Ledyard looks to regulate drones to ensure safety
Ledyard — There's one shot that is deceptively simple in Brian Reubelt's video of sweeping landscapes in town filmed from a drone. It begins looking down at St. David's Church on Stoddards Wharf Road in Gales Ferry, slowly tracking the steeple, before quickly descending and rotating upward to bring the whole church in view.
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"You're basically holding three controls at a time driving backwards," he said, describing the ascend, descend and rotate controls on his new DJI Phantom. The shot, one he had seen in movies, took him several tries to replicate.
"The control for a camera is a little wheel. You have to turn that very lightly as you're driving backwards," he said. "It's kind of a balancing act."
While that delicate balance can be struck with more expensive equipment like Reubelt's $799, 2-pound Phantom, the explosion of cheap, more finicky drones is what concerned Don Grise, the director of Ledyard's Parks and Recreation Department, when a drone flew by his office a few weeks ago at a low altitude.
Grise's worries were twofold: he thought drones flown in the park during games could fall and hurt children, or invade the privacy of people attending weddings in Colonel Ledyard Park.
These concerns led him to suggest an ordinance regulating the use of drones on town property; a proposal that sparked a wide-ranging discussion on drone use in Ledyard between him, Reubelt, Mayor Mike Finkelstein and the members of the Land Use, Planning and Public Works subcommittee at a meeting last week.
Reubelt became one of many new drone owners last year during a spike in holiday sales when as many as 400,000 drones were sold across the country, according to an estimate by Sen. Richard Blumenthal.
The increasingly cluttered skies led to Federal Aviation Administration regulations last year, establishing a registration system for unmanned aerial systems, or UAS, between 0.5 and 55 pounds. The online registration generates a unique number for identifying ownership of a drone. New regulations also limit drone use to daylight and line-of-sight operation, as well as establishing a 400-foot maximum altitude.
For Reubelt, drones were a natural extension of a photography hobby that stretches back nine years to when he was a kid photographing the landscape in North Conway, N.H.
Now 22, married, with an 11-month-old at home, Reubelt's time for drone photography can get squeezed. He works days at Holmberg Orchards and does wedding photography on the side, but he still went out several times a week after work for a month to plan, shoot, edit and compile the footage for "Ledyard Landmarks," which became popular on social media and was eventually posted on the town's website. He used Google Maps to scope out an area from above and his knowledge from growing up in Ledyard to plan the shots in his head.
"My mom was joking with me that I've always sort of done this, I've got an image in my head and that's how I visualize what I want beforehand," he said.
There are few regulations for taking recreational drone photography, but Reubelt avoided taking video of the schools and generally didn't shoot parks that had people in them.
"I would actually wait and come back when it was quieter to avoid that sort of thing," he said of shooting in public parks. "But I feel like next time around I might be more confident."
However, other people might not be so conscious of regulations and safety concerns, Finkelstein said at Tuesday's meeting. Drones could be used at football games to compile footage for a college coach, for example, creating a dangerous situation for the players.
"As the popularity and the ability grows, we're certainly going to have people doing that," he said.
No drones at fair
For the most part, however, councilors wanted to get more information about a relatively new concern. Suggestions included a permit-based system for public events to avoid multiple drones competing for the best shot of an event, and enforcement based on complaints.
The consensus from the councilors was to host a roundtable in the future to gather more information from the community and about existing regulations of drone use before proposing anything formally. They also made it clear they didn't want to discourage anyone who was working safely within existing FAA regulations; telling Reubelt, who is knowledgeable about existing rules, to work with them to find a regulation that works for both operators and the town.
Councilor William Saums said it simply was important to be proactive on such a new and popular hobby.
"Even if it wasn't perfect, if we had something in place it's better than nothing so we're out in front of it," he said.
For arguably the most prominent event in town, the Ledyard Fair, the issue has been decided: the board of directors voted to ban drone use on and above the fairgrounds last year.
Fair President Leslie Doe-Koehler said the discussions centered around safety. The fair hosts a number of moving amusement park rides, like spinning chairs or a Ferris wheel, which could compound the potential danger from a drone accident.
Moreover, the fair has a horse show and oxen pull that could become dangerous if they were disturbed by the sound of a hovering drone.
"Honestly, I think the most people are doing for the fun of it, the different perspective to take photographs. However, I always have to look on the other side and it could potentially be a hazard at the fair," she said.
For Reubelt, he would like to expand his photography business to use drones for weddings or real estate, but to make money he needs to be exempted from FAA rules that require a pilot's license for commercial UAS use.
While he waits to hear back on his application, he's thinking of doing another video of aerial views of Eastern Point and Noank, and staying focused on safely operating his drone through the sky.
"When you're doing that you can't think about anything else," Reubelt said. "It's somewhat therapeutic in a way. All you're doing is thinking about that."
n.lynch@theday.com
Twitter: @_nathanlynch
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