Drone Registration. What's it really about?

Wow, it's great to see a bunch of passionate people and interesting to hear both sides of the coin, those for and against registration.

As a helicopter pilot I want to know that when I'm flying, I'm not going to smash into a drone because someone wants to get up close and personal to my aircraft. Or because they just don't realize that I can fly at any altitude I want (10ft-10000ft). Aeroplanes have to be at least 1000ft unless taking off or landing.

It was mentioned that there has been zero major accidents and zero fatalities, while this is true at the moment I guarantee its only a matter of time before its history and I sure don't want to be the first or ever part of it. That way of looking at it is why the aviation industry is so fiercely regulated, because that was the mentality until a catastrophic accident killed lots of people. Why wait for that when we can learn from our previous mistakes and be proactive.

The aviation industry is built around a safety first environment and I believe the same should be for drone operators. A registration system would go towards accountability and therefore safety. I also think that an operators license or at the very least awareness training should be conducted and this shouldn't be a one off it should be annually or biennially. Rules and regs change and we forget things so it's always good to brush up on your knowledge.

You guys are effectively operating in our environment and we welcome you just as long as we can make it as safe and possible but we need your help for that. Drones are awesome machines and aren't going away any time soon but we should be moving to make it safer.

Are there any apps to say where you're flying?
Rotorblades thank you for the concise explanation. I agree 100% but, I suck at explaining myself.
"You guys are effectively operating in our environment " : for me, this is the crux. This is not some frontier of new airspace, this is where professional people have developed a highly sophisticated and safe environment to do something completely unnatural. Because they actually are up there, in the thing, and could fall to their death, I think as drone pilots we must defer to them on all things safety. it's not like they aren't consulting and involving the UAS industry in the regulatory development process.
I live in Australia (we have strict but fair rules in place now), and use ozrunways (OzRunways) for info on nearby airfields and NOTAMS. No good outside Australia though :(

neX:)
 
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If they recover a bird all they have to do is contact the manufacturer with the serial number and presto they know who owns it. So again what is being accomplished?
And that also assumes Compliance and doesn't include used and home built units.
 
I am so encouraged by almost everyone here. The Constitution isn't dead yet, and the evidence is right here in this thread. Is there any lawyers, marketing, public relations, and executives willing to come together to fight back and not let them take this away from us. The facts and data are on our side. Right now, we just have a few politicians to hate everything about what we do, and they are controlling the narrative. Everyday people on the street love seeing my drone fly and always stop and talk to me about it...and I'm in southern california lol. If we don't do something, they are going to crush us. Any thoughts?
 
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@Rotorblades - I beg to differ - Please show me in FAR the validity of your statement "Or because they just don't realize that I can fly at any altitude I want (10ft-10000ft). Aeroplanes have to be at least 1000ft unless taking off or landing."

thats an excellent question which part in particular are you not completely happy with?

Try 91.119 for starters
Then check 91.515
And if you want to see the night stuff I think that's 91.177

I could have been a little more specific with the congested and non congested areas but I'm sure you'll get it.
 
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thats an excellent question which part in particular are you not completely happy with?

Try 91.119 for starters
Then check 91.515
And if you want to see the night stuff I think that's 91.177

I could have been a little more specific with the congested and non congested areas but I'm sure you'll get it.
Pretty clear, pretty simple.
I wish all those who think they can rage against this and succeed would sit back and think for a minute about the industry we are entering
 
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It is a pleasure to welcome you to the 3DR Pilots forum RotorBlades. I hope that you will take advantage of the benefits that come with membership and that you will be able to use the forum for the exchange of innovative ideas and as a resource for current developments in 3DR UAV’s.

At the very least a safety course similar to the hunter safety course given by NYS to anyone of age looking to start game hunting. Education is the best thing that could happen to this hobby. With all the brand new rc owners flooding the hobby it is sorely needed. And speaking of age, I assume there will be a minimum age requirement for UAV's that require registration?


Thanks! For the welcome! I have a few ideas for drone development that I would like to discuss but I'll make sure to give the site a good search before I repost what everyone else already has. I might end up reviving some old threads though so apologies in advance lol.

Education is key in my opinion! I'd love to get some aviation related stuff thrown together and make available to you guys, I'm about to start an instructors website for flying but can easily have a site spin off specifically for drones.

As for the age thing, probably, or at least be accompanied by an adult. Kids aren't going to want to do the safety stuff etc unless their parents or guardians are made responsible for their actions. Like little Jimmy bringing down a passenger jet because he wanted to see how high it would go is only going to seriously hurt your industry. You're always going to get idiots who think they know best and a register isn't going to help fix that, same with guns, same with driving etc etc...

