Terminology

We use the popular term drone to refer to unmanned aircraft rather than the somewhat euphemistic and definitely clumsy terms UAS and sUAS as now preferred by the FAA.

It is clear that small drones intended to be operated within the line of sight of the operator must be considered separately from larger drones, intended to have a much bigger radius of operations. We call the smaller aircraft microdrones, and the larger ones machodrones.

Drones, for the foreseeable future will be flown only under the control of the ground operator. We use the acronym DROP (DRoneOPerator) to refer to this person and the term pilot to refer to a traditional pilot in the cockpit of a manned aircraft.