 It is 11 o'clock on Thursday folks downtown Honolulu Ted Ralston here in our Think Tech studios overlooking Honolulu we have Jonathan Ruprich on with us from the complete underside of the US time zone about as far as you can get away from us six hours earlier in West Palm Beach Florida welcome on board our show where the drone leads Jonathan hey thank you so much for having me I truly appreciate this opportunity that's great and it's great to have you on the show and the rules of the show are once you're on once you get to come back a lot and if you really like it you can buy the thing in fact I'll even negotiate the price for you on the on the show but anyway we're where the drone leads and we talk about subjects that are associated and important in the emerging world of drones especially as they apply here in Hawaii and the Pacific we are somewhat unique in certain of our circumstances but we bring people on like you who have great knowledge and insight and really thank you for coming on we because it is show about drones we have one on the table here we always have to have our our place setting and table decoration properly in the world of drones this is an instant I Jen for out of PSI in Boston Massachusetts in any case the the world we're facing is one of needing great information and education in clear form about this whole emerging drone world and you represent a really interesting part of this the drone and aviation law and if I can advertise for you and we have to give people information about how to get a hold of you have to pull up Jonathan's website and phone numbers and things like that Ray but you come at this from an aviation and aeronautics mindset which is really unusual it seems to me most people are entering this business from the video game or the cell phone or the RC airplane domain and having that knowledge of the true aeronautics domain what people are thinking about when they're in a cockpit entering an airport control area something like that is really not important information to guide our future of guidance so tell us about your your company tell us about what you do and tell us about how you can help with this large-scale need for education sure what I can help people with primarily dealing with the FAA so it kind of in short help people get a piece of paper with their name on it with the FAA's name on it as well saying that you can do XYZ operations that's probably the easiest way to understand it so helping people with night away night waivers or authorizations to fly near airports stuff like that or just general understanding of the potential risks that are out there liability wise for the drone operators as well as companies that hire the drone operators because there's liability all over the place and so that's primarily what I do and how I help people and it's I guess in regards to helping businesses going forward I think that anybody operating this area needs to realize that this is a east coast business okay it's out of DC not Silicon Valley so there's a lot of people in the drone industry that have that Silicon Valley mindset where if you chuck a lot of technology at the problem that they think it'll go away in reality it's a legal industry it's heavily regulated the quicker you learn that the better off your business will be position yourself for the future you know there's a couple aspects of the nation the notion of business there's also the whole public aircraft upside which is more in the world of public safety law enforcement and public service areas and so their business like and that they're structured by a business but they don't have the same goals and objectives as such so certainly we find here in Hawaii that the Department of Land and Natural Resources police departments fire departments they're struggling with the same way that the companies are to figure out exactly what that pathway forward is you could help us in that area too I suspect well right there there there's definitely a need there and I'm not exactly sure as to what the reasons are every situation is different as to why they're having a difficulty in actually implementing drone operations I mean the public sector has been doing drone operations for like decades you know from the military and then it is also progressed into you know federal agencies and down into the state agencies and they have the ability to operate as public aircraft under a public coa they could obtain a section three through three exemption they also have the ability to fly under part 107 so that they have a lot of tools in their tool belt to accomplish the tasks at hand so that's actually they have the most options out of out of everyone right and what we have to do is associate the emerging technology of drones with the incident command system and the other frameworks of operation that exists and find where the attachment point is find where the gaps need to be filled by information or training or something and then find where any legislative limitations we have have to be understood and converted into bills and then taken forward one of the factors out here that is a major concern is the is the what you might call the nuisance factor of the people who simply don't know what the regulations are we have the wiki he beach lined with hotels and a lot of people show up from different parts of the world that bring their drone with them and then go want to operate in an area that is actually occupied also by the helicopter traffic quarter going out of Honolulu airport so we have drones and man helicopters in the same space they kind of don't know each other's there so we have this need to somehow pull us into an understandable form and then pass it around and and have people debate it and understand it coming from again bringing in aeronautics perspective into the picture and I like the way you put it that this is a Washington DC centric thing but it's dealing with a lot of pressure from Silicon Valley so a lot of social issues here Jonathan that you have to cross and you're sitting in the middle of all this with the the proper paperwork that has to occur well yeah and then there there's a lot of inner lot of people that are playing in the area that are all influencing it in some way or another so you have the federal government that