“Exactly where is the line between an RC plane and a drone?”
RC was always line of sight and thus very short range in my limited understanding as a non-user just reading AMA materials.
When autonomous GPS navigation was introduced and available to the hobby buyer, that was the big differentiator for me, anyway.
Autonomous GPS means that a drone is limited only by fuel, geographic obstacles or bad weather, etc.
Back in the mid-2000’s some guy flew his little model plane from Ireland to the US using GPS!
That sure was fun, but it also opened up a Pandora’s box for bad actors whether simply malicious or terrorist.
Wow that’s impressive. Way back in 2003.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3145577.stm
The other new factor is First Person View (FPV -- permitting the pilot to see what the model "sees", even if out of sight visually).
Airborne FPV is a type of remote-control (RC) flying that has grown in popularity in recent years. It involves mounting a small video camera and an analogue video transmitter to an RC aircraft and flying by means of a live video down-link, commonly displayed on video goggles or a portable LCD screen. When flying FPV, the pilot's view is that of a would be real pilot on board the aircraft and as such does not need to maintain visual line of sight (LOS) of the aircraft compared with regular RC flying. As a result, FPV aircraft can be flown well beyond visual range, limited only by the range of the remote control and video equipment in use. FPV became increasingly common throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s.