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New U.S. FAA rule requires drone owners to register by Feb 19
- tomswartz07 11y agoThe article does not link to the FAA's website. Here's the link to the actual FAA page: https://www.faa.gov/uas/registration/ https://www.faa.gov/uas/registration/ It appears that registration opens on 21 Dec, 2015. Further, if registration is done before January 20, 2016 the $5 registration fee will be refunded.
- DennisP 11y agoSo now, model airplane hobbyists who've been doing the same thing for decades can be penalized with "fines of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment for up to three years," if they don't realize they have to register their balsa wood RC airplanes.
- tjohns 11y agoRules change. That's why you have organizations like the AMA, who can educate their members. (And you need to be an AMA member to use many of the model aircraft fields, anyway.) And even ignoring that, this topic has been on the national news quite a bit recently.
- fluxquanta 11y agoKnowing model airplane enthusiasts, I bet getting a real registration number that they can put on their models will only add to the fun of making the model as realistic as possible.
- bigiain 11y agoNot just register, but register every single one of them. I've got 4 or 5 rc gliders in my garage and half a dozen or more kits or collections of parts to build more, as well as 5 quad copters that'd all fall under these rules. At the height of my slope combat phase, I was probably averaging building 2 or 3 new slope soaring gliders every weekend. And I had friends who were _way_ more prolific than I was. I wonder just how scalable their new "drone registry" is? It's easy enough to keep track of 747s and A380s, but whatever system they use for that was unlikely to be designed/specced for "webscale" type growth (and given their "$5 is the same price as we charge airliners!" comment, I wouldn't bet against this being exactly the same system/database)
- lightbulbjim 11y agoIt's worth noting that you register once and then mark each aircraft with your registration number[0]. You don't need to register each aircraft. 0: https://www.faa.gov/uas/registration/faqs/#use https://www.faa.gov/uas/registration/faqs/#use
- Glyptodon 11y agoSomehow this really angers me.
- snerbles 11y agoI know why it angers me - it's effectively executive action, taken long after the deadline given to the FAA by Congress. Furthermore, the FAA appears to have completely ignored industry and hobbyist input with this absurdly low registration weight.
- presidentender 11y agoYou're not the only one.
- yc1010 11y agoSo now people have to register toys they own.... The anger you are feeling is the screws being tightened a little tighter. Everything nowadays is regulated, controlled and monitored, we in the west are not free, especially in "the land of the free" And some beuracrat(s) at FAA just guaranteed themselves job security for long time
- threeseed 11y agoExcept that they aren't toys. They are flying blades and we've already seen situations in which they have interfered with lives/property being saved. And if you are so angry at regulation then go and live in China. I would highly recommend Beijing this time of year. Just remember to breath in deep and taste the freedom.
- didgeoridoo 11y agoFor the record: you are holding up China, a communist dictatorship, as a shining example of free markets and lack of regulation. ...I guess it's an improvement from the similarly-logical "go live in Somalia" meme.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- god_bless_texas 11y agoI guess I'm glad they're taking some kind of action. As a pilot of both single engine airplanes and "drones", I definitely see the argument from both sides. Let's see how that website holds up at lunchtime on Dec 25th!
- Someone1234 11y agoWhat surprises me is is the minimum weight requirement: 250 grams. That's well below a weight that could reasonably be considered a danger to aircraft or people. Just for comparison purposes, a McDonald's Big Mac weighs 215-240 grams without wrapper, so with a wrapper if you turned a Big Mac into a drone, it would likely require registration. The real question is, what is their endgame here? Just send out notifications? It isn't like drones have transponders yet(?). I like the FAA but this seems misguided and unworkable. Plus $5 is significant when some drones this impacts only costs $30. Hopefully the FAA has birds 250+ grams register too, just for consistency. In particular as birds kill an order of magnitude more pilots than drones have (have drones ever taken down a plane?).
- pricechild 11y agoA burger wrapper caught on a real helicopter's rotor can induce scary vibrations & some loss of lift. Keep the burger & wrapper please.
- 33W 11y agoTime to register burger wrappers! </s>
- andys627 11y ago250g is large enough to do damage
- loeber 11y agoSuppose a 250g drone fails mid-air, hypothetically at a height of 100m, and falls freely. At terminal velocity, it's a lethal projectile. Have no illusions about the damage that can be done by small things falling from a great height, or travelling at a high speed in general. The 250g weight is entirely reasonable -- I would actually claim that it is quite generous.
- smackfu 11y agoHeh, they actually do that calculation in the task force report, from the max allowed height.
