U.S. Will Require Drones to Be Registered
- Thread starter ringolong
- Start date
ringolong
Well-Known Member
This will not stop people from endangering people during flights. Anyone of us could use "The thing just flew away uncontrollably. There was nothing I could do!" if they found a drone crashed somewhere it should not be, and they got to it before the pilot.
I think mm has it correctly. Educate, educate, and educate.
I do see this as the same as breaking any law, and should be treated the same way. If you get away with it then you got lucky, but if you get caught then you have jail time, fines to pay, or whatever the penalties are. Do not make everyone suffer for the few that do not use common sense when flying. There will always be some that follow the rules, and some that will not.
Everyone that sees me probably thinks I am breaking some kind of law or spying. I was actually asked if I was spying once. I am certain all of those thoughts existed because of how multi rotors are articulated on television.
I will happily register my multi-rotors if I have to, but I know this will not resolve the rare so called close calls that have taken place in the past.
I think mm has it correctly. Educate, educate, and educate.
I do see this as the same as breaking any law, and should be treated the same way. If you get away with it then you got lucky, but if you get caught then you have jail time, fines to pay, or whatever the penalties are. Do not make everyone suffer for the few that do not use common sense when flying. There will always be some that follow the rules, and some that will not.
Everyone that sees me probably thinks I am breaking some kind of law or spying. I was actually asked if I was spying once. I am certain all of those thoughts existed because of how multi rotors are articulated on television.
I will happily register my multi-rotors if I have to, but I know this will not resolve the rare so called close calls that have taken place in the past.
Exactly! What is one more law to break? You'd be better to spend half the money educating people where they can and can't fly. People who are following the laws generally put their name and address/phone number on the craft (as AMA requires/request). I actually had someone in the USAF ask me if I had my "drone" to spy on people, I then had to explain how terrible it would actually be for spying (this thing does not have the $100k worth of optics on it that you see on predators). If someone is not going to follow airspace laws why should they register it? Also how can they prove it was teh owner piloting the craft at that time? "Well it went down in the woods and I have been searching for it, someone else must have found it before me and flew it into that restricted airspace and crashed it." The benefits of registering are too small to spend all of this money to do it for consumer UAVs (and they do NOT have the authority to regulate non-commercial flight).
AMA's Response:
Dear Members,
As you might be aware, in a press conference on Monday October 19, 2015, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) announced its intent to require registration for certain small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS).
Led by Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and FAA Administrator Michael Huerta, a concept was laid out calling for the creation of a task force to develop a plan to implement the registration process.
AMA was represented at the press conference by Government and Regulatory Affairs Representative Rich Hanson who offered comments on behalf of our organization. Representatives from the Association for Unmanned Vehicles Systems International (AUVSI) and the Air Line Pilots Association also provided input. A video of the press conference can be found here.
AMA has also been invited to participate in the task force which has been charged with completing its work by mid-November 2015.
The DOT is looking at the full spectrum of sUAS that would be subject to registration, and AMA agrees that registration may be appropriate at some level; however, before the process can be established, AMA believes that a threshold must be identified that will determine which platforms, what aircraft with what capabilities, will require registration and which will not.
AMA believes that traditional model aircraft, as well as the “toy-type” drones with minimal capability would fall below the threshold and not be subject to the registration process.
In a prepared statement released yesterday, AMA was clear in its position that any required registration process“should not become a prohibitive burden for recreational users who fly for fun and educational purposes and who have operated harmoniously within our communities for decades.”
AMA does not and will not support any proposal that calls for the registration of any sUAS that fall below an established threshold and is resolute in its position that all forms of traditional model aircraft must remain exempt from the registration process.
This is true. When it comes to prosecution, there really won't be enough evidence to do anything about it if a registered "drone" is found somewhere it shouldn't be... unless the pilot is caught red-handed or clearly captured on video. But in either of those cases, registration doesn't matter because they have what they need already. I was rear-ended on the freeway a few months back and when I pulled to the side, the car that hit me started to pull over, then took off. They were clearly drunk and driving at a really low speed (way below the speed limit), so I followed them and called 911. I read their license plate off to the dispatcher and took a picture of their car/license plate. The dispatcher told me to quit following them because it was dangerous. An hour later, the cops showed up and met me in a parking lot. The cop told me that unless I could positively ID the person driving, without any doubt, they can't do anything. He said he'd go to the house where the car is registered and talk to the owner, but unless they straight up admit that they hit me, nothing can be done because I didn't get an extremely clear view of their face (it was dark and I stayed behind them because they were swerving all over the place). He said that even if the car was at the house and had damage on it and the gender and hair color/style was the same as I was describing, they can't do anything without a positive ID because there is no way of proving, without a reasonable doubt, that the owner of the vehicle was behind the wheel.
I already knew all this though because my father was a very good criminal attorney (before he passed away) and I've been around criminal defense attorneys and prosecuters all my life. The courts won't even waste their time filing charges simply because something that was registered to someone was involved in a crime... guns, cars, etc. unless they could positively place the person at the scene with other evidence... camera footage, eye witnesses, confessions, etc. The person committing the crime doesn't even need a good excuse (I think it was stolen, I lost it in the woods and someone else found it and flew it, etc.). They just need to keep their mouths shut and not say anything and hope that no one (or camera) saw them.
