I've been flying model airplanes, helicopters and other RC contraptions since I was 10 years old. Decades. I've flown, designed and built nearly everything out there, from pure (no motor) gliders to aerobatic planes, electric and turbine jets, helicopters and multi-copters --even an occasional RC blimp. One of my favorites are very high power-to-weight ratio 2 meter-ish gliders with thousands of watts of power. They go straight-up like a rocket and reach incredible speeds, well in excess of 100 miles per hour (youtube: F5B glider).

The preface is to say: I get it. I do it. I love it. And, I'll probably stay in this hobby forever. Having kids has a way to help with that.

Having said that, I also understand, in no uncertain terms, just how dangerous this stuff can be. I have seen many nasty accidents first hand. A small propeller spinning at 5K or 10K RPM can shred a hand or a face in horrific ways.

The idea of toy drones flying around town is a scary one. The FAA is right in wanting to exercise restraint and gradually walk into a sensible set of rules. The have been working very closely with the RC flight community in order to understand the needs and voice their concern as well:

http://www.modelaircraft.org/aboutama/gov.aspx

I love the idea of small inexpensive drones coming online to help firefighting efforts, disaster aid and such needs. Still, it has to be done right and it has to be done with safety in mind.

Small inexpensive model aircraft, even when they cost thousands of dollars, are not designed to the same strict engineering standards of full-scale aircraft in general aviation. Most of these devices suffer from catastrophic single-point failures in their designs. None of them are put through strict process control during manufacturing to ensure that such mundane things as cracked or "cold" solder joints don't creep into a batch. None of them are made with conformal or environmental coatings applied to circuitry. Not one of them uses rugged, vibration and environmentally-tested hardware, boards, wiring, connectors and batteries.

As an example of this, a prominent motor controller manufacturer recently produced designs that started to violently catch on fire and even blow-up under varied conditions. They have been reported to catch fire by simply plugging in a battery or in the middle of a flight. In a lot of cases people have lost helicopters costing thousands of dollars to this particular problem. However, in most cases, because the activity took place within the confines of AMA model aircraft flying fields not one person seems to have been hurt and no property (other than the model and electronics) was damaged.

Did you know that the LiPo (Lithium Polymer) battery packs these models use can also spontaneously catch fire and explode? YouTube search: "LiPo fire"

It's exciting to think of these little things flying about and doing all kinds of things for us. The reality, I think, is as far away as building a C3PO that actually works as it does in the movie. OK, maybe not that far, but nowhere close to reality. The legal and liability hurdles alone are massive.

Can someone make a quadcopter that can safely and reliably fly around buildings in a city with an acceptably low probability of failure, redundancy and solid engineering? Sure. But it isn't going to be anything like these little toys we are seeing in hundreds upon hundreds of youtube demos.

I believe that, once the FAA has a chance to sort this out there will be really good opportunities for very high quality, professionally designed drones. It'll be a few years though. And rightly so.