The real reason behind the $182,000 PhilyDroneLife fine? 

This reminds me of local law enforcement that took credit for less deaths and crashes over the Super Bowl weekend due to increased enforcement, but no credit to safer drivers who decided not to drink and drive and just didn't want to die..

Omfg Bruce, that secret footage from the FAA 😂😂😂

Who got reprimanded for sticking a door in a hole on the side of a huge jet, not bolting it in and then flying it around over buildings and cars and people. What could possibly go wrong?

👍Bruce I miss the airfield so much😡

Spot 0n, Exjet. The fine should fit the crime, and in this case, not even close. Keep a close eye on those FAA employees. Shady looking characters there!

Brian, you are 100 percent right. The FAA should be concerned with doors and wheels falling off manned aircraft and leave the RC modeling community alone!!

100% support your veiw and thoughts XJet ! Rock and happy flying 😉😎

100 percent agree, Bruce

Spot on. Bruce. the FAA is a bureaucratic waste of space.

This is all outta control and I mean EVERYTHING! Free men don’t ask permission

I can’t find a single thing in your monologue to disagree with, especially your points on true and objective identification of risk, and on proportionality of penalties. Without those factors being accepted as rational and just, no law can ultimately be successful, however draconian. In a democracy the legal construct is a two-way street, requiring both sensible application and the agreement of the majority for legislation to remain effective. Good onya, Bruce. Keep on battering them with rationality, it’s a valuable counterpoint to all of the bs about the hobby.

Very informative to eavesdrop on the high level meeting, very 007 of you sir.

Great video Bruce.

Thank you for caring

Reminds me of the early days of radio in the late 20's and early 30's. People back then were home crafting very low power single tube radios and transmitters for fun. The government decided everyone with a transmitter needed a license. You could be living in the sticks 20 miles from the nearest person yet you still needed a license to operate your transmitter that could only transmit across the room. It made as much sense as today's regulations.

Love the footage, and technicolor curtains..

If the rules that the faa made are the reason for no deaths. Then The same rules need to be applied GA and Commercial industry. That industry is killing every year.

Loved the FAA conference room 3 skit or was it real 🤔 😂

For a moment, I thought I was watching Camera Conspiracies.

Feels so good to hear you speak out your heart. The French guy I am agrees 100% with you.

Great video and excellent insight; keep up the good work man!

Great point Bruce! Keep up the good fight! Cheers!

I live in Philly I used to log into his channel when he started flying recklessly I stop messing it up for those who fly by the rules

Unbelievable. He has not hurt anyone or any property. Those fees are nonsense. I believe all drone pilots should back him up even if he does break rules sometimes because that could be any of us getting reprimanded over spies watching our drone posts online. A country where we can purchase guns but can't enjoy flying a little toy around without hurting anyone. It seems the faa secretly kept records on him knowing he'd keep breaking their rules without him knowing he's being watched by authorities and hit him with a ton of infractions and this massive fine. That's unjust

Spot on Bruce! Like everything today all about control nothing to do with safety.

Well said as usual XJet - certainly wouldn't be surprised if the old distraction tactic was being used.

Brilliant, Bruce! Great point that, unfortunately, will not be seen or understood by anyone at the FAA. This is why I renamed my channel and focus.

The most impressive part of this whole video is that Bruce managed to fly that little quad all the way from NZ to the United States, all while not being detected! But seriously, Bruce nailed it as always. Well done sir!

Totally agree. Easy place for regulators flex their position of control and in turn their penalties are also outrageous. What has our common sense turned into (greed, power, no trust, not fair, superior…) 😵‍💫 Regulators feel the need to outwit their clients and when their rules don’t improve the situation they add more and more rules where in fact if a different direction had been selected thing may/could/would turn better and with less resistance with more understanding

Thank you for being a responsible risk assessment FPV character. X😂

Have you seen that guy fly?...ridiculous flying over people with zero skills to back it up

I'm glad you heard about the door plug blowing out in flight on a Boeing 737 max 8.I was wondering if you heard about it when it happened.Im glad you heard about it.Its unbelievable and it's worse than that.They even found loose bolts on the vertical stabilizer and rudder linkages.

