Originally Posted by 049flyer

I was also a professional pilot and very concerned about all the new regulations and drama brought about by a few clueless drone operators. In aviation it only takes one violation to ruin a career, so out of an abundance of caution, I gave away almost all of my RC planes to friends, and concentrated on exempt aircraft (control line and very small RC planes). Now that I’m retired I have started building up my fleet of non-exempt aircraft.

While I agree, that the odds of getting a violation is very low, it’s not zero and certainly greater than before all the drone drama. The odds increase exponentially when something bad happens like property damage or injury. Personally, I think the current regulations are violated many times per day at most fields, usually altitude violations and aircraft marking.

What the general public does not understand about the FAA is that all it takes is one FAA inspector with an agenda to create havoc with an aviator’s life, and there are thousands of inspectors. Enforcement costs the FAA nothing but can potentially cost the aviator many thousands in legal fees to protect his license. Additionally, the FAA often attempts to impose fines on EACH violation individually, so 5 flights in one day is at least 5 violations and who knows how much the fine is. No doubt it would probably fall apart in court, but how much does the lawyer cost to get it all dropped?

A professional pilot must make a decision about how much additional risk he is willing to endure to participate in the hobby. It’s an individual decision and I don’t fault anyone for deciding one way or the other after weighing the costs and the benefits.