Once back in the' 70's in NYC, there was a Seaman's club run by the Catholic Church by Lexington and Park Ave. it was called Cardinal Spellman's. One afternoon while a few of us were chomping on some snacks, in walks Rodney Dangerfield and Ed Sullivan! This was a small place no big auditorium. I shook Mr. Dangerfield's hand and just started laughing! He hadn't said two words! Nicest guy you ever want to meet! So he and Ed Sullivan put on a small show for us and we much appreciated it. I may stand corrected here, but I believe Ed Sullivan died a couple weeks later. If so we may have witnessed his last show. But as I say the memory can get muddled.

One reason why I and many other operators or radio controlled aircraft do not like to call them "drones" is because of the military implications. Radio controlled aircraft have been a wonderful hobby for many many years (60 or more). It is perfectly legal to fly them below 400 feet and more than 5 miles from an airport. What has changed in the past 3 years is the following:

1. Advent of high quality miniature cameras allowing for aerial photography and the ability of "first person view", which is to say the ability to use a screen or goggles to see what the aircraft sees, and to pilot it as if you were actually in it while flying it.

2. Advent of multi rotor helicopters that are easy to fly. Keeping the rotational rate of the rotors of multi rotor helicopter properly synchronized was a difficult problem until the advent of micro controllers made it automatic. Adding GPS and accelerometer capabilities to these craft made them stable enough to enable excellent photography.

3. Unknown to most people is the fact that the cameras carried by these devices use very wide angle lenses, and this makes "spying" into bedrooms pretty useless.

4 The ability to take good aerial photos of landscapes has opened up many commercial possibilities. Unfortunately, Federal law forbids commercial use of radio controlled aircraft, while allowing for hobby use of them. This means I cannot take a picture of my neighbor's house and sell it to him. I can, however, give him this picture. One of the proposed regulations is to require a "regular" pilot's license to fly one of these toys commercially while still allowing hobby use. All this is, of course, absurd.

4. The "Hobby" quadcopters typically will respond to signals at most .5 to 1 mile away. These devices are so small that at that distance you cannot see them to fly them safely. Most of us fly ours a few hundred yards away max. There will always be reckless users. Should we ban automobiles because there are a few reckless users? We have laws governing safe use of automobiles. Similar laws can be developed for radio controlled aircraft as well while allowing for commercial use.