- cooper12 11y ago> Failure to register can result in a hefty penalty, including civil fines of up to $27,500 and criminal penalties of up to $250,000 and three years in prison. > "The goal is not to be punitive but to get people into compliance," FAA Deputy Administrator Michael Whitaker said. These two sentences don't seem to mesh for me. Even if they don't plan to actually prosecute any violators (yet), just the threat of that is ridiculous. I guess it's just another tool in the arsenal of prosecutors if they decide they don't like you. Edit: The second quote was removed from the article.
- omni 11y agoI think the idea is that you can achieve compliance through fear of punitive action without ever actually having to punish anyone (in an ideal world). Before law: "I'll just fly my drone around this airport, it's not like I'll get caught or anything." After law: "Crap, now if anything happens this is gonna get traced right back to me and my life is gonna be ruined, maybe I shouldn't fly around this airport like a moron."
- lyondhill 11y agoThat line of reasoning seems to be in line with the ATF's firearm laws. I am not sure it solves the problem, if someone is planning to commit a crime they will use a unregistered drone just like gun crimes.
- omni 11y agoThe target isn't people intentionally trying to down planes with drones, it's people ignorantly flying in restricted airspace without actually meaning to do any harm to anyone.
- bjt2n3904 11y agoAfter law: "Crap, now if anything happens this is gonna get traced right back to me and my life is gonna be ruined, maybe I shouldn't <register my drone> like a moron." People willing to break one aspect of the law are generally willing to break other parts as well.
- nqzero 11y agothis registration requirement is absurd on many levels, but the pinnacle is that it holds even if you fly only above your own property
- tomswartz07 11y agoA good number of idiots do fly 'only above [their] own property'. The issue is that they fly much higher than 400' above their property.
- JustSomeNobody 11y agoThat's the problem. If people had only flown at designated places (RC parks ie), this would never have happened.
- tibbon 11y agoAs someone who enjoys flying drones, I don't mind registration- I just want clarity. Recently I was going out with some friends to the Boston Harbor Islands. I wanted to take a small Parrot AR drone out there, to fly around 25 feet in the air, to capture some group photos and check out some neat angles of military ruins. Yet, I find things like this (https://www.faa.gov/news/fact_sheets/news_story.cfm?newsId=14153 https://www.faa.gov/news/fact_sheets/news_story.cfm?newsId=1...) on the FAA site that indicates I can't fly anything Class B airspace. There's stuff about applying for a Certificate of Waiver or Authorization, which seems needlessly heavy. I find things that say things like, "Community-based guidelines require recreational operators to give notice for flights within 5 statute miles of an airport." I attempt to contact Logan's tower, and get bounced around between literally 10 different people... all equally confused. It feels really odd to call an airport about this, and I have a sinking feeling that this is a good way to get on some watch list, so I'm quite careful with my words. Eventually, I get in touch with the Assistant Director Airport Operations Airside who responds that 'Massport does not have jurisdiction of that area and cannot give approval for the use of the drone. That approval must come from the FAA local ATC since the area you are looking to operate the drone in falls within their Airspace.'. I spoke with him on the phone as well, and he was super nice and indicated that he was hoping they'd figure all of this out soon as well, because he owns a drone too. Sites like this (http://fromwhereidrone.com/can-you-fly-your-drone-within-5-miles-of-an-airport/ http://fromwhereidrone.com/can-you-fly-your-drone-within-5-m...) make it sound super easy and casual to get permission... but I found the opposite. Class B airspace covers basically every major city in the US. Additionally, I couldn't fly because all national parks have had a ban since mid-2014... so even if the FAA allowed it, the Boston Harbor Islands (which are technically a national park, through a joint venture with Massachusetts) I couldn't have legally flown. I am 100% about safety for these things. I think there should be height limitations, but also reasonable allowances. I wouldn't mind if the GPS lock on the drone kept it below 50 feet (treetop level) in places like this. Anyway, I had to spend a few hours realizing not only that I couldn't fly on the islands, but legally I couldn't fly almost anywhere around here... including my own back yard which is 4.5 miles from Logan.
- Glyptodon 11y agoThe 5 mile limit for airports is absurd.
- grendelt 11y agoDoes this apply to RC planes and helicopters too? Or is this only for the oh-so-scary "drones"?
- wmeredith 11y agoWhat's the difference? [serious]
- tomswartz07 11y agoQuadcopters ("drones", ugh) are unable to maintain their altitude if there is a power failure. If one or more of the motors fail, it falls like a brick. Airplanes, however, are much different in that they could softly and easily glide back to earth after a motor fails.
- pc86 11y ago> Airplanes, however, are much different in that they could softly and easily glide back to earth after a motor fails. Yes, the whole way to the scene of the crash. I'm with you that these two things should be classified and treated very differently, but let's not pretend that if the power dies on a model airplane there's no danger.
- tomswartz07 11y agoYou're correct. Having no power in a model airplane is definitely an issue. My main point being, however, it's arguably far easier to manuver an airplane after motor failure than a drone/quadcopter.