Again - if it doesn't cost the government much to run the program and I don't have to pay unreasonable fees to register my multirotors... then whatever. But in the end, it will cost a bunch of money and they will recoup some of it by aggressively going after people for not registering - and there's no legitimate gain. Certain fireworks have been illegal for 20+ years and people are still doing stupid stuff with them and blowing off fingers and starting things on fire. They need to educate as much as possible and then find a better way to protect manned aircraft from whatever it is a small multirotor could possibly do to take them down. And also figure out how to protect against the birds that fly into planes engines all the time. I'm telling you, they should start requiring people to catch any birds that build nests on their property and tag them so that if they find one flying in restricted airspace, they can do nothing with the information... but at least they'll have a reason to hire more lazy people and build more crappy services and then have more reasons to fine and prosecute people for not complying with rules that are only made to give government workers something to do.
**These are just my opinions. And I worked in state government for 8 years, so I have first hand experience watching programs like this be developed by people who have no clue what they're doing. Not all government workers are lazy or unqualified, but most government agencies really promote a culture that encourages people to be lazy and useless and reward stuff like creating programs and rules and laws just for the sake of showing that they are doing something... but not actually even beginning to scratch the surface on finding and solving the real issues... because that actually takes some thinking and hard work... and most real issues aren't hyped up enough to scare people for no good reason... so you don't get a lot of political praise for solving them.
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Hahaha, it is ileagal to set fireworks off in Ohio without a permit for years, when you bought fireworks here you had to sign a paper that stated you'd not set them off here. last year they got rid of that law and called it "the liar law", as everyone who bought them just about set them off here haha. Cities and townships even ignore this law, it is still a law, but nobody really cares, but I digress hahaha. I agree 100% all this talk is mostly about showing progress whether there is any or not. Finding the device is going to be no good without proving without a shadow of a doubt that the owner was flying it, unless they have a good heart and feel guilty enough to right out admit it.
LoneRCRanger
Well-Known Member
This is the same thing as gun control to protect those that don't have guns. The bad guys could give a damn because they are already breaking the law, whereas the law abiding citizens obey the law and fall victim to those that don't. Hence gun control does not work anyways. Regulating drone isn't going to work either. The cops have just so much time to enforce the law and not much looking up in the air looking for what's flying. Besides if it flies away how do you know who launched it if it lands out of the cop's reach?
Well there are many projects working on detecting and bringing consumer UAVs/UAS down, it is a REALLY hard problem. I had a discussion with a guy who worked for a private contractor and was writing a paper for the DOD on the issue. We came to the conclusion that RF was not going to work to detect them.
Eh, it is not even that as much. Look at the rest of the world, they came up with regulations pretty quickly in comparison and have about the same percentage of idiots flying, it is political as much as anything. I am somewhat disappointed in the AMA's way of supporting the commercial side of things, but I don't see the commercial sector being hurt much. Hobbyst are going to be hurt as now it is not some cool STEM project for students, or people wanting to learn.
Not necessarily, the FAA really does not have the authority to make you get a 333, though they say they do. Class G airspace is unregulated, err or was now that they call multirotors aircraft that means that anywhere they can fly is class e and therefore regulated, though I don't know how they's try to enforce this and how far that could extend.
Picture shows airspace classifications, but a general rule of thumb is if manned aircraft can't fly there and there are no airports then it is class G, but now this could be taken to mean that your living room is no longer class G as a multirotor can fly there and it is considered an aircraft now, so the FAA now can regulate your living room.
doug micheletti
Well-Known Member
The only gun control registration that has ever had any effect on crime is a concealed carry permit.
Idiots on cell phones kill people daily. Where is the proposal to stop real carnage. Overstepping civil liberties to solve imaginary problems does not know boundries. If successful here - what is next.
Can someone define the actual benefit of this to me? I guess I'm a little slow as I don't see any at all.
One last thought... here in sothern cal there is almost no place where you can legally fly anything. What do they expect the result of that to be. Makes Me a criminal hobbiest?
What about driverless cars - they operate in the same airspace as our copters. Will they be under faa rules too!
Idiots on cell phones kill people daily. Where is the proposal to stop real carnage. Overstepping civil liberties to solve imaginary problems does not know boundries. If successful here - what is next.
Can someone define the actual benefit of this to me? I guess I'm a little slow as I don't see any at all.
One last thought... here in sothern cal there is almost no place where you can legally fly anything. What do they expect the result of that to be. Makes Me a criminal hobbiest?
What about driverless cars - they operate in the same airspace as our copters. Will they be under faa rules too!
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It makes it look like the FAA are doing their job.
We should not passively wait while they take our ability to fly with only reasonable restrictions, pretty soon the hobby side will cost so much that it is even more exclusive if the FAA have their way. Calling your congressmen will help more than most people think.
We could, but I am afraid the lack of involvement would speak more than the involvement if we can't get better organized. The AMA has some say in the matter as they are on the committee, and number of members say as much as a petition.
Skybird
Well-Known Member
Not to go off topic, but in Flori-Duh you sign a paper saying that you will only use fireworks to signal distress, it's an old loophole and they have been using it for a long long time. Crazy huh!