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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.
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.