FAA putting out regulations as well as policy and then in addition to that you have the states that have come in and have started trying to regulate this area some put out helpful that you as well as other ones have put out that's a helpful so that's further cost and problems because then it becomes very difficult we want to fly to another state and because you're pretty much everybody has at least four levels of government over them at any given time you have the federal government the state government accounting your city or town and then you have to comply with all of those it gets difficult because you have to line up if almost think of it like tire swings and you're trying to throw a football between all four of them it's kind of hard to be profitable when you have to do that for every flight and so there's going to be a big need there going forward trying to answer what is the federal government's domain and what is preempted by the federal government when regards to the state laws because it's becoming very difficult to try to actually scout out what what are the terms people using in that particular state that county that town for this thing we call a drone do they use the term drum some do some don't some call it model craft over there in Hawaii I was like model craft who uses this term you know some poor unsuspecting person is gonna be flying in the wrong place the wrong time some park you know recreation guys gonna come up and be like hey did you know about the model craft you know ordinance people like not really maybe would have helped if you use the word drone because everyone else in the world uses especially overseas you know this each and every country has a different term to have remotely piloted aircraft and so remarkably piloted aircraft system our pass and then so you have a bunch of them drone seems to be somewhat ubiquitous between everybody everyone kind of understands it's like the coca-cola town of terminology it's like we know what you mean okay and so you face these multi-dimensional problems all the time but you got to sort through and end up with some structured response that conforms to the various rules of laws or in your case challenge the laws as the case may be and I do want to thank you for the what you do to benefit all of us through your information service which is probably non billable hours I would guess coming in your domain but I think people benefit from all of that they work you circulate in fact when you were beginning to touch on it here but coming together with some standard you least throughout the United States commonly understood terminology and approach to the laws and such you published the recently the list of all the rules that exist in all the states and some are making a lot of sense it seems to me Arizona and it looks like just like Florida's law in terms of the setback requirements and the non non-risking aspects and the the safety aspects there there seems to be a sense of commonization coming forward do you see that as well yes and there there's on my website I actually have some resources that are listed there one of them by the Amanda Essex is the publisher of it she term or what organization she is with but she published a survey of the state laws around the country and it's helpful to kind of like read through those even the previous ones you can kind of see an overall trend so like back in 2013 the laws were originally kind of addressing state use of the drones because they're they're afraid that drones would be used for like persistent surveillance invasion of privacy in a fourth amendment type of stuff and then as time went on it kind of like spilled over into well let's go after the the civilians as well and then it kind of morphed from you know don't fly in a careless reckless manner to spilling over into hey stay away from critical infrastructure stay away from this and then some are trying to actually get a little unconstitutional is probably the best way to put it and you know like North Carolina and others where hey now you have to have our state registration and our state drone license drone permit whatever they want to call it so they're dancing around this this area that has been traditionally held to be field-prampted under case law and so this is a big problem coming up of who can control the lower portions of the sky and there's certain areas of the law they can and cannot because traditionally the state powers can regulate to protect the health safety and welfare of their citizenry and the skies primarily put in the national actually in the federal jurisdiction of from the Federal Aviation Act 1958 so how does that work in regards to people trying to use drones to violate people's privacy well who do we prosecute them under can you know preemption be a defense I mean that's that's one issue there but the states have not just gone into that area where it's traditional kind of criminal laws I mean they already have the criminal laws in the book they could just charge them anyway they've gone one step further and hey now we're actually going to start regulating what you do in the sky and coming up with all sorts of creative cat and mouse games with oh well we can't touch you in the sky but we'll get you from where you can take off and land and then it's like oh great now I have to find a place that you don't control to then like launch it to take my pictures to then come back and so it's becoming a big problem here as a patchwork of laws that overall in his business going back to the city of Burbank case back in 1973 US Supreme Court was discussing that in regards to noise ordinances that were created specifically that the case had a noise ordinance in the city of Burbank California that prohibited aircraft from taking off it was 11 p.m. and it was this one flight that was affected and the court was discussing like the overall net effect of this if it's allowed to stand is going to affect the entire United States that's what's pretty much happening here and it needs to get settled once and for all you've got the federal level both Congress they might might not or at the United States Supreme Court you know what let's do we gotta take a break here for the halfway through our show but let's come back and talk about what we can do collectively