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NBC News Reports US Will Require Registration For Consumer Drones (nbcnews.com)
Gizmodo and Engadget are both reporting (and both pointing to a report at NBC News) that the Department of Transportation is expected to announce Monday a plan to regulate drone use in the U.S., based on fears of danger to aviation. From the relied-on report at NBC News:
The federal government will announce a new plan requiring anyone buying a drone to register the device with the U.S. Department of Transportation, NBC news has learned. ... Under the plan, the government would work with the drone industry to set up a structure for registering the drones, and the regulations could be in place by Christmas.
That sounds like an impossible task, if it's to take in all remote-controlled flying devices that might be described as drones. About this time last year, Chris Anderson (ex-Wired editor, and now head of 3D Robotics) estimated that about half a million drones had already been sold in the U.S., and that sounds like an undercount even for then, given the many cheap-and-cheerful options. From suppliers like Banggood, tiny quadcopters can now be had for less than $20, though it's hard to think of them as a danger to aviation.
I'm going to be the rational minority in what will likely be a long, bloody thread, but I think this is a good move by the government. There were a few incidents, some in near my local airport where a drone came within the vicinity of operating aircraft. It sucks that a few bad apples ruined what would have been an enjoyable hobby, but it has to be regulated.
Much like everything in life, entitled morons do stupid things and everyone suffers.
Terrorists!
They're takin our Jerbs! Drones!
Is there anything Americans aren't terrified of today?
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Will I still have to register?
and/or nonsensical crap to scare rubes into voting Republican. Seriously, we don't even register guns in most places, you think we'll get drones registered? Then again, I could see businesses siding with this. Drone regulation is going to be important for several reasons. For example, put a camera on a drone and you can film a business pouring raw sewage into river water in violation of the law.
Still, I'm guessing this is a non-starter. Might rile up the base a little bit though.
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I predict a full scale run on (hex/quad)copters. I wonder if banner ads will start on monday with "BUY A DRONE BEFORE THE BAN" or "PRE-REGULATION DRONES FOR SALE". (yes, i know it's not a ban, but fear sells to ignorance)
I am sure there will be a annual registration fee to go with this mandatory registration. Of course when the police sees someone flying a drone without a license there will be a fine.
500k drones us nothing. We need reasonable, common sense restrictions on both.
Anyone who thinks this is beyond the pale has obviously never piloted a plain before. I don't care if built the aviation device yourself by hand with spare Christmas decoration parts, if you're in the air you need to do your registration, paperwork, and file a flight plan. "Model airplanes" hadn't necessarily required licensing (so long as you stay below a certain height), but other aspects of it (like radio-telemetry) do.
So long as we're getting to a point where someone's "drone" is enough of a hazard to the conduct of real air operations, it makes perfect sense to nip this problem in the bud.
If there's an unmarked drone flying around, filming people, and doing God-knows-what-else, I want do be able to file a complaint with the FAA about it.
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Its very sad that you don't appreciate being called a cow.
Well at least we still don't have to register our guns. THAT would be terrible! http://weapons.about.com/od/gunlaws/f/Do-I-Have-To-Register-My-Guns.htm
I'm sick of being babied to death. I don't want to live in a police sate nor a nanny state. It's acceptable to lose a building or two every once in a while for the freedoms we all aught to have. There are 150,000 people who die every day. 3,000 people a year in the United States is *NOTHING* to be worried about. The sad truth is the United States *MURDERS* more people and if we really cared abut life we would be defunding the military and police and eliminating capital punishment. Not adding more regulations that'll have zero impact on actual abuse. All these regulations do is increase costs and give abusive power hungry people jobs. People who commit crime generally don't even realize they are doing it or don't think about the consequences. Police can't stop crime generally speaking. They can only produce more of it (by arresting more people, or produce less of it by arresting fewer people). Our system makes no sense what-so-ever. It is based on an outdated concept that doesn't even work and yet we have the highest incarceration rate of any first world country.
