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> I suspect that within a few years, it won't be able to fly a compliant drone in the US without having your flight appear online. Unless it weighs less than 2

> I suspect that within a few years, it won't be able to fly a compliant drone in the US without having your flight appear online. Unless it weighs less than 250g - like many small FPV race drones, in which case it's exempt. Or you buy a motion control/IMU, radio, and other parts from Hobbyking [1] and build it yourself. Between MEMS IMUs, open-source flight control software, BLDC motor and lipo power density, flying vehicles that couldn't be built at any price 30 years ago can be assembled by anyone in their garage. I haven't built anything personally in the last couple years, but I'm concerned that my old fixed-wing builds will become illegal to fly, and that the promised $20 bolt-on transponders haven't materialized. [1]: https://hobbyking.com/en_us/aircraft/drones/flight-controllers-accessories.html https://hobbyking.com/en_us/aircraft/drones/flight-controlle...

haswell 4y ago
> Unless it weighs less than 250g - like many small FPV race drones, in which case it's exempt. A couple of notes/thoughts on this: Commercial drones like the new DJI Mini 3 pro still include Remote ID despite being sub-250g, most likely because it's possible to install a bigger battery and make it heavier. But I also suspect that bigger vendors will default to including this hardware because of the trend towards more and more tracking, i.e. the rule could change at any time. The other thing to note is that any commercial use of drones under Part 107 must comply with the Remote ID rule regardless of the drone's weight. This is further incentive for commercial drones to include it by default, as any drone that doesn't is automatically not usable in a commercial setting. Commercial use would include drone shots intended for sexier instagram posts, if those IG posts are monetized.
bri3d 4y ago
Ardupilot have an add-on transponder solution that should be compliant in some configurations, although the whole thing is a complete mess in terms of certification and the MOC documentation as there's a lot of uncertainty around the tamper-proofing requirements. You should be able to get your old fixed-wing builds updated. https://dronescout.co/dronebeacon-mavlink-remote-id-transponder/ https://dronescout.co/dronebeacon-mavlink-remote-id-transpon... https://ardupilot.org/dev/docs/opendroneid.html#opendroneid https://ardupilot.org/dev/docs/opendroneid.html#opendroneid I'm waiting to care until the deadline actually approaches.

haswell 4y ago

> Unless it weighs less than 250g - like many small FPV race drones, in which case it's exempt. A couple of notes/thoughts on this: Commercial drones like the new DJI Mini 3 pro still include Remote ID despite being sub-250g, most likely because it's possible to install a bigger battery and make it heavier. But I also suspect that bigger vendors will default to including this hardware because of the trend towards more and more tracking, i.e. the rule could change at any time. The other thing to note is that any commercial use of drones under Part 107 must comply with the Remote ID rule regardless of the drone's weight. This is further incentive for commercial drones to include it by default, as any drone that doesn't is automatically not usable in a commercial setting. Commercial use would include drone shots intended for sexier instagram posts, if those IG posts are monetized.

bri3d 4y ago

Ardupilot have an add-on transponder solution that should be compliant in some configurations, although the whole thing is a complete mess in terms of certification and the MOC documentation as there's a lot of uncertainty around the tamper-proofing requirements. You should be able to get your old fixed-wing builds updated. https://dronescout.co/dronebeacon-mavlink-remote-id-transponder/ https://dronescout.co/dronebeacon-mavlink-remote-id-transpon... https://ardupilot.org/dev/docs/opendroneid.html#opendroneid https://ardupilot.org/dev/docs/opendroneid.html#opendroneid I'm waiting to care until the deadline actually approaches.