Image Reference: The Morning Call (Allentown, PA)

Braasch was interviewed by Scott Kraus of The Morning Call (Allentown, PA) for his article “It’s a bird, it’s a plane … it’s yet another drone” published in the November 22, 2015 edition. Here are some selected quotes from the article:

“Now you have 100,000 people out there with hobby drones and thousands of commercial operators, whether licensed or not,” said Michael Braasch, an electrical engineer at Ohio University and principal investigator with the Avionics Engineering Center. “One of the things the FAA is wrestling with is how to deal with enforcement.”

“The vehicles most people think of as drones are actually called “quad copters,” gyroscope-equipped remote-control aircraft powered by at least four propellers. The development of that multi-rotor platform, coupled with advances in battery, GPS and sensor technology, have led to their widespread popularity, Braasch said.”

“Before quad-copter drones, it made sense to allow radio-controlled model airplane hobbyists to self-regulate, Braasch said. Remote-control flying was tricky, expensive and took time to master, limiting the number of participants. That all changed with the ease of use and low entry price offered by drones. ‘You can literally go buy a DJI Phantom for $700 from Amazon, charge it up and with about 5 minutes of reading the manual, you can power it up and be flying,’ he said.”

“Is the average person going to be going out and seeing swarms of these things in the air?” Braasch said. “I don’t think so unless it’s just the neighborhood kids going out having battles.”

Read the full article here.