to pull this information together format it in such a way that our legislators which all are starting in January for the next session can be one or five steps ahead of where they were last time we get back from our first one minute first and last one minute break Aloha I'm Tim Appachaw host for Moving Hawaii forward a show dedicated to transportation issues and traffic we identify those areas where we do have problems in the state but also the show is dedicated to trying to find solutions not just detail our problems so join me every other Tuesday on Moving Hawaii forward I'm Tim Appachaw thank you Aloha my name is Raya Salter and I'm the host of Power Up Hawaii which you can see live from 1 to 130 every Tuesday at thinktechhawaii.com and then later on YouTube I am an energy attorney clean energy advocate and community outreach specialist and on Power Up Hawaii we come together to talk about how can Hawaii walk towards a clean renewable and just energy future to do that we talk to stakeholders all over the spectrum from clean energy technology folks to community groups to politicians to regulators to the utility so please join us Tuesdays at one o'clock for Power Up Hawaii we are back for the second part of our show here Ted Ralston in our downtown Honolulu studios of thinktech Hawaii with our show where the drone leads and a fascinating guest the first time around the show Jonathan Ruprich Ruprich from West Palm Beach Florida who runs Jonathan Ruprich law and deals in all forms of aviation law but now a lot in drone law and we welcome you on John thanks for spending the time late in the day on your end of the country thank you so much I appreciate it okay and we were just in enjoying a a incredible conversation you were leading us through just before the break about all the variation of rules and laws and inconsistencies and consistencies and the separation between federal state and local or the lack of separation as it may be and the difficulty people have seen their way through this if they're a company or if they're an agency that wants to operate or if they're a legislator who's trying to make rational decisions about bills presented to them so collectively we have six months between now and December when the legislature at least out here kicks in and we have some some some time here a little bit a little bit of time to get some significant mountains to get a climb in terms of putting information together but if you were if that was your job what would what would you suggest as a way forward to get by December a well understood common-sense view of of what makes sense form from a drone regulation perspective that legislature should care about to promote business promote education promote workforce development and better use of these systems in public safety and in law enforcement don't feel any pressure but what you think sure in regards to I guess talking to the state legislators that they need to ask the question do they actually need to actually create some type of law regarding drones because it's kind of discussion here like oh we want to promote business well creating laws really don't promote business for the more it actually hinders a lot of the people that are actually honest because now we have to appease our conscience and actually look up the laws would take how many of our hours of our time meanwhile the legal we're on around doing whatever they want and so there needs to be a discussion there like do we really need this is that really that much of a problem is this you know do we have any facts to support the alleged incidents of drones doing XYZ you know so kind of establish the facts and then narrow narrowly tailor the law in order to actually go to those facts but start out at need then I'd probably work back to do you have the actual lawful authority to do that and then narrowly tailor those are the three ways I would do that because a lot of the states I mean they see of I see some problems and I think there are some problems with people operating the drones in a careless and reckless fashion and they're like they want to legitimately protect the their citizenry from people doing stupid things but is that really the state's jurisdiction at that point to start regulating the sky or is that primarily the FAA and so I mean just because I see someone doing something doesn't give me the justification to actually just go out and correct wrongs wherever I see it you know we all have certain jurisdictional you know we have jurisdictional boundaries that we need to stay inside of and so it's kind of hard to say I'm going to tell you how to follow the law while I myself I'm actually violating the law and exceeding authority granted to me right either under the state's in the Constitution or from the state state authority and so be very careful that you are not saying basically as I say you know do as I say not as I do right yeah that's a really good point so start with what the real problems are the problems that can't be solved by current limits laws rules or regulations whatever they may be and work from there because I as you saying that I'm thinking of what our process is here people generate bills and submit them by the time a bill gets submitted now you get to deal with it it's out there so now all the testimony comes in which is going to be ranging all over the place and the confusion sets in on day one if we could work backwards from what the real compelling problems are even rank them from those that are really important problems to those that are more in the nuisance category that might it might focus better on what the what the window of need really is right and always question who's telling you something regarding the problems right at the end of the day of there's there's not a lot of discussion regarding that like I'm pro business I help out drunk businesses so I'm all like hey stop creating the regulations flip side people are like hey we need to create some regulations law enforcement are like we need something to do here well interestingly why are you suggesting that is so maybe you can actually be the head of said department that's going to then do all this right because a knight needs a dragon to fight otherwise no one's going to pay for his armor speaking of paying for armor