big v, no incoming from me, so no need to duck. The "unsafe" is just that. It is fine in a war zone, maybe even fine over training areas, and depending on your opinion, fine over the countries of enemy combatants.
Where the safety issue really raises it's ugly head is that you, the operator, have no prior indication if or when a loss of link occurs. Further to that point, after the loss, you, the operator, have a 50/50 chance that the uav will follow what you think is programmed to happen, and a 100% chance of not being able to do diddly squat about it if it does not.
You can train all you want, but when that uav ignores every button push, control input, reboot that is in the manual, and the knot in the pit of your stomach tightens when you realize that you have absolutely no control of where that uav is headed, powerless is an apt description. Only thing left to do is calculate how far can it go on the fuel remaining, draw the circle and sit back, hope, and wait.
Now, I don't know about anyone else, but that does not give me a warm and fuzzy to have uav's anywhere close to other aircraft, in any civilian setting. Leave them where they are extremely useful, in the military arena.
Can't say it enough, the problems we had in the 1980's are still the same problems today. That's 25+ years of minimal progress in the most vital area of uav operations, the comm link.
Please don't take my opposition to operating in civilian airspace (is that a better term?) to mean I am anti uav, I am not. I am against needlessly risking civilian casualties from what I believe is a rush to the money, disregarding the inherent risks involved. Who knows, maybe in time someone will actually solve this problem, however we are a long ways away at this point in time.
Just my tuppence worth.