As an airline pilot and drone hobbyist I would like to share my thoughts.
1. A lot of drone flyers are irresponsible and go looking for trouble.
2. Drones pose much less threat to air safety than the public thinks; the vast majority are smaller and lighter than many RC planes that have been around for decades. I have seen RC twin jets weighing over 200 lbs travelling over 250 mph topping out of a loop at 1500' NEXT to a busy airport and NOBODY thought that was a safety risk. Then out came my little DJI phantom and everyone panicked!!!!
3. The story about the airliner in the US last week pulling up to avoid a drone is probably bogus.
4. The fear authorities have about drones is not safety so much as security. And it’s not a fear of drones being used to drop bombs or smash into Government offices; it’s a fear that they will be used to spy on law enforcement and the Government when they are doing illegal or immoral acts. The last thing the Government wants during marshal law, civilian crackdown, rioting or general civil unrest is the wider community seeing hi def first hand aerial shots of police beatings as happened in Turkey recently.
5. Drones are here to stay and the applications for which they can be used are endless.