I think your spot on Bruce! Well said 👏

I do love those curtains especially after 4:20! Great video FBI footage was epic and as I suspected:)

now... Bruce, what everyone really wants to know is..... does the carpet match the drapes? ;) thanks for the vid mate :D

No truer words spoken. and your exactly correct. once remote ID is enforced, unfortunately they will make more examples. take care and keep fighting the good fight.

PhillyDroneLife certainly looks like there is some irresponsible stuff going on and blatantly flouting rules that actually do make some sense. Even if he is faking what his is doing, he is encouraging others to do dumb things and that helps to bugger things up for the rest of us even more. He looks like he needs pulling in to line over his flying. The fine is dumb, just hit him with something that makes more sense. I fly within the sensible rules and ignore the rest so I'm not for over-regulation.

your all good mate, keep up the good fight.

I love your presentations!

They will make a sample out of him

That last bit with the Terminator was funny.

Your satire is on point Bruce. Start a go fund me for us to help Mikey out. The FAA can come get me bc I'm not doing any of that shit unless I ever do 107 work.

Best curtains in FPV!

I used ro fly at sunset park in Las Vegas which is directly across the street from McCarran international in Vegas Without ever having a word said to me by anyone, no property damaged and no one ever got hurt as a result.

I think they should give Mikey His own talk show...and pay him for all his beautiful shots of Philly...that most people would never see if it wasnt for him.. hes a good pilot..he not hovering over people or cars he is flying by them..and for the most part he is flying under the 107 rules even through he is just a hobbyist..he is great flyer and its all just for show and he edits just to make things seem more exciting...Keep up the good work Mikey...And think you bruce for all you do..

Bwahahaaa! Luv the camera conspiracy skit Bruce! Excellent performance! And you’re spot on with everything said!

As long as a person can fly without violating the life, liberty and/ or property of another person, what's the problem?

very good vid there bruce, especially skit, the trip to the headquarters to see.

Thanks for making this, while i dont agree with all of his flights 200k is insane to fine any one person for playing with an adult toy.

As Phillydronelife, Mikey is a comedy talent who should be doing stand-up. As Sillydronelife, Mikey was warned, and he's in self-destruct mode who should be doing "bird" according to many. What Mikey does in Philly will go into the databases of every Aviation Authority - and result in tighter legislation around the world.

Well said. I agree, It's all about control.

Fantastic Bruce!

Look at our fearless leader in the US. Enough said.

I couldn't agree more with everything you say, all these rules from various regulators, land owners etc are all thought up by some lazy jobsworth sat behind a desk with no clue about consumer drones. I would love to know where you got the info about the police causing more accidents something that really doesn't surprise me and can see it happening here in the UK now more and more of our police are using them. Great video!

I feel like the drone warfare we see today is why the FAA is terrified of these tiny quads

