Drones

There are some new pics of the Predator C "Avenger" up. It looks cool, and I'd enjoy controlling one without firing missiles (which would be awesome!)

However, as a VFR pilot, there are concerns about drones. Less about military use -- they use them in war zones (where I have no desire to fly) or inside their own, known Military Use and Restricted air spaces (where I avoid flying). It's local law enforcement and DEA that are using these things to scout for MJ growers that scares me.

These flights aren't scheduled, no NOTAM's are issued, they mostly work on clear days or nights when VFR pilots fly, but their controllers are looking down for surveillance instead of scanning for air traffic. VFR pilots scan for traffic, but the whole idea is to make the drones hard to see.

It seems like a sideband feed to regional ATC (if a call to ATC and a Mode C transponder aren't feasible) wouldn't be too hard to accomplish putting these things on their scopes so that IFR aircraft and those under VFR with flight following would at least get alerts, if not vectors, if they flew too close.

The Predator C at the top is bigger and heavier than my plane, and even the smallest surveillance drones are bigger than birds which have broken planes in the past when struck.