U.S. Will Require Drones to Be Registered

So I posted a long post in General Discussion, wasn't sure where to post, HD just turned me onto this thread, anyhow. I'm understanding that the draconians in washing ton are serious about including the chineese toy quads in the same registration, in fact might even try to force registration at time of purchse, will they get the cooperation from China? Are they nuts? They seriously expect people who can barely afford a Phantom to pay registration fees that comercial companies that do AP and what not are paying? This just isn't right, some of the quads are just toys and can barely reach 200 feet. WTF those idiots in the Freedom Attacking Agency should rethink this and do some thinking, their stupid task FORCE, notice the word, needs to do some research if they are capable of that, and do some classifying based on cost capability or whatever. I mean let's face it like I said in my post, the only reason why they would want someone with a micro quad that can't threaten aircraft to register is because they can track you down if some idiot accuses you of invading their privacy or stalking them, there are alot of paranoid cucoos in the U.S. "At a hearing on drones last week before a House Transportation Committee panel, Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D-Ore.) said registration made sense. He recalled an incident in his home town, Springfield, Ore., when residents reported that a “peeping Tom” drone had been peering in their windows.
“Ultimately, it crashed,” DeFazio said. “Well, police have no idea who was operating that thing. We have no way to track it back.” This is in the Washington Post Article about this issue.
So now the cops respond to their idiotic allegations and all they have to do is get your FAA reg # from the video that the idiot took of your alleged trespass flight, even-though in your defense there were some winds who were forcing your quad close to their property, but since your required to put your FAA number on your quad, then again how many people who do this for fun will actually comply with registration, and how many cops out there are going to waste their time enforcing it? What a danm mess, If only those quads had stayed away from the CA. fire, If only that guy had not "crashed" his Phantom on the White house lawn, if only there weren't so many alleged "incidents threatening"the skies, then all this wouldn't be necessary and we would just have to live with the airport no fly zone. If only, sigh. BTW did you hear about the crazy woman who attacked and assaulted a teen in CT. for flying to close to her? It was caught on video and posted on Y.T.
 
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doug micheletti said:
I agree about the media stuff - when was the last time you saw a report that said:
Today - 200,000 Drone flights were conducted legally with no problems and nobody was annoyed....
You will never see it - only negative stories that can be sensationalized. Basically - we are a nation ruled by nuts, legislating for nuts. It is only the nuts that are important - it does not seem to matter what they have to take away from the rest of us to try to control the uncontrollable. When they find they could not affect change - they just pile on with more.... Somehow, we seem to all buy in and re-elect these guys so it must be what we want?
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Not me I haven't voted for either side of the coin in years, last time was for Ron Paul and since he was not a media candidate he didn't stand a chance. I have lost all faith in the political system, it's corrupt to the bone. the bums should be tarred, feathered and if someone lights a match well let's just say I won't blow it out lol.
 
Skybird said:
What a danm mess, If only those quads had stayed away from the CA. fire, If only that guy had not "crashed" his Phantom on the White house lawn, if only there weren't so many alleged "incidents threatening"the skies, then all this wouldn't be necessary and we would just have to live with the airport no fly zone. If only, sigh.
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I totally agree with you on this.

Registration fees are currently $5.00 per multi-rotor. Since they have to develop a new system to maintain, and house millions of records, then that cost will most likely go up.
 
For you AMA members checkout the oct. 2015 "Presidents Perspective" on page 6 of Model Aviation. I'd send a link but for some reason I can't bring it up. In a nutshell it appears they are throwing us under the bus. They initiated the contact with the FAA. Instead of reaching out to the community they are asking the Federal Government to decide how our hobby should be restricted. Doesn't sound like very good advocacy to me. We are on our own. Call your congressman and bitch loudly and often.
 
HDtallrider said:
For you AMA members checkout the oct. 2015 "Presidents Perspective" on page 6 of Model Aviation. I'd send a link but for some reason I can't bring it up. In a nutshell it appears they are throwing us under the bus. They initiated the contact with the FAA. Instead of reaching out to the community they are asking the Federal Government to decide how our hobby should be restricted. Doesn't sound like very good advocacy to me. We are on our own. Call your congressman and bitch loudly and often.
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They are trying to help hobbyist by being on the "task force", but basically leaving anyone in the commercial side to fend for themselves. They really have little pull accept that they can talk some common sense to the "task force" that meets a few times.
 
