Drone Registry

The problem they stated they're aiming to solve: Unmanned drone encounters in the NAS with full-scale aircraft.

This isn't going to solve that. This isn't like the N-number on the tail of a 747... any marking of the registration number will be incredibly small and there's no way a manned aircraft pilot is going to be able to spot them to report the actual registration number in an in-flight encounter.

The only place this helps is with crashes where the serialized portion of the drone is recovered. Considering how infrequently we have actual drone crashes where the drone itself is recovered I'm not sure this is the best use of the FAA's well-publicized scant resources.

It's also a violation of federal law for the FAA to promulgate any new rules that apply to hobby aircraft, so there's that as well.

In theory, I have no problem registering drones... but I think it needs to be better thought out than the knee-jerk fast-tracked stuff they came up with for this press conference.

I should also note, we wouldn't be in this crisis if the FAA had gotten off their behind and gotten out in front of the drone craze. Instead, they've been missing deadline after deadline for YEARS.
 
This is all going to come down to how well it's handled. I heard that the current FAA registration system involves carbon copies mailed in to the FAA and can take months to process. If they do something like that, then yeah...compliance will be about 1%. If you have to go online to register and your drone comes out of the box with a software lock that can only be opened with a completed FAA registration, then I'd guess that compliance would be about 99%. I don't think we'll see either of those scenarios but probably something in between.
As far as FAA not being allowed to introduce new rules, this falls under their public safety umbrella so it is exempt from that prohibition.
I'm really not surprised they're doing this. There have been a couple high profile cases here in Seattle, one where a drone got tangled way up in some power lines over the ship canal and cost City Light $30,000 to remove, and another drone crashed into spectators at a parade knocking a woman unconscious.
 
Andrius Simutis said:
This is all going to come down to how well it's handled. I heard that the current FAA registration system involves carbon copies mailed in to the FAA and can take months to process. If they do something like that, then yeah...compliance will be about 1%. If you have to go online to register and your drone comes out of the box with a software lock that can only be opened with a completed FAA registration, then I'd guess that compliance would be about 99%. I don't think we'll see either of those scenarios but probably something in between.
As far as FAA not being allowed to introduce new rules, this falls under their public safety umbrella so it is exempt from that prohibition.
I'm really not surprised they're doing this. There have been a couple high profile cases here in Seattle, one where a drone got tangled way up in some power lines over the ship canal and cost City Light $30,000 to remove, and another drone crashed into spectators at a parade knocking a woman unconscious.
Click to expand...

One estimate is that some 500,000 hobby drones have already been sold -- not to mention the homebuilt ones. So that's half a million, at least.

Based on a statistically few isolated incidents, plus the "what COULD happen" fears, a whole slew of regulations and restrictions may be put on ALL drone owners. It just seems like an overreaction to me.

And it doesn't seem like anything being proposed will deter anyone who seriously wants to cause harm using a drone. Software can be hacked and unlocked. Custom drones are pretty easy to build. "No fly zones" only inhibit the law-abiding, not the criminal or the terrorist. A registry might help locate the perpetrator after an attack or accident has occurred, but it's hard to see how it would prevent one.
 
This sounds a lot like a fundraising effort. It was only a few years ago that they started requiring registration renewals at $5 a pop for GA aircraft. Also a nice way to achieve growth in the FAA. "We need more people to handle the registrations of the drones that have everyone fearing for their lives."
 
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