As someone who is an aviation enthusiast as well as a drone pilot myself, I find some posts in this thread insulting. I imagine a fair few of you are Hobby pilots as well, which means you understand the situation.
It's like me outright saying that every pilot here must be of the same competency of the AF447 crew. It's outright slander and considering the first P in PPRUNE is Professional, I think some here should bow their heads in shame.
There are three very distinct groups under drone pilots - Hobbyists, "Amateur Photographers" and "Hipsters - AKA Morons"
I fly my drone responsibly, as do many. Unfortunately, the minority ruin it for the masses. 2 ways to improve this are startling obvious, yet as history has shown us, we won't act until lives are lost - it actually has a lot of parrallels with the aviation industry as a whole.
- Make the Bnuc-s course compulsory for model pilots so it covers general flying and not just commercial use, whilst making the cost £50-100 instead of £1500!!!!
- As suggested here earlier, create a registration system for UAS vehicles. Have an online database with owner details.
- Hold shops accountable to ensuring customers have said qualification / complete the registration.
Whether you like it or not, UAS / UAVs are here to stay and will only increase in size / performance / lower costs. The fact is, you get morons in all walks of life - be it Drone pilots or Commerical Airline pilots and all other job sectors for that matter. The discussion is better pointing to legalisation and helping the genuine people who are passionate hobby pilots clear the bad reputation of the minority, whilst making the idiots accountable for their poor decision making, which will ultimately get people killed.
Also - to those citing terrorists using these as bombs - Are you actually for real? Yep - that's exactly what they will be used for. After all, over the last 10 years, all of those 1/5 scale petrol cars which are capable of 70mph have been cruising along the M4 bearing the IS Flag on frequent bombing runs.......