I'll wait for the follow up article entitled "You won't believe how Elon Musk 3D printed an unregistered drone using this one weird trick!"
You have the right to a reasonable amount of privacy on your own property. The fact that someone bought a drone does not grant them the privilege of violating your right to privacy.
As an a/c quoting unnamed incidents near an anonymous airport, why would we believe you?
On the other hand, if you're the commercial pilot who posts a lot on this subject, and always wants maximum limits on drones, wanting airworthiness certificates, wanting drone flyer to have pilots license etc... ridiculous extreme nonsense. I understand that drones have taken away aerial photography contract work, but such a nonsense blanket requirement is silly. This idea that you can make drone ownership so onerous that only a few commercial pilots will fly them is selfish. You cannot rescue your business by trying to force cheap alternatives out of a market.
Model airplanes and helicopters have been around a long time, changing two rotors for 4 doesn't make the problem different. Ultimately small drones are no more of a threat than kites or toy helicopters, and requiring registration of them is not a fix for anything. Department of Transportation is asserting a specious argument in order to try to give it a legal basis for regulation of NON transport toys. But its the FAA's job to separate the toys from the aircraft, and regulating something as dangerous as a frisbee, as if it was one of Obamas killbots is ridiculous.
I'm going to be the rational minority in what will likely be a long, bloody thread, but I think this is a good move by the government. There were a few incidents, some in near my local airport where a drone came within the vicinity of operating aircraft. It sucks that a few bad apples ruined what would have been an enjoyable hobby, but it has to be regulated.
I agree it's a good move, but it's not really about a danger to aviation so much as about terrorism. Drones are almost as good as self-driving cars would be at allowing suicide bombers to blow things up without the need for suicide. Small payload, but can still be turned into a flying death machine, and very common. If you require registration, not only do you have a better chance at tracking the owner of a drone, but you can do more to run the owners through watch lists and add drone ownership as another weight in an equation or neural net that is trying to spot people the government needs to worry about.
I know there are privacy issues, but if you were in charge of antiterrorism efforts, you'd be crazy not to want this.
I would accept this as long as non-commercial RPV's of less than 3kg and no dimension, including diagonal, larger than 60cm were exempt such as the DGI Inspire. Those exempt RPV's would need to be operated under the current rules of line of sight, a max ceiling, and away from airports.
I would, also, define non-commercial as privately owned and earning not more than $500 a year. Meaning people could still take video, post it to You Tube and monetize as a hobby without onerous paperwork.
Rc aircraft has been around for a long time. Now suddenly hobbyists are a threat to people? Everyone figured thats why the redesignation with drones. Either rc aircraft was to be made sounding more dangerous or military aircraft to sound more tame. Ps, whats with the advertisements on mobile that cover up the submit button.
God spoke to me
They're doing this because they're worried about the dangers - not from commercial aviation - but from drones being used as assassination tools.
Slap some explosives and shrapnel on a drone, fly it into a press conference, like: This and this. Maybe use a gun, like this.
Why make it easy and effectively untraceable for someone to do this when you can regulate it?
Won't stop someone dedicated, who can learn and make their own drone - but it sure as hell raises the bar on them if they want to stay anonymous.
I think there's a lot of politicians and bigwigs scared shitless over the possibility of citizens circumventing their massive security apparatus with such a simple device. They certainly know damned well just how unpopular they and their policies are, and their existing security just doesn't have any good way of stopping these things - though they're certainly working on it.
This is the same bs as with guns. Those who will fly those drones near airport will make damn sure to remove any serial number or registration mark. Criminals don't give a fuck about registration / regulation.
$100/year kid. Per rotors. And +$500 if it has a camera.
So this won't be able to be enforced - you can bet the military will not register their top secret drones, and aircraft will be in more danger because of this.
How will people be able to use drones to carry out remote executions at schools now?
