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Alex Lubko flies the fhspress.com drone. He is scheduled to fly at the upcoming rally to take aerial photographs. Photo by Sahara Peters.

fhspress.com's drone grounded for athletic events

There are still plenty of opportunities for the quadcopter to fly, starting with this week's outdoor rally.

By ALISON WATKINS
fhspress.com Photo Editor
Posted September 20, 2016

Have you seen photos from hundreds of feet up where you look like an ant!? Well, not for long, at least here at Foothill High School.

A new policy has been issued by the Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA, to restrict drones and quadcopters from flying above people.

The California Interscholastic Federation, or CIF, has imposed this policy with all the referees working high school sporting events. To ensure player and public safety, the referees stop the game and ask the pilot to land the drone or the home team forfeits.

At Foothill High School's first football game of the year in late August, referees asked that the fhspress.com drone stops flying over the stadium, but not before land the drone it got some cool photos first. The FAA has many other rules regarding drones and quadcopters, such as not flying over groups of people, stadiums or sporting events, and not going above 400 feet.

The fhspress.com quadcopter takes pictures at outdoor sporting events and around campus in general. We use these pictures for photography, art, and features in the yearbook.

The pilot this year is sophomore Alex Lubko, who has flown quadcopters for two years. This is his first year flying the school's quadcopter.

"The pictures look really professional from 400 hundred feet in the air, but if the rule is there for protection of the people then I won't break the rule," said Lubko.

In the 2015 yearbook, each sports page had an aerial photo. This year that is not a possibility, because of the new rules the FAA imposed trough CIF.

People have asked the yearbook staff if we’re flying the quadcopter this year or not. The answer is yes, but only where and when it's allowed.

"As tech becomes more mainstream there might be some changes as in when to use the quadcopters," said Bill Lum, the FHS athletic director and wrestling coach. "Just like how phones used to be taken away in school as soon as seen, now they are accepted as mini computers and semi-allowed."

ali.watkins@fhspress.com

FOOTHILL HIGH SCHOOL fhspress.com SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA