Monday, February 3, 2014

FAA halts beer deliveries via drone to Minnesota ice fisherman


It's apparently a hazard faced by ice fisherman -- running out of beer while hunkered down on the ice. So it must have been a godsend when Minnesota's Lakemaid Brewery devised an ingenious solution -- using a six-rotor drone to deliver its six packs!


But, alas, this example of Yankee ingenuity was shot down by FAA in the latest case of big government making life miserable for businesses and ordinary Americans. What raised the FAA's ire? As aviation website AVweb explained

 "FAA rules allow the recreational use of remote control aircraft by hobbyists below 400 feet but the beer runs are a commercial operation and therefore illegal." None of this made sense to beer-deprived ice fishermen and nor to Lakemaid Brewery owner Jack Supple, who told NPR: "We were a little surprised at the FAA interest in this since we thought we were operating under the 400-foot limit."

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