GJH105775 said:
They are trying to help hobbyist by being on the "task force", but basically leaving anyone in the commercial side to fend for themselves. They really have little pull accept that they can talk some common sense to the "task force" that meets a few times.
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I'm not convinced, at this point, that they are helping the multirotor community. From what I've seen and read they appear to be at odds with hobbyists. At least as far as the response on this forum shows
 
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ringolong said:
It seems like I did read something about them being more concerned about traditional models. Ill see if I can find it.

Found it.

"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."

http://amablog.modelaircraft.org/amagov/2015/10/21/amas-response-to-the-u-s-dot-announcement/
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Saw that, still don't know where the DOT thinks they have the authority to do this, or even the FAA for that matter....
 
HDtallrider said:
That is so simple and sensible that I am embarrassed for not having thought of it. The downside is that because it does make sense the Feds will never adopt it. :(
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Hahaha, well put. Also they can't turn a profit from it and expand. They want to really make it look like they are turning the "drone" world upside down so it makes everyone feel safer.
 
Bottom line is eventually some idiot is going to take down a plane or helicopter & the FAA will have a "Cover Their Butt" in place to show they did their part.

A friend told me recently he was at a local AMA club weekend fly and a guy walks up and says he just bought a $2000 phantom & want to use it to fly over houses & take pictures for his real estate business. My friend said you can't just go flying over houses without permission AND he should get insurance. He said the guy just turned and walked away. It's just a matter of time before something serious happens with geniuses like this flying quads.
 
indept said:
Bottom line is eventually some idiot is going to take down a plane or helicopter & the FAA will have a "Cover Their Butt" in place to show they did their part.

A friend told me recently he was at a local AMA club weekend fly and a guy walks up and says he just bought a $2000 phantom & want to use it to fly over houses & take pictures for his real estate business. My friend said you can't just go flying over houses without permission AND he should get insurance. He said the guy just turned and walked away. It's just a matter of time before something serious happens with geniuses like this flying quads.
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Very good example of idiocy. That would be the same guy who wouldn't bother to learn the FAA regs anyway. This is where we rely on Darwin. Enough of these guys get fined and arrested and the word will get out. Hopefully before there is a serious incident. The AMA needs to get way more proactive on this. Take a page out of the NRA book. Be vocal. Push education. Work with manufacturers. Make a larger presence on the Hill. I would contribute.

BTW indept. Welcome to the forum!!
 
HDtallrider said:
Very good example of idiocy. That would be the same guy who wouldn't bother to learn the FAA regs anyway. This is where we rely on Darwin. Enough of these guys get fined and arrested and the word will get out. Hopefully before there is a serious incident. The AMA needs to get way more proactive on this. Take a page out of the NRA book. Be vocal. Push education. Work with manufacturers. Make a larger presence on the Hill. I would contribute.

BTW indept. Welcome to the forum!!
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Thanks for the welcome.
The problem is that most don't even know what the AMA is as far as educating people goes. A lot is common sense which a lot of people don't have.
 
I cannot see the Chinese online stores being concerned by all this - after all the only thing they do not copy...is any law that stops them making a US$$$$$$$
 
indept said:
Bottom line is eventually some idiot is going to take down a plane or helicopter & the FAA will have a "Cover Their Butt" in place to show they did their part.

A friend told me recently he was at a local AMA club weekend fly and a guy walks up and says he just bought a $2000 phantom & want to use it to fly over houses & take pictures for his real estate business. My friend said you can't just go flying over houses without permission AND he should get insurance. He said the guy just turned and walked away. It's just a matter of time before something serious happens with geniuses like this flying quads.
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Helicopters are a lot more at risk than planes as they fly lower and are more vulnerable to damage. You have a better chance that half the passengers in a 747 be struck by lightening after they get off than a quadcopter bringing one down. As far as the laws; we already have laws that if followed will protect manned aircraft, the registration is supposed to hold people accountable, but if someone is stupid enough to fly at an airport do you think they's care to register first? To hold people accountable is nearly impossible.


mm said:
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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GJH105775 said:
So many problems in that video (thanks for sharing BTW).

§ 91.15 Dropping objects.
No pilot in command of a civil aircraft may allow any object to be dropped from that aircraft in flight that creates a hazard to persons or property. However, this section does not prohibit the dropping of any object if reasonable precautions are taken to avoid injury or damage to persons or property.

Apparently the FAA don't know their own rules (not going to use the term laws). You legally could mount a firearm on a UAV and fly it somewhere that nobody could be shot (like in an enclosed bullet resistant room).
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I have seen a video with a gun attached to a quad, on You tube. I found a link to it on a gun forum.
 
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