- fryguy 11y agoIs motor failure that frequent of a failure mode? I feel like complete electric failure (out of range) is much more likely in which case it will still fall like a rock?
- eykanal 11y agoThe comments here really surprise me. My dad's a pilot, and I've heard from him firsthand how drones are a very serious problem for airplanes. Comments like "this is just one more example of tracking" or "I can't believe I have to do this even if it's only for my house" seem to be said out of anger rather than from serious consideration of the issues with drones. Your $30 drone can very easily cause someone else's $1,000,000 airplane serious damage, and as drones get more sophisticated and more capable the danger will only increase. I want to say "Just because you can make it doesn't mean you can use it irresponsibly", but people will take issue with my use of the words "can't" and "irresponsibly". It's probably easier to say as follows: when you're playing in the sandbox, you play nice with other kids. Here, when you're playing in the air, you have to play nice with other things in the air. The fact your toy is tiny and easy to use doesn't change the fact that you're still playing in the same sandbox as everyone else.
- jsprogrammer 11y agoHow is the dollar value of the aircraft relevant here?
- eykanal 11y agoIt's not. I was trying to point out that it's more important to think about who else is in the the sandbox rather than how much you paid to get in.
- pc86 11y agoI think it is relevant to a point. $30 is an incredibly low barrier to entry. It means you're much more likely to have an issue than you would be if the cheapest drone you could buy or make was measured in thousands of dollars instead.
- ctdonath 11y agoAn hour's earnings can destroy a decade's earnings. That tends to make some people understandably nervous to the point of lobbying lawmakers to threaten some with serious penalties for toy/hobby activities.
- JoblessWonder 11y agoIt seems like a LOT of people here didn't read the actual report. I'm skimming through it, but the most interesting thing in here is that the limits are based on only one line of reasoning: "what would cause death or serious injury due to a UAS (drone) and a person on the ground." They said that there wasn't enough data to support a rule based on anything else. "The Task Force ultimately agreed to use a mass-based approach to determine an appropriate category of sUAS to recommend for exclusion from the registration requirement. This was based upon the probability of a catastrophic event occurring (i.e., death or serious injury) due to a collision between an sUAS and a person on the ground. Because of the lack of data on UAS-aircraft collisions, engine ingestion, propeller, and rotor impacts by UAS, the probability of a catastrophic event occurring due to those events was not part of the consideration. This approach best satisfied the Task Force’s concerns about safety and provided a minimum weight threshold for registration that is easy to understand and apply and would therefore encourage compliance. The formula considered was identified to the group as a standard aviation risk assessment formula used in consideration of manned aircraft safety."
- 1024core 11y agoIs there any verification of the registration? Here's a hypothetical situation: a guy with a drone has a pesky neighbor he doesn't get along with. So he "registers" his drone in the neighbor's name; takes it to a nearby airport and lets it fly around over there and crash. Now the neighbor's in trouble, and has to defend himself from these hefty fines.
- ocdtrekkie 11y agoWell, you have to pay the registration fee with a credit card. My guess is, they keep enough of that information on file to prove whose card made the payment.
- Glyptodon 11y agoJust buy a prepaid with cash and register it to your neighbor. It's really hard.
- ocdtrekkie 11y agoCan't a credit card processor determine if a card is a prepaid or not? If they're using it as a verification step, they'd probably want to disallow those.
- Glyptodon 11y agoIf they disallow them how's a 13 year old going to register their drone as required?
- ocdtrekkie 11y agoAdult's credit card, probably? I assume the FAA would like to tie drones owned by minors to responsible adults somehow. We haven't seen the form yet though, mind you.
- bjt2n3904 11y agoI'd go one step further. What's preventing someone from flying a drone without registration?
- warfangle 11y ago"Regulation bad! Disruption good! BRB defecating in the sandbox." - HN groupthink
- dang 11y agoPlease don't comment like this here, but rather express your view substantively. We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10733394 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10733394 and marked it off-topic.
- thescriptkiddie 11y agoDamn, I thought the model clubs won this debate 50 years ago. What's the excuse this time? Terrorists making remote controlled bombs? Creeps taking aerial photographs? Kids having fun outside instead of doing their homework? Bloggers keep bringing up interference with air traffic, but that's completely irrelevant. Models are required by law to stay under 500 feet, and civil aviation is required to stay above. Even if there was a collision, it would do no more damage than a bird strike. And birds don't know they're supposed to stay away from airports. Kites, model rockets, and laser pointers are all more dangerous to commercial aircraft than model aircraft.
- sliverstorm 11y agoI gather many drone operators have flagrantly violated the 500 foot flight ceiling. Perhaps it's more of an issue now because in the days of RC planes operated line-of-sight, you inherently had a tougher time flying high & far than today with live video feed and long range controls.