Like I said it's a great industry and great to hear how enthusiastic everyone is to go and fly, so why don't you guys all get together and start developing safety courses and educating the masses? You could also pressure the manufactures and the retailers to help I'm sure they would. This is showing how mature most of the members are in this field and that you're serious about developing a safe environment that's fun and exciting. Because the first time someone takes out a jet, drone registration would probably sound like a great idea before a total ban. Just playing devils advocate there :)
 
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I have a few random thoughts i'm just going to throw out there for the sake of conversation.

  1. Safety and responsible decision making can not be regulated and must come from us as individual operators. (I'm speaking to those trying to earn a living with a drone)
  2. Law enforcement should have carte-blanche approval for shooting down drones (be it by bullets, buckshot, water from a fire truck, or some super top secret laser gun thingy) flying in, near, or around any airport, federal building, prison, hospital, forrest fire, etc; you know, all the places that common sense says you shouldn't be flying. Don't document each scenario, because they'll come up with hundreds of them. Just leave it to law enforcements best discretion. When law enforcement downs a few drones, drones will stop showing up places they shouldn't be real fast.
  3. No licensing, registration, safety class, fines, or even risk of being shot down by law enforcement will ever stop a bad actor from his plight. You can't stop bad people from doing bad things when they want to. Hence...gun violence.
  4. Accidents are inevitable, they are a part of life. We do our best to avoid them, we always strive to make good decisions, and they're tragic and sometimes heartbreaking when we have them, but we don't let them dictate our lives, and we don't live life in a constant state of fear.
  5. We as operators need to come together somehow and do some educating of the public ourselves (however I do believe the public is not our problem as long as we are respectful of them, its the officials who are lining up to get a piece of us). We should be producing campaigns telling stories and facts on all the new job being created, how we are now doing things never before possible, how kids are being self-taught on software development and engineering, how 14 year olds are creating robots and UAVs all around the world, how farmers now have options for crop dusting (a guy in giant airplane or a few drones with zero noise or air pollution doing laps back and forth 24 hrs a day), or 17 year olds finding their passion for geo mapping...underwater...with sonar...on Mars, from an app they wrote themselves. These are the kinds of stories we need to be telling. People need to know that lives are being changed and lives are being saved with this technology. That its creating 10s if not 100s of thousands jobs from software development, to mechanical and robotic engineers, to communications, to sales, marketing, distribution, fulfillment, to new energy development (battery and solar), to designers, innovators, entrepreneurs and small business startups, and operators of all kinds.
  6. And my last point. When is the last time the government did anything right or remotely competent. I know they put 14 year olds out of business by making it illegal to shovel snow off their neighbors' driveway without a "snowplow permit". I know they have shutdown countless lemonade stands of seven and eight year olds for not having a business license; and after actually acquiring their own business license for their lemonade stand, was shut down again for not having been registered and inspected by the FDA. And I won't even begin to list the data on gun violence as it pertains to regulations and permitting or the corruption that comes from government interfering with the free market.
My apologies for writing all that. Chime in at will if you like.
 
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I have a few random thoughts i'm just going to throw out there for the sake of conversation.

  1. Safety and responsible decision making can not be regulated and must come from us as individual operators. (I'm speaking to those trying to earn a living with a drone)
  2. Law enforcement should have carte-blanche approval for shooting down drones (be it by bullets, buckshot, water from a fire truck, or some super top secret laser gun thingy) flying in, near, or around any airport, federal building, prison, hospital, forrest fire, etc; you know, all the places that common sense says you shouldn't be flying. Don't document each scenario, because they'll come up with hundreds of them. Just leave it to law enforcements best discretion. When law enforcement downs a few drones, drones will stop showing up places they shouldn't be real fast.
  3. No licensing, registration, safety class, fines, or even risk of being shot down by law enforcement will ever stop a bad actor from his plight. You can't stop bad people from doing bad things when they want to. Hence...gun violence.
  4. Accidents are inevitable, they are a part of life. We do our best to avoid them, we always strive to make good decisions, and they're tragic and sometimes heartbreaking when we have them, but we don't let them dictate our lives, and we don't live life in a constant state of fear.
  5. We as operators need to come together somehow and do some educating of the public ourselves (however I do believe the public is not our problem as long as we are respectful of them, its the officials who are lining up to get a piece of us). We should be producing campaigns telling stories and facts on all the new job being created, how we are now doing things never before possible, how kids are being self-taught on software development and engineering, how 14 year olds are creating robots and UAVs all around the world, how farmers now have options for crop dusting (a guy in giant airplane or a few drones with zero noise or air pollution doing laps back and forth 24 hrs a day), or 17 year olds finding their passion for geo mapping...underwater...with sonar...on Mars, from an app they wrote themselves. These are the kinds of stories we need to be telling. People need to know that lives are being changed and lives are being saved with this technology. That its creating 10s if not 100s of thousands jobs from software development, to mechanical and robotic engineers, to communications, to sales, marketing, distribution, fulfillment, to new energy development (battery and solar), to designers, innovators, entrepreneurs and small business startups, and operators of all kinds.
  6. And my last point. When is the last time the government did anything right or remotely competent. I know they put 14 year olds out of business by making it illegal to shovel snow off their neighbors' driveway without a "snowplow permit". I know they have shutdown countless lemonade stands of seven and eight year olds for not having a business license; and after actually acquiring their own business license for their lemonade stand, was shut down again for not having been registered and inspected by the FDA. And I won't even begin to list the data on gun violence as it pertains to regulations and permitting or the corruption that comes from government interfering with the free market.
My apologies for writing all that. Chime in at will if you like.
.... tempting. But no. Safe to say I disagree 110%.
:)
 