Honestly PDL would definitely not get in trouble if he didn't post such flying on social media. That is far bigger infringement than his flying plastic drone over city. I mean these DJI drones became so advanced during past few years, that you literally have to be dumb to crash. With all the avoidance sensors, GPS, auto-land features, its rare that camera drone drops straight out of sky like in early 2015 "phantom" days. If someone feels comfortable to fly drone over populated city and is confident enough, can just do it anytime. High chance is that nobody would know. If PDL didn't post/stream, most likely nobody would even notice he was flying, let alone how high or far he has flown. Just look what happened with Trevor Jacobs plane crash drama. He got in trouble with FAA because of posting too. What he did was dumb anyhow. His motive was to make stunt video for clicks and 💲. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. And lets not forget LR flight that got Wezley in trouble... In my opinion very safe, well planned and coordinated flight. Im not condoning to "do dumb stuff with drones, just don't post it". But breaking unreasonable regulations safely and keeping videos for urself is ok imo. Some drone pilots are breaking rules going over 400ft, some flying over city's, some flying long range. Pretty sure a lot of us hobbyists did some of these "violations" in the past safely, some hobbyists plan to do some of these in future, some do such flying daily. But most people are not that dumb to post proof of their own violations. It will be interesting to see how PDL case will turn out. 182K seems out of touch. FAA lost the plot, should focus on Boeing. Part 107 or recreational, flying over city makes no different risk profile for both. Seems like regulations are money making schemes. Money first, safety last... Concerning thing about hobby is that there are less and less YT creators posting videos of safe and responsible FPV flying due to chances of getting caught into aviation agency's eyes for flying in the middle of e'ffing no where (often grassy fields with trees) breaking unreasonable VLOS rules or BS rules like flying with expired license or breaking ridiculous overregulation like RID. I have feeling there are a lot of young FPV pilots, who would want to become content creators to share the joy of flight, but tend to keep videos for themselves (including me) because those risks/chances. Just having feeling to receive mail or call some day isn't worth it imo.

They need tobworry about real problems and thats drivers on the road

A balanced response........

You’re 100% correct X! 👍

I agree 100%. You seem to have skipped the situation where one manned aircraft gets to land on top of another manned aircraft in the ultimate of controlled air space ;) A compare and contrast of the fallout from that to this situation would be an interesting exercise.

1000% Agree with you 👍👍

Keep up the great vids

I'm sure this is exactly what is going on. The FAA is way out in left field on drones. They are the ones who need to be fined!

Great synopsis of the faa. 😊

The FAA will probably drop his fine to 1k if he agrees to do what they tell him to do. They scare you with giant civil fines. We dont have the same constitutional protections in civil court. Its not beyond a reasonable doubt like it is for criminal charges. You could lose your house. Your life savings. Thats a scary thing. And its a judgment as far as your credit is concerned so it ruins your credit forever unless you pay it.

I don't think they're smart enough to do this. They also now face the risk that they will lose in court.

'We've lost both engines,' pilot said before private jet crashed onto Florida interstate, killing two. Feb 10, 2024. But my drone is really dangerous if I fly it off my boat. I could do what lose it in the ocean. I flew my drone all around this harbor down here in Spain.I haven't had anybody bother me. One restaurant owner asked me to take pictures of his restaurant with a drone. Other people have asked me to video their boats.

I'm starting to think the burned down lipo charging store was huffle dust.

Well said....thank you. We need more good dudes that stand behind their beliefs reguardless of popular opinion. And much less polititians. how do we get tricked into enforcing rules that we are in opposition of...nobody likes paying taxes. Yet we scowl at our neigbors for being delinquent on property tax.....

I think a lot of drone owners are out ot touch also. The proliferation and potential threat drones pose is real, and if not controlled could get out of control real fast. Even with regulations, flyers are breaking the laws daily, flying in controlled air space, flying above 400', guy's flying out of los. I recently saw a video of s drone flying almost 60 miles from controller, which is awesome but highly illegal. Guy's like the philly flyer only bring more scrutiny to other uav pilots

Thank you Jet.... i'm glad you had THE BALLLLSSS TO SAY. "I'm guilty of it toooo" That meant the world to me... I've Always said.... if you steal and dont get caught, and go to jail..... YOUR STILL A FREAKING THIEF! MOST HERE FLY THE SAME WAY.... THEY JUST DON'T POST IT.. Grrrrrrrrrr Mikey aka PhillyZoneLife..... aka stu boy...... aka aka ...... aka aka Ya Sistas Assssss,.

We're lucky to have you

I'm so pleased Neighbours is back! 😂

I bet it's impossible to find a more reasonable person than Bruce.

I'd say more often than us needing regulations. Other people need to be informed that their freedoms end where another individuals freedom begins.