@#$#@23
Too many idiots with drones thinking they own the sky.
Ban them. I don't need a drone, and neither do you. Find yourselves a more rational hobby worthy of an adult human being.
I'm not sure how much of a problem there really is. I haven't researched it, but we don't hear much news on it so that leads me to wonder. Also an anecdotal story, but still: One of our students likes playing with drones and has a mid sized one with a camera. However, he lives near a military air base, and the airspace surrounding it is all controlled, as it is around any such installation. He doesn't want to get in trouble so he called them to try and obtain permission to fly his drone. ATC laughed and said given its size, they didn't care, if it was under 50 pounds they weren't concerned. They promised to talk to the base commander anyhow to try and get him permission, but felt it was a total non-issue.
So who knows, this may be more of a politicians wanting to Do Something(tm) and attacking some problem that exists more in their heads than in the world, particularly since it is easy and low impact.
This is a practice exercise for Obama's grand plan to confiscate all legally owned and constitutionally protected guns in the United States. After all, the two are about similarly dangerous. i.e. it's all about their misuse.
Maybe we need a constitutional amendment for drone rights, too, to shore up our other rights.
"I'll give you my drone when you pry it from my cold, dead hands." Because nothing beats a gun-toting drone!
It used to be that I was mildly interested in getting a cheap one in the vague future, but of course now I feel I need to buy as many large, high-end ones as I can afford! I'm an A.I. researcher, so I had always intended to experiment with them anyway.
My friends and I all have small hobbyist drones that we like to fly safely for recreation. We just talked about this controversial piece of legislation and decided we will never "register" anything with those overzealous clowns. The never ending overreach of power and control by the government here in the US needs to stop.
While something needs to be done to track drone use. I think its very hard to track down a drone operator who is causing problems. Unless then drone has crashed and is somehow tracked back to its owner. Maybe registration will help but as with guns or people driving around without registration or insurance. Unless they get caught, they tend to carry on for a long while.
As an amendment to this, bird will need to register their hatchlings.
Drones and swarms of them, even without some easily carried ounces of explosive substance, can take out a passenger jet on takeoff by getting sucked into a jet engine and disabling it at a critical time. Drones do need to be regulated, and don't be surprised if the maximum penalty for failure to do so is far worse than having an unregistered gun!
So let me get this straight: You have to register a small flying device because it poses danger to people. But if you have a gun that can kill people you do not.
I have an idea: Take this regulation, replace every word "drone" with a the word "gun" and then you have a gun regulation.
That way the NRA will fight for my right to have unfettered, unregulated access.
You can have my drone when you pry it from my cold, dead hands!
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
the Department of Transportation is expected to announce Monday
It's about time someone did that. Damn thing always sneaks up on me.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Actually, you technically DO need a license for standard 72 MHz R/C stuff. It's just that the license is basically shrinkwrap.
Let's have some common sense like this and a little less of the hyperbolic emotional circlejerk.
Yeah, because someone who's planning to kill someone with a drone will definitely register it and ask permission to do so.
Hey thats the logic behind gun control
It removes some of the low hanging fruit so that only higher levels of risk mostly need to be worried about. This goes for both drones and guns.
And there is decent evidence to suggest that increasing the hoops someone has to jump through does help reduce crime:
* http://www.armedwithreason.com/debunking-the-criminals-dont-follow-laws-myth-2-0-how-criminals-respond-to-gun-control/
'Murica... let's ignore the ever worsening incidence of actual deaths in almost weekly mass shootings and instead regulate a RC hobby that has thus far not caused any deaths... makes sense... amite?!
>drones
The article shows a small quad copter with a cam attached. I picture a drone as something the size of what the US military uses or a bit smaller. What happens when "drones" become the size of a matchbox car and available for 20 bucks at Walmart?
Uhhm. The last time I checked the Department of Transportation was not part of a legislative body empowered to write or pass laws.
