You can see from my posts at the beginning of this thread that I was initially in agreement with Bob's positions.
Since then, I have had the opportunity to have a fairly long conversation with Dave Mathewson and Bob Brown about this. They have spent a great deal of time dealing with these issues, and have put a great deal of thought into it. I believe that their approach is to basically work with the FAA, as best as can be done, to be "part of the solution, not part of the problem." That approach appears to them to be the best way to stay engaged with the FAA and get a seat at the table when the rules are being hashed out. I'm not the one to be able to say with 100% certainty that this will work, or even if its the best approach, but in their minds, it is, and they are much closer to the goings-on than I am.
One thing is for sure, *nobody* is going to be able to put the "drone" genie back in the bottle. They are *big* business (compared to other hobby spending, anyway) and they are going to continue to sell, at least until some other shiny widget comes out. As such, the FAA is going to have to find a way to deal with them, and since they really don't know a thing about them, they are going to have to have help to figure it out. Hopefully, with the AMA and other industry groups, like AUVSI, at the table, some sanity will find its way into the process. Coming out with rules under which to safely operate things like FPV and autopilots is one way for them to demonstrate how these things can be done safely. Will this approach work? Maybe, maybe not, but for sure we'd be screwed if the FAA was left to their own devices - especially if the only people giving them advice was AOPA and ALPA - who would like nothing more than anything but full-scale aircraft to be totally illegal.
We *need* the AMA to represent our interests, and the JPO is actively working to make sure that the jet modeling community has a voice in the AMA. Dave and Bob know we are out here and what we do (they saw it first-hand at FIF in May) and they have us included in the "no modeler left behind" group. Hopefully, their constructive engagement policy will pay off. Personally, although I'm not totally 100% sure we'll be fine, I do think that this policy is going to get us a better result than just screwing our heads in the sand and hoping that this "drone" fad will go away (it won't).
Bob