As several people have mentioned, it's because those regulations are there for a reason. If you willfully ignore them, you not only run the risk of being caught by the authorities, you run the risk of doing something that will harm the industry as a whole. Some of the people here on the forum make their living doing laser shows. Threaten them with reckless behavior that could have far-reaching legal consequences and you will absolutely get flamed, for obvious reasons.
Do I agree that many of the laser regulations here in the USA are overly-restrictive? Yes. Do I nonetheless play by the rules when I do commercial work? Again, yes. And most importantly: Do I get visibly upset when illegal operators perform illegal shows that make it more difficult for me to sell the very idea of a laser show to future clients? ABSOLUTELY YES!
So, yeah, there is a greater focus on regulations here. But honestly, it's not unlike the focus on gun safety that you'll see on firearms forums, and for the same reason. People who are reckless with firearms make other, responsible gun owners look bad. (And I say that as someone who does not own any firearms myself.)
You are a private pilot, right? Would you condone someone flying their para-glider into a busy class-B airspace? I'm going to assume your answer would be no, because of the obvious chaos that could cause. But that is a topic you are familiar with, so you understand that the rules are there for a reason. Even if you don't like them all, you understand that it's better if everyone follows them.It is excruciatingly painful to try to have an intellectual deep technical discussion without someone interjecting "you cant do that" or "its impossible".
The problem is that when it comes to Lasers, you don't have that same level of experience, so your first reaction is "What's the big deal?". With experience, that "big deal" becomes evident. The examples provided above (France, Las Vegas, Australia) are the tip of the iceberg...
Then too, there's a difference between someone saying "You can't do that because it's illegal" and "You can't do that because it violates the laws of physics". Yes, it's possible that you might uncover some new technology that has never been tried. But it's far more likely that you'll re-create a series of failed experiments.
The days of a lone inventor making a monumental discovery in his backyard lab are long gone. Even visionaries like Elon Musk, Burt Rutan, or Richard Branson have teams of engineers behind them, plus the resources of a large venture capital firm. If you're going to compete with that, at least do yourself a favor and bone up on the current state of the art first. Find out what the sticking points are, learn where the science breaks down, and see what has worked (and what hasn't) before you strike out on your own.
And 21 CFR 1040.10 and .11 is much the same. (This is the federal standard that governs laser safety, and is pretty much required reading for anyone who wants to build and certify their own laser products.)when I was getting my pilots license the FAR's were something you had to force yourself to read because a bureaucrat was forcing you to know it for the exam
Again, just like the laser industry. Some of the regs make sense, some are overly burdensome (at least in my opinion anyway).The FAA produces some super good quality material but some of it is just bureaucratic and costs pilots and owners BIG money to comply with which is legally / constitutionally suspect
But compliance is not legally or constitutionally suspect in any way. The government is allowed to regulate commerce. If I introduce a laser projector into commerce, I fall under that regulation. If I don't want to comply with the regulation, I don't get to introduce the laser into commerce. It's the same way with planes. The government is allowed to regulate air transportation. If you don't want to comply, don't buy a plane.
You are forgetting that no one has the inalienable right to build and operate an aircraft in this country. This isn't the second amendment we're discussing here. If you want to fly a plane, you have to follow the rules. If you don't like the rules, don't buy a plane.if you do it yourself we will kick in your door and beat the s**t out of you and throw you in jail. Just let that sink in.
Just because an accident is more likely to occur at O'hare airport vs some remote grass strip in northern Montana is irrelevant to the question of whether or not the Government is legally allowed to regulate aircraft in the first place. The price of failure is high in both cases, and it is that high price of failure that prompted the public to give the government oversight in the first place. (And this goes back a *long* way, for lots of different types of transportation, including boats, cars, and trains.)the FAA applies the same rules to a small aircraft in sparsely populated areas.
Also, the FAA has relaxed many regulations for several classes of light aircraft. So it is possible to get into flying without spending a fortune or having perfect health. But you must accept limits on what you can fly and where/when you can fly it.
The difference is that you don't see anything wrong with your stated goal of building a directed-energy device that will be deployed near an airport for the express purpose of illegally interfering with the operation of a remotely-piloted aircraft. Several members here on the forum *do* recognize that this is a federal crime with serious consequences. Moreover, if this endeavor involves a laser and you get caught, the event will have far-reaching repercussions in the industry at large. So, yeah, people are naturally going to be reluctant to discuss it.I think this over arching issue of people being hyper focused on bureaucracy is a major issue and impediment to intellectual / technical discourse
This weeds out the people who aren't really serious with regard to safety and regulatory compliance.there is always multiple people that never fail to bring up some obscure buried regulation and its super irritating as they bring it up BEFORE the technical discussion.
Put another way, if someone asked you about buying a Beechcraft Bonanza so they could fly it to their cousin's farm on weekends and avoid the 3 hr drive, how long would you wait before you told them about the fact that they needed a pilot's licence to fly it, or that they needed an FAA-certified mechanic to work on the engine, or any of the myriad other regulations they would need to follow? (Not to mention the fact that the plane will be more expensive than their house...)
If you were planning to build your own CO2 laser or flashlamp-pumped ND:YAG laser from an existing design, no one would be saying that it's impossible. But you're talking about building a laser that doesn't exist yet, and worse, you're proposing to use it illegally. Bit of a difference there.do you know how many people told me I was crazy that I needed a zillion hours to fly a pitts and that "air line captians" have wrecked pitts etc etc etc. Well here we go with a laser
Adam