anything safer (except for their jobs)?

That might be fairly tricky and involve a significant number of sensors and expense in the construction of the drone. Do we move from requiring registration to requiring minimum safety equipment on all drones? All drones over a certain weight?

I once invented a replacement for the supercharger and the turbo for cars and trucks, The prototype worked quite well and also gave a good fuel saving on the car I tried it on, Needless to say I could not get it on the market mainly to the attitude of "We've done it this way for fifty years why should we change?"

I'm certain that someone could build a software app that would automatically keep a drone away from another flying object by, say, 500 feet (or 1000 feet). Problem solved.

I have 4 audio speakers in the living room which have
beryllium-domed mid-range and high-frequency drivers.
they aren't produced any more. . wonder why? -- j

p.s. these antiques do sound super!
.

I don't think it's irrelevant in this venue. Most of us would agree that flying a drone over your own property under some height limit (100' is fine) should be your own damned business. Objectivists feel pretty strongly about property rights. I brought in the FAA because you brought in crop dusting as a paradigm.

It's how a society should manage things like flying drones outside of your own property that's an interesting question. And I will state that I don't really have a solution and would love to see some ideas instead of insults.

While you've repeatedly called me simplistic and incapable of understanding, you've not actually suggested how the danger should be handled other than by saying registration will "kill invention". Perhaps that's your way of saying you don't have a solution either.

You're doing to WS what you did to me one time, db. Why can't you just explain your point of view, instead of making insulting remarks?

Terrorists might use drones to fly into the engines of commercial jets. Locking them up or executing them after the fact might just be what they wanted to get to see ALLAH. That might be hard to control. They arent going to register, and so what if they did- they dont care about property rights or individual rights anyway.

2.4 ghz for control and 5.8 ghz for video.

13 year olds are considered emancipated adults in the eyes of this law? (Parents are liable for those UNDER 13)... I can see it now...

Sorry, Mr. & Mrs Jones, we're fining your 13 year old Johnny $250,000 and putting him in the care and custody of the State for the criminal act of not controlling his drone for 3 years, flying it into little Susie Smith (whose dad is a DHS agent) and doing her grievous harm. That's OK, he'll LIKE living in an Obamayouth Kamp, they'll mold him into the ideal subject! Oh, his fine? We'lll just postpone it - we may need to hold it over his head... someday...

And while we're at it? How dare you raise such a criminal? You both must be terrorists. We're putting you on a federal watch list, and revoking your rights. Um Hmmm...

The point is that you seem incapable of understanding that staying over one's property is irrelevant. As is all the nonsense of the FAA regulations - a tangent you want to bring in.

You seem incapable of thinking in conceptual terms.

The "If you break it you have to pay for it" is certainly a solution that works for some things. I'm not sure that it works for bringing down an airliner because you wanted to get some cool video of it approaching landing from head on and didn't get out of the way.

Of course that may be one of the reasons for registration so that they can figure out who did it. If you do something dreadful you might just be willing to let it go.

Southwest airlines jumps through an amazing number of governmental hoops to get to fly over your house. Once again, I don't think that D.B. was advocating that. Actually, come to think of it, I don't know how he would manage Southwest Airlines airspace usage.

A crop duster needs a pilot license, his plane needs FAA registration and he needs to follow FAA regulations when doing crop dusting. That didn't seem to be the paradigm that you were advocating.

In fact, you didn't advocate a paradigm at all, simply said that government registration was how to "kill inventions".

Apparently I'm incapable of mind reading as well since I don't know what you propose as the approach that should be taken.

Yes the pilots union wants only pilots to be able to fly drones and they want them in the loop the whole time Luddites

Are you really that incapable of logic and using concepts? Or are you just playing us?

Here is a hint does crop duster leave his own property when he flies around?

Flying a drone anywhere near a busy airport is recklessly stupid. There I can understand restrictions but not the paying of fees.
Due to ongoing terrorist activity and that of international spies, I can understand why military bases can dislike civilian drones flying around.
Messing with Area 51 may be fun, though getting caught droning the place definitely would not.

Hear hear

I do not see where the government has hurt these contraptions. I heard from pilots that THEY not some government employee is seeing them while they are landing or taking off, not good. We can't control birds getting in the flight path but we can and should control man made flying contraptions getting into flight paths. Unfortunately many humans educated in our government schools which means they have almost no education will abuse the use of these contraptions. The fact that one has yet to meet an aircraft at 2000 or 5000 feet so far does NOT mean it will never happen. It is just a matter of time.

Well, Southwest airlines never asked me about flying over my house. They just DO it. So why cant I fly a drone up there too?

Common sense could prevail most of the time. Our legal system could prevail the rest of the time when some idiot flies his drone into the engine of a commercial jet. 99% of the time people dont want to let the drones get out of sight anyway as they are expensive and prone to never coming back...