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Oh my god, the sky is falling, drones will cause all aircraft to crash! The polar caps are melting, earthquakes will cause the east and west coast to fall into the oceans!

Are we doing PRE-CRIME now? I thought that was just a Sci-Fi movie!
 
Oh my god, the sky is falling, drones will cause all aircraft to crash! The polar caps are melting, earthquakes will cause the east and west coast to fall into the oceans!

Are we doing PRE-CRIME now? I thought that was just a Sci-Fi movie!
... disingenuous much?
Concern for aircraft safety does not equate to us freaking out that all aircraft will crash.
I thought this sort of bizzaro logic was confined to right-wing radio shows...
 
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Old news and many things have progressed within the FAA since. So welcome to the land of bureaucracy and lawyers. Additionally Canada has a tenth of the air traffic as we do. I sure hope they could move faster. In fact the US has 3/5 of the global traffic. I'm pro FAA but also understand it's not a corporation with small board to report to. They can only do what congress empowers them to do. When it is business as usual no problem. Something new comes under the direction of the knuckleheads in DC.
 
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Old news and many things have progressed within the FAA since. So welcome to the land of bureaucracy and lawyers. Additionally Canada has a tenth of the air traffic as we do. I sure hope they could move faster. In fact the US has 3/5 of the global traffic. I'm pro FAA but also understand it's not a corporation with small board to report to. They can only do what congress empowers them to do. When it is business as usual no problem. Something new comes under the direction of the knuckleheads in DC.
Now with 800k drones coming online before the end of the year (majority in the US) has created shift in focus for the FAA from commercial to consumer. So understandable Canada and others will be ahead of the US.
Officials gearing toward more commercial drone use
 
For everyone concerned about registration, here is a great example for getting you membership to the AMA. They are an organization putting tremendous effort to protecting the hobbyist flyers. If your not a member please consider joining and understanding AMA.

You're receiving this email because of your affiliation with the Academy of Model Aeronautics.

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Academy of Model Aeronautics
Member Communication


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Friday, November 13, 2015
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Dear members,

I'm writing to provide you with an update on the U.S. Department of Transportation's UAS registration task force. As you may be aware, the task force met for several days last week and AMA's Rich Hanson represented our members' interests in all of the discussions.

We're limited in how much we can divulge about these meetings because all task force members agreed to a set of ground rules. These rules prohibit us from publicly discussing any details of the task force's internal deliberations. With that said, there has been some misinformation, as well as some inaccuracies surrounding this issue, so we want to provide you, our members, with as much information as we can while still respecting the integrity of the process.

During the task force meetings, AMA strongly argued for our members to be exempt from federal registration, as Congress intended with the Special Rule for Model Aircraft in the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012. This special rule states that the FAA does not have the authority to promulgate any new rules on recreational users operating under the safety guidelines of a community-based organization such as AMA.

AMA members have been flying safely for decades, and we made it clear that our members are not the problem. With our stellar safety record, AMA can be part of the solution, but our members shouldn't have to bear the burden of new regulations. Meanwhile, as our members know, AMA already has in place its own voluntary registration system.

For the new legions of consumer drone users who are not AMA members, we do think that registration makes sense at some level when UAS technology meets an appropriate threshold of weight, capability and other safety-related characteristics.

The task force's detailed recommendations to the FAA are scheduled to become public on Friday, November 20. AMA intends to make our views explicitly clear in these final recommendations and we will continue to advocate for our members to be exempt from registration if the final recommendations state otherwise. And once this information is made public, we will also be able to more openly and publicly address the registration proposal.

In the meantime, we encourage our members to submit comments on the FAA's registration proposal through the regulations.gov portal. Although comments were due by November 6, the docket remains open and the U.S. Department of Transportation has indicated that it will consider all comments received. To submit a comment, click here: http://www.regulations.gov/#!documentDetail;D=FAA-2015-4378-0022.

We thank you for your continued support of AMA and look forward to working alongside you on these important issues.

Kind regards,

Dave Mathewson
Executive Director

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For comments on this communication please email [email protected].
 
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