- thrownaway2424 11y agoIt also used to be a requirement that you knew how to fly the aircraft, which wasn't much easier than flying a real airplane, and in the case of R/C helicopters was actual harder than flying a full-sized manned helicopter. With the latest multicopters and even some of the electric fixed-wing craft, any moron can keep the thing in the air. Hence the current wave of trouble.
- thescriptkiddie 11y agoFixed-wing models have been idiot-proof for a long time. You can buy a beginner's kit at any hobby store, and they're much easier to fly than a multirotor. I don't think accessibility is responsible for the recent popularity of multirotors, I think they're just more interesting because they're unlike anything full-sized.
- thrownaway2424 11y ago
- code4tee 11y agoModel airplanes have been around for ages and are generally used by very responsible operators. Local airports and the FAA often have a good working relationship with the local model aircraft club. The issue with "drones" (which are really just a type of model aircraft) is a wave of irresponsible operators. The regulators aren't looking to regulate the space because they were bored and looking for something to do. They are looking to regulate the space because there are too many idiots out there causing problems at the moment. If people are going to get upset at someone they should be upset at the people breaking all sorts of existing regulations and causing the FAA to step in to try and get things under control.
- ocdtrekkie 11y agoI see very little wrong with this simple registration step. As a drone owner, it costs me a minimal charge, doesn't impair my drone's operation with onerous rules. (Some were considering things like geofencing being MANDATORY!) It merely asks me to tag my drone with a number, which isn't a big deal at all. I'd argue this has been actually a fantastic example of the government working in moderation. They involved drone manufacturers, commercial operators, and hobbyist groups directly in the discussion process, you can see it throughout their documentation. The community was well-invested in this entire process. They've avoided any sort of crazy burden that would kill the drone industry, but they've offered a clear step to say that they're watching, and put in a basic framework that, while imperfect, gives them a starting point in an investigation.
- jemfinch 11y agoI can literally manufacture an unregistered firearm in my garage, but now anyone with a flying toy heavier than eight ounces must register with the federal government? The over-regulation here is insane.
- Rebelgecko 11y agoOne thing I haven't seen discussed is that the registration process is only open to US citizens. Am I misunderstanding something, or did the FAA just make citizenship a requirement for flying a $20 quadcopter in your backyard?
- cryptoz 11y agoNo, it seems like anyone can do it, without any relevance to your citizenship. I think the fancy new website is the only part that currently limits to US citizens, but that seems only temporary until they fix it. > Q. Who is required to register on the new online UAS registration website? > A. Only individual recreational or hobby users who meet U.S. citizenship requirements are able to register their unmanned aircraft using this new streamlined web-based process. This new, faster and easier system will be available for other UAS owners soon. https://www.faa.gov/uas/registration/faqs/ https://www.faa.gov/uas/registration/faqs/
- Rebelgecko 11y agoLater on they say that for foreign nationals it's only a certificate of "ownership" , not a certificate of "recognition of registration". I'm not sure what the difference is. However it looks like permanent residents are lumped with citizens when it comes to being allowed to register.
- ufmace 11y agoI've read a few pages on this, and everything still seems pretty unclear. Does this mean anything airborne, no matter how small and low-power? Exactly what counts as a "drone"? A paper airplane? How about a balsa-wood glider? The little quad-copter toy drones - they're powered, but don't seem like they'd be able to go over 100ft or so. It seems pretty reasonable to register the ones that can fly reliably over a few hundred feet, out of easy eyesight of the operator, maybe faster than 10-20mph or so, that sort of thing. But I'm a little disturbed by the apparent lack of a lower limit. It may sound absurd to be fined for not registering a paper airplane, but exactly what part of this says explicitly that it's not required? I'd hope we know better than to trust Government agents not to over-reach in ways that go against all common sense.
- ChuckMcM 11y agoOver 9 ounces. So no paper airplanes don't count, nor do the mini-drones that are like 3" on a side.
- simoncion 11y agoSo, first, read this sub-thread [0] for a bit of history. Second, here [1] is a summary of the guidelines from the AMA. Third, the full FAA rule can be viewed here [2] (PDF warning). [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10733635 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10733635 [1] http://amablog.modelaircraft.org/amagov/2015/12/14/ama-and-the-faa-registration-process/ http://amablog.modelaircraft.org/amagov/2015/12/14/ama-and-t... [2] http://www.faa.gov/news/updates/media/20151213_IFR.pdf http://www.faa.gov/news/updates/media/20151213_IFR.pdf
- superuser2 11y agoWill this apply retroactively to RC model aircraft, or only products that are marketed as "drones"?
- roosterjm2k2 11y agoEvery argument FOR this is made moot by the fact that you dont have to register ultralights...