you got to get paid for this work you do this is not billable 30 minutes to think tech studios I recognize that but but how do you how do you actually promote your business or get clients and this sort of thing speaking of the actual aspect of business a primary a lot of its word of mouth as well as just people to find my website and then contact me from there okay so you're full-time occupied in I'm thinking of this from a workforce development perspective there is a world there is a role for drone specific but aeronautics framed thinking legal activity well exactly the FAA speaks aviation ease yeah and people need to learn that this is a Washington DC type of industry and then we talked to the FAA while they are normal human beings that live in America that speak English they speak aviation ease which has each of those words is very specific meaning and sometimes they have their own meaning and so you'd read the same word and come to a kind of different idea what I mean but they really mean something completely different great example is where we had section 333 exemptions and they said hey please explain to us how your exemption well benefit the public and many people would reply well this benefits the public because we can now purchase this drone and it's much cheaper than taking a helicopter and going out flying FAA does not care about economics they care about safety so when they say benefit what they mean is but the benefit and only answer that in regards to how does it actually like increase safety you know protecting the the public and so there's an aviation translator need out there in the drone community and that's probably what you provide a lot of isn't it explaining what the frame of reference is that the rules are created under and how then you fit your business need or your law enforcement need within that right I mean and then they're changing their policy here and there and depending on what the case law and stuff the laws and stuff coming out it stuff shifts around as time goes on it's not stagnant and then on top of that people really didn't invest much time into actually studying out what drone law is which further caused even more confusion because a lot of the stuff you see on the internet I would say is it's a click bait headlines of times that are written to get readers to read their articles but but real good takeaway from this whole this whole discussion here is whoever you are watching this ask the question why is this person saying is what are their motivations because there are a lot of people in the industry which have a lot of motivations that are inflaming the situation hyper you know over embellishing the facts hyper inflating those or trying to deflate those so ask the question where is this person coming from why are they saying that you know I think we could take a really neutral sense of this at the university and think through from that perspective what the real problems might be and begin structuring a way to provide education information and the upside downside of various issues to our legislature between now and December and actually make things move forward much more smoothly next year we are one of the FAA test ranges out here which is adds to the complication because we're associated with Oregon and Alaska Mississippi and Kansas in this lash up so that's yet as a whole nother dimension that you won't find in certain states and many of them so we have the additional complication of that but you know there's there's so many aspects here would be interesting to have you on again and longer we have issues of workforce development we don't have enough trained workforce here if the power company wants to hire one more drone pilot they're gonna have to go to California to get them because we don't have a machine that produces certified and qualified not just certified 107 is wonderful but it didn't qualify you for anything it just means you passed a test really being qualified means you know what you're doing and you can interact with the air environment in a really successful and positive way we don't have that and so where we go we go to California we go to Texas or something like that to get people so we really have a workforce issue here as well as as well as just getting the regulations all straightened out so we'll take your your lead on that we've had Jim Williams on and Charles Warren some other guys recently and there's a lot of ideas percolating here at the time is right for us to pull something together Jim would like to take whatever we do and run it back through the the drone advisory committee and get them to exit to sign off on it so to speak and maybe we can generate some kind of a national frame of thinking here that is useful for all as we go forward and we'll count on you to critique it and help it and and push it forward and bring your great insight into the picture as we go forward here sure definitely yeah send it over and ask the question why did that person say that that's definitely a big takeaway from this dealing with the drone industry I can tell you ask that question okay that's cool that's the greatest summary out of this so say that one more time for our wonderful audience here in terms of ask the question ask ask yourself the question why is that person saying that so legislator why did that legislator say that why did that person propose that information to the legislator police officer wanting to start a new program doing it why did they do that of an attorney on a program why did they say that right ask those questions what was their underlying motivation and how does that motivation potentially influence the facts that they have presented okay so we're backwards in the individual motivations which are agendas and the actual real problems which may not connect and come up with a realistic threat based circumstance to work from we'll do that we'll take you on on that Jonathan and look for you as a partner in this activity then you got to move your office out here to Hawaii make it all happen I mean I have to get back to you on that all right very good hey we'll get you on again sometimes thanks so much Jonathan for joining us Jonathan Rupert's of Rupert's law dealing with aviation in any form but specifically on drones in West Palm Beach Florida