The push for registration arrives in the midst of the holiday shopping season with drones a hot-seller: The Consumer Electronics Association has forecast 700,000 sales this year.
Advocates say registration is meant to bring accountability and enforcement of rules to users.
The drive has momentum: Aerospace trade groups like the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association and major retailers Amazon and Walmart, were part of a task force of 25 organizations that drafted recommendations. The FAA is reviewing the proposal but has not yet put it in place.
“I think that obviously the drone industry is moving very quickly and obviously from our standpoint we want to ensure the safety of our manned aircraft are protected,” said James W. Coon, an AOPA senior vice president of government affairs.
‘Unnecessary and unjustified’
The Academy of Model Aeronautics, which represents 185,000 hobbyists and was also part of the task force, isn’t in total agreement with the proposal.
AMA Executive Director Dave Matthewson said while the registration of unmanned aerial systems “makes sense at some level” for those outside of hobbyist groups such as the AMA or for commercial operators, the way the registration process was written would be “an unnecessary and unjustified burden” to the hobbyists in the association.
AMA members who register with the organization sign a form agreeing to abide by safety flight rules and are instructed to put their registration numbers or their name and address on radio-controlled aircraft.
“Unfortunately, the task force recommendations may ultimately prove untenable by requiring the registration of smaller devices that are essentially toys and do not represent safety concerns,” Matthewson said in a statement.
Noting the U.S. Department of Transportation plan to require the registration of small drones, the task force urged owners to register online or through a smart phone app for free and mark each unmanned aircraft with a registration number, or provide the drone’s serial number. Owners would receive an electronic certificate of registration.
Registration would apply to drones weighing 250 grams, or just over half a pound, and to owners age 13 or older. Owners would have to provide their name and address in a database. The task force also urged that the registration process include education on drone operations, such as the FAA’s “Know Before You Fly” campaign. The rules would not require registration at the point of sale nor U.S. citizenship to register, the recommendations said.
The Airline Pilots Association “feels strongly” mandatory registration should happen at the point of sale, according to ALPA President Tim Canoll. ALPA also was part of the task force.
“Making sure that UAS owners register their aircraft is vital to ensuring that UAS operators fly their aircraft safely in skies they share with airliners carrying both passengers and cargo,” Canoll said in a statement. “If UAS are registered, the (FAA) will be able to more easily enforce the rules that keep us safe.”
U.S. Department of Transportation officials had targeted putting the rules in place by mid-December. An FAA spokesperson, however, would not provide a date.
“We are working quickly and flexibly to move towards the next steps for registration,” FAA spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said in an email.
Too lightweight?
The weight threshold for registration, nearly nine ounces, is too light, said Randy Kastl, owner of The Hobby Shop near the Dayton Mall. A drone that size may be classified as a toy in many cases.
“A common crow I saw walking across my street the other day weighs way more than that,” Kastl said.
Coon, of the AOPA, said the weight threshold was determined using mathematical formulas if a small drone were to hit someone on the street. Still, he said, more research is needed and testing of drones is ongoing.
“We have a lot to learn,” he said. “Our No. 1 goal is protect the national air space system.”
Kastl said shoppers have had numerous questions about registering their drones.
“Everybody that is coming in, that’s one of the questions they’re asking, and we don’t know how many people are not coming in because of this,” he said.
The FAA is trying too quickly to put registration in place, said Kastl, who advocated a fishing-license style registration for drone users. The FAA hasn’t done enough to let people know about flight rules, he added.
“It’s the equivalency of saying a pilot has to put a number on a tail, but not requiring him to go through flight school,” he said.
Frank Beafore, executive director of Springfield-based drone maker SelectTech Geospatial, said the registration recommendation was a “senseless application” of government overreach.
“The main impetus for this endeavor is to be able to track the bad guy when he/she is using the (small drone) for nefarious reasons,” he said in an email. “In my opinion, they missed the boat. The bad guys will not register their aircraft nor their firearms.”
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