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NBC News Reports US Will Require Registration For Consumer Drones (nbcnews.com)

Posted by timothy on from the orange-tips-on-fake-guns dept.

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.

22 of 235 comments (clear)

  1. Good. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Good. by cayenne8 · · Score: 2

      I guess I might wanna go out and buy at least ONE drone before they require registration of them....

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    2. Re:Good. by aaron4801 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      OK, now define what's a drone and what's not.
      RC planes have for decades been exempted from other FAA rules, are they now caught up in all this?
      What about the micro-copters that can't fly outdoors if there's even a slight breeze?
      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.

    3. Re:Good. by dbIII · · Score: 4, Insightful

      RC planes have for decades been exempted from other FAA rules, are they now caught up in all this?

      In some places there have been strict rules on them for decades but sensible ones - a ceiling, restricted near airports and rules about line of sight. People using drones violating sensible rules is "why we can't have nice things" and how restrictive long lists of rules happen which I'll bet will rope in the RC planes as well.
      See also how idiots making a huge amount of noise about plastic gun parts are getting regulators busy over 3D printing.

    4. Re:Good. by nmb3000 · · Score: 3, Informative

      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.

      --
      "What do you despise? By this are you truly known." --Princess Irulan, Manual of Muad'Dib
      /)
    5. Re:Good. by cayenne8 · · Score: 2
      I dunno.

      I may not have money to buy xmas presents for anyone else but me....right now, I'm trying to stock up on guns, ammo and now drones!!

      :)

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    6. Re:Good. by WaffleMonster · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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'm not seeing the rational part of your argument.

      Should people register their knives because a few bad apples use them to stab people to death? Keeping in mind it is already illegal to stab people to death and a whopping 1500 people a year die each and every year from stabbings.

      It is already illegal to fly drones within 5 miles of an airport. If you were rational wouldn't you use statistical evidence to inform your opinion rather than reacting to specific events and assume with no evidence registration will solve a problem? What is the expected benefit of registering drones? Of the people who are already illegally flying drones within 5 miles of an airport what good do you expect it will do?

      Should laser pointers be registered too? I'm sure that'll stop asshats from pointing them at planes... I'm sure of it...because it sounds rational to me.

    7. Re:Good. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 2

      There is also the issue that both Constitutionally and according to the Air Commerce Act which established it, the FAA only has authority over "navigable airways", which means commonly flown interstate routes, including the areas around airports.

      Also being a Federal agency, the Department of Transportation only has jurisdiction over similar situations: interstate travel, etc.

      Federal agencies don't have authority over all roads on the ground, nor all parts of the air. That's the way the Federal government was set up.

      It doesn't surprise me that they're trying these unconstitutional rules again, especially in a Democratic adminstration. But they will fail again. The Constitution is what it is.

    8. Re:Good. by dbIII · · Score: 2

      What should "line of sight" mean when you're able to look out from the drone's cameras?

      It means that plane that comes from a direction out of the narrow field of view of the camera is not seen by the operator. In other words, a very stupid risk to take if there is anything else in the sky where it is being flown.

    9. Re:Good. by HornWumpus · · Score: 2

      They have dominion over absolutely everything the commerce clause can be stretched to cover.

      You have the constitution backwards. They can only do those things listed. All else is theoretically forbidden.

      Of course a liberal reading of the commerce clause and bang goes limited government.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
  2. Idiots ruined it for everyone by hsmith · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Much like everything in life, entitled morons do stupid things and everyone suffers.

  3. Big news, but not unprecedented by Etcetera · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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,
    1. Re:Big news, but not unprecedented by skelly33 · · Score: 2

      Registration doesn't solve any of the problems you perceive. The one thing it does is creates a barrier to entry to reduce the number of douche-bags flying around haphazardly. Though on second thought, making marijuana a controlled substance hasn't really reduced its usage, so more likely requiring registration won't make any difference at all. But one thing is for sure: I can't read the registration marks on a 747 in flight, much less an 18" quadcopter, soooo... good luck filing that complaint! It's a pointless publicity stunt to satisfy the cry for "somebody should do something!", even if that something is meaningless posturing.

    2. Re:Big news, but not unprecedented by Tailhook · · Score: 2

      Plains are hard to fly; they're big and mostly covered in brush and the aerodynamics are terrible. You can get one airborne, but it takes a lot of explosives and it's strictly ballistic after that.

      --
      Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
    3. Re:Big news, but not unprecedented by WaffleMonster · · Score: 2

      Anyone who thinks this is beyond the pale has obviously never piloted a plain before.

      I've piloted a plane around scenic plains a few dozen times if that counts. It was with an instructor cuz I would b dead otherwise.

      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.

      Why is this necessary?

      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.

      Why does it make perfect sense?

      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.

      Is there something that would stop you from doing so currently?

  4. Bull by Etherwalk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Bull by Etherwalk · · Score: 2

      It doesn't stop it, it makes it easier for an algorithm to notice "we should send an agent to interview person X, who disappeared in Syria for two years and now bought four drones and a little bit of fertilizer..."

    2. Re:Bull by thinkwaitfast · · Score: 4, Interesting

      There are youtube channels that show you how to build a plane capable of carrying a few kg for of $3 of parts purchased from the dollar store. It only takes a few minutes and $100 of electronics.

    3. Re:Bull by IronChef · · Score: 2

      And this is why I fear that parts suppliers like HK are going to end up on a hit list eventually.

      Trying to regulate radio controlled models is going to be about as hard as regulating any other dirt cheap consumer technology. For the regulation to be effective, it's going to have to be extremely heavy-handed. Then we'll end up in an endless cat-and-mouse game of workarounds.

      2-5 years from now your HobbyKing multirotor controller board will be sold as a generic robotics gyrostabilizer board, with no mention of flight. It will also be delivered without firmware. You'll have to find an illegal overseas torrent of the firmware file you need, and you'll have to flash it yourself. At this point you'll have committed multiple felonies, like every other person at your hobbyist flying field, but since "they" only go after the biggest offenders (and people that they need to charge with something), you'll probably be fine. Probably.

      Except once in a while, you won't be fine, because the eye of Sauron will turn to you. Then we'll get a news story about an "unjust" drone bust and it'll be discussed here.

      "14 Year Old Inventor Builds Unregistered Drone, Arrested by FBI"

      This story will happen when a kid does the exact same stuff that every other hobbyist does, but he flies his technically illegal drone too close to someone fussy. So maybe the kid's drone scares someone's show horse in their yard, and the horse owner calls the FBI, and then the kid gets jammed up, and we talk about it here and hope it won't happen to us.

  5. Re:ACTUAL reason by 0123456 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yeah, because someone who's planning to kill someone with a drone will definitely register it and ask permission to do so.

  6. I dunno, may be idiot politicians by Sycraft-fu · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

  7. Monday by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

    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.