He ignored repeat warnings from the FAA over several years. This was not someone who was being non-challant, he deliberately ignored the FAA and their communications with him regarding what he was doing. I watched many of his videos and saw him do things that were violations of the existing rules. I even commented on several videos he needed to stop what he was doing. The fact he never caused damage or hurt anyone is irrelevant. I can get arrested and get fined for speeding even thiough I didn't kill anyone or cause an accident. I got fined because I broke the rules. Pilots have to obey the rules set by the FAA for flying aircraft and when they break them, they get fines or have thier licenses revoked. Because Philly is not a part 107 pilot, they can't take away his license, they can't take his drones or equipment. So, they only have the punitive option which is fines. And when Philly ignored each individual fine, they started adding up. He is a victim of his own ignorance, pomposity, and stupidity. Now that a legal entity is involved to actually apply the fines for the FAA. Philly is going to pay the piper. He had a chance almost two years ago to resolve this with the FAA and chose not to. I have no pity for him at this point, he is the poster child for how NOT to be a drone pilot.

Oh indeed Bruce 👏👏👏

Ask Ryan about the US politicians new bill in committee TODAY!!!! HR 2864

I only post sketchy videos that are over two years old. FAA Order No. 2004-5. Under the "stale complaint rule," which operates as a statute of limitations, an agency attorney must file a notice of proposed civil penalty within 2 years of the alleged violation.

When you than think about that the same "regulaters" regulate healthcare, pensions... etc😢

8 manned aircraft recently crashed into each other over a ~12 month period in Australia alone!

The problem I have with Mikey (and I enjoy his videos to be honest) is that he transfers the (admittedly tiny) risk onto uninvolved parties. Assuming the risk of failure is non-zero when we fly a drone, the regulations are designed to keep people underneath the drone safe if something should happen. We've all had ESC's fail. If that happens to me, my drone will hit some mud or maybe a tree. If it happens to Mikey it could come down on a car or some poor lady doing her shopping simply because of where he flies. Mikey himself will be fine ... it's at that point he unfairly transfers his risk onto someone else who doesn't necessarily consent to being hit in the face. The thing is, as unlikely as the scenario is ... what happens if everyone decides to do it? The tiny risk gets slightly bigger - at what point can the public expect to be protected from people like Mikey just doing whatever they like? I have no problem with the rules about flying over people, they make sense to me - I'm more concerned about the scope of the punishment which seems to be hugely out of proportion to the crime in Mikey's case.

Someone has been watching Camera Conspiracies...

Never trust a desk jockey that hasn't had a real job..

The wig is what sold this video for me.

The market regulates itself just fine. No need for centralized regulation.

I agree with everything you say! Although I reserve the right to disagree with you at some point in the future. What gets me is that I think the US FAA is mainly afraid of some smart/bad person intentionally flying a "killer" drone into some big crowd of people. The problem(s) is/are that things like remote ID make a good person worry about mistakenly breaking a minor rule and MAYBE get in trouble for it. Or, to worry about someone identifying them through the "app", locate them, then steal their equipment under threat of violence, or just pulling a harassing "Karen" on them. As you say, Bruce, sUASs are very safe - in the average person's hands. We just like the ability to remotely put themselves up into the sky - and FLY! And what REALLY gets to me is that some smart/bad person has every opportunity to do some bad thing and all the FAA "rules" aren't going to stop them. They could buy a used sUAS that doesn't have RID and do something bad with it, and, if they are smart, never have anyone know they were behind the event. They could even buy something brand new, figure out how to disable the RID module and AGAIN get away with some evil deed. Bad actors simply don't follow the rules! As I've heard in reference to Ukraine and the middle east conflict, off the self "dones" can be armed with and deliver deadly payloads to "enemy" targets. After each one of those attacks, do we see the drone operators found and captured? Well, I've never seen that! So, why does the US FAA think that making certain rules connected with sUAS will actually accomplish anything truly worthwhile? I think the only reason they are making these excessive, over the top, rules is to make people who hear the term "DRONE" and are terrified of this flying thing that is used (mainly by the military) to spy on people and/or launch missiles at them - to KILL them - feel safe! The rules aren't made to control the hobby use of remotely controlled flying craft, they are meant to make ignorant, scaredy pants people "feel" better. "We, the FAA, are protecting you from those evil drone flying people! You're safe now that we have these rules in place!" Yea, sure. : - \

My question is how can commercial drones fly over buildings and people but regular flyers cannot who have full control over their vehicle where the drone delivery is strictly electronic no one is watching where it flies. Something is really wrong when commercial drones can break the rules but regular people have to pay fines.

