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.

Comments

Re:Good.

[nmb3000]

Treating a 30g copter with a 10m range the same as a 5kg copter with a 1km range will mean the death of whole industries that pose no threat to anybody.

Exactly.

I have no problem with trying to put some safety measures in place to prevent some catastrophic accidents or serious injury to bystanders, but trying to impose a mindless blanket regulation for everything is simply the wrong way to govern.

This toy is not the same and should not be regulated the same as this quadcopter.

Current aviation regulations are filled with rules that apply based various criteria. The type of aircraft, the weather, the number of passengers, the geographical location, the time of day, etc, etc. The rules are not there to stifle -- they are applied as needed where appropriate. Regulation of consumer items such as RC airplanes and quadcopters should be handled the same way.

I dunno, may be idiot politicians

[Sycraft-fu]

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.