I would be interested in what set of laws gives them such wide powers of regulation. I'm pretty sure that they're going to need congress on this one if they want to prevent an overturn down the road. Otherwise they're just like Mob enforcers and as much as we all like to trash the government here in the US we have checks and balances. Do I think there should be legislation involving RC Flying Machines? Yes! Do I think registration should be part of it? No!
The summary writer clearly has a fundamental misunderstanding of what the government considers a drone.
A remote controlled quad copter with a camera, operated within sight of the pilot, is not a drone.
A drone is a vehicle operated out of sight of the pilot, or that operates autonomously.
there's no federal authority to do this, therefore it won't happen!
Great. This will be Obamacare for drones! Think of the limitless possibility for stupidity and over-reach!
Next they will want you to register your flight simulator games.
What could possibly go wrong.
...is a lust for unlimited power and control, slowly and cumulatively obtained with false appeals based of protection of the innocent and/or vulnerable.
"for the children", "to protect women", "to protect seniors", "to protect passengers on planes" are all variations on this theme that are meant to trick the general public into surrendering more freedom and resources by falsely implying that some minor bit of abstract freedom is being surrendered for concrete immediate protection for us and our vulnerable loved ones at times and situations where we do not feel in control (like when we are passengers on planes). The most important thing for government in these arguments is that the public is encouraged to see the matter in some imaginary future, out of context, and without comparisons to other risks. The public is NEVER encouraged to consider the risks of the to-be-regulated thing relative to other risks the government is not regulating, nor are they offered a pallet of many regulatory options. The public is given an abstract "danger", encouraged by a big-government-friendly press that can be counted on to hyperventilate on the "shocking" and "terrifying" DANGER, accompanied by statements of the "moderate" and "common sense" regulations proposed to make everything better "for the children". Most so-called journalists will do no stories comparing risks, highlighting the creeping loss of freedom accompanied by reminders of all the good things that happened with less regulation and which rarely happen now, nor do they do reports about whether the benefits achieved from the surrendered liberty will actually occur with documentation of the previous results.
How many planes have been struck by birds? Of those, how many have been downed by them with loss-of-life? (the planes are designed to survive individual bird strikes and there is so much redundancy that even a plane striking an entire flock of very large birds (the most-unlikely, statistically miniscule case) is actually survivable (like any accident, it MIGHT not be survived, but clearly modern airliners are far safer than most things human do). Any aircraft that can be downed by a small drone can also be downed by a birdstrike and is therefore already not certifiable for paid passenger service.
How many planes have been targeted with lasers? Are lasers registered with the federal government?
How many planes (in all of history, in the entire world) have been struck by drones? How many have been downed by such a collision?
How many car crashes occur every year involving a drunk driver? About 30K people die in the US every year in such crashes. Do we require all cars and or alcohol-laden beverages to be federally-registered?
A large number of people actually die every year falling from ladders. We do not require all ladders to be federally registered.
Lots of people die every year in swimming pools. We do not require all swimming pools to be federally registered.
Everything that is registered eventually becomes licensed; the argument is always some version of: "you cannot efficiently enforce the regulation without knowing who is complying and who is not". This argument always makes sense to the public once they have accepted the regulation.
Everything that is licensed eventually has a fee attached; the argument is always some version of: "these specific people are doing something that drives-up the cost of government because more people and systems are needed. Why should everybody pay for that? we should make the people who are involved pay for it." This argument always makes sense to the public once they have accepted the license requirement.
Everything that has a fee and involves a small portion of the public will see that fee raised to exclusionary levels. Governments never have enough money to pay for all the things politicians promise, and taxes that hit the majority of voters are difficult. As a result, anything that can be portrayed as unsavory can be assigned a "sin tax" a
I once had a toy helicopter where you spun up the helicopter blades using an external motor then released a button and it flew up a few feet before coming down when the helicopter blades got too slow to sustain flight.
