Strict laws needed to control drones

Drones. The military industrial complex (as President Eisenhower called it) is now in high gear making drone sales a major profit center. They are now replacing billions of dollars of lost sales from Obama's (and less war-loving citizens') efforts to get us out of our Bush era war legacy.

Currently, drones have been encountered more and more by pilots of passenger and cargo planes and helicopters. These "hobby" drones have been encountered above their legal altitude of 450 feet and much closer to large airports than legally allowed.

It is now legal to fly your drone weighing up to 55 pounds each. In past encounters, commercial jets have had to land for having a couple of large birds ingested into an engine. A large bird like a Canada goose would weigh about 9 pounds of guts, feathers and hollow bones.

So if a jet engine ingested a 55-pounds drone of metal, plastic, batteries, etc., I assume it would do a lot more damage than six big fluffy geese weighing the same amount.

I assume drone lobbyists are busy passing laws relieving manufacturers and corporations (Amazon, ComEd, cities, police departments getting gifts of "excess" military drones, etc.) of all liability for crashing into you or your property.

Do you mind if a hobby drone flies onto your property and takes photos through your windows or of your family members sunbathing by your fenced-in pool?

Do you think drones should be licensed, with ID tags and traceable to the owner? Should drone insurance be mandatory?

For my part, when a drone brings down a commercial passenger jet for the first time, I hope it happens at one of the two major airports near Washington, D.C. Nothing would cause our congressional lawmakers to write and pass strict anti-drone laws like having their lives on the line.

Jim Peterson

Hoffman Estates