I agree.

ive always questioned who determines fine amounts, what do you think the fine should be for the drunk driver that crosses center line and hits motor cycle head on? resulting in 25 yr old biker haveing leg amputated, should it have been preportional to the 48 years that rider has lived severly crippled?

OK no body bags & no full air crashes (& not a Mikey case), that Daytona beach chopper totally minced the drone & just carried on flying.... yes but who should should be paying for the maintenance, inspection costs to get that chopper back in the air?. Even if the rotor hadn't been damaged aircraft inspection costs are horrific. Regardless of any legal charges should a drone pilot be responsible for any 3rd party costs incurred because of their flight?. You go high enough you are mixing with general aviation. Not a good idea. The problem is that this is being "normalized" by some RU-vidrs. There are Auditors flying over chemical plants "because they can!" (Plants that I'm not allowed to even take my car key into because it isn't intrinsically safe). There are plenty of drone crash videos starting a grass fire with the damaged lithium cells & people running across to stamp it out. We haven't had a combination video of these two yet but it certainly isn't impossible. There is the video of the guy on a bike with his drone in follow me mode when a school bus comes around the corner & hits the drone mid-windshield... again no bodies & only a broken drone but what if the driver had been surprised & had swerved instead & hit something. There is another video, flying at range, battery ran out, went into auto land & it came down in the mud beside a motorway bridge over the river. Zero bodies & just some muddy feet to recover.. but change that VERY slightly for it to try and auto land on the motorway & what could have happened?. How about video of crashed drone when pilot chased by a swan.... try that with FPV goggles on & no spotter. Who is going to look out for you when a swan tries to peck you in the nuts & you don't see it coming?. We say these things cannot happen but looking at what has happened you wouldn't believe it anyway. This isn't AI. This isn't fancy camera camera angles to heighten jeopardy this is normal droners having luck keep them out of trouble. The really positive thing is that these videos are are being shown as their experience can help others appreciate the silly things that can happen. The number of "that was lucky" are beginning to stack up. Something will happen soon when luck ultimately runs out. Take a silly one... 747, 4 engines, will happily fly on 2, engines designed to eat a chicken without exploding, take a 100g miniature drone & ingest it in an engine & it probably won't even notice (no crash, no bodies) but would you fly on that plane without an inspection?.... so is "I cannot do any harm with my little drone" actually true universally?. Would the inexperienced/inconsiderate toy drone pilot be willing to pay for an RB211 inspection?. I know you fly safe (to the spirit of the law & with suitable risk assessments your experience allows you to carry out) but you can see the FAA's concern about the competency of certain pilots (starting with the auditors & many RU-vidrs (like Mikey) who dispute the necessity for any rules). The main problem is that there are a minority of idiots who are spoiling things for the majority (& it isn't easy for the FAA/CAA to differentiate between them).

Nice video

Where was this energy regarding Casey Neistat? Very inconsistent.

Wow. I was under the assumption FAA never really persued it...just threatened him with crazy fines.

I agree 101%

The Drapes are AI....Bruce, I agree with your prospective on this. This situation is about as complicated as Mikie! Many excellent points brought up for thought!! Cheers my friend!

👍🏻👍🏻

So, in other words there is no victim and no harm caused, so he broke rules no law 😮

300 Trillian 😂 Love from Canada 🇨🇦 Bruce 😊 As Always your Spot On!

Bruce,that remote ID nonsense starts in exactly one month.Your right,that going to be a disaster.I haven't flown since last year,but when I do,I'm non complient and staying that way