Would this require registration?
I'm sure you could design something similar that went up tens of feet before coming down - again, in a totally uncontrolled, no-RF/no-FCC-jurisdiction manner.
Subject to weight limitations you could put a camera or even a weapon on it.
Imagine if a bad guy used a "flies up 50 feet then comes down" type of non-controlled craft an put a couple of computer- or remote-operated laser-powerful-enough-to-blind-someone-permanently on it. He could go to a public event, launch the thing, then when the computer or laser-operator detected that the target was within the sights fire the lasers, resulting in the target being permanently blinded in one or both eyes.
By the way, yes, I know this is far easier to say than do. Even if such a weapon isn't practical today it probably will be within 10-20 years.
Getting away from the weapon aspect, one reason people don't like drones is the fear of photography. Substitute "laser weapons that have to be intentionally fired" for "a bunch of cameras that are recording in all directions for the duration of the flight" and you are talking something that (except for the "going 50 feet in the air based only on how fast the helicopter blades were spinning when it took off" part) could be done today.
Back to the question at hand:
Would such a device be considered a "drone" for legal purposes?
I would argue "no," in that it is neither being controlled nor is it converting any non-motion energy such as a battery or chemical propellant into motion-related energy. I would go so far as to compare it to an ordinary rock someone throws into the air, which is obviously not a drone for legal purposes.
Even if it were drawing energy from a battery or propellant I would argue that a device which is neither operated by person nor controlled by electronics or any other "intentionally decision-making device (such as a mechanical altimeter which, when a certain altitude is reached, causes a change in flight) is by definition not a drone.
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"LameDELTETHISness filter encountered:"
I tried to use the word contDELETETHISrolled too many times and hit that filter. I had to change it to "operated." That's lame.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
In US, already, so many registrations: ....
- vehicle registration: cars, trucks, limos and taxis, planes and boats
- people registration: armed services people; (selected service); voter; ACA insurance; immigrants; law, medical, tradesman, engineer licensing.
- animal licenses: pets, farm, zoo.
- businesses register for health inspections: school cafeterias, restaurants, breweries, package food producers, meat producers, dairy....
- other: guns, microsoft OS licenses, paypal or amazon 'one-touch' registration, warrantees,
What is so impossible about registering few million drones? Even if water pressured rocket toys are defined as 'drones', the number of registrations is far fewer than what we have done so far. What is so impossible?
For now probably RUINING a hobby MILLIONS in the US enjoy! RC We've been SAFELY flying RC planes for decades because we fly AWAY from crowds, in controlled airspace, etc, but, now thanks to these idiots screwing around with a 50-500 dollar TOY they have no idea how to control, we'll get lumped into the same category as "drones". Requiring registration (fee), insurance(fee), license(fee) just to enjoy our hobby. Again, thanks a lot you morons!
So, you need a registration for all of the following (Really short list off the top of my head...)
- A Car
- A business
- To be able to sell life / home insurance
You do NOT need a registration for :
- A semi-automatic rifle capable of killing many people in a small period of time.
Welcome to 'Murika! We believe in FREE- DUMB! *facepalm*
Your mind is like a parachute. It works best when it's been opened.
I dont know how it is in the US but here in Australia the shelves of the toy stores are filled with flying machines of all sorts with names like Air Hogs and and Fast Lane.
There are even people out there trying to use various parts to build LEGO models that can actually fly off the ground.
More laws for the citizens to pay for and the criminals to ignore.
The favorite buzzword of crackpots, libertarians conspiracy nut and conservatives who sincerely believe in that a world without limitation is best for everyone because the Invisible Hand knows all, sees all and floats all boats... until it doesn't then there's always a handy scapegoat to be sacrificed at the altar of sacred economic cycle.
Look out! They are coming to take our drones!
That's right. Most people have no clue how much trouble we're in. The longer people ignore what's in their face the consequences get more dire. good links.