FAA/DOT Registration Task Force Recommendations
 

These are ONLY what the Task Force came up with, it is NOT the final FAA Rule:

http://www.faa.gov/uas/publications/...t_11-21-15.pdf

Tnx for the pointer, Silent.

First impression is that the Task Force did a very competent, rational, and comprehensive job. I doubt that FAA will have any problem incorporating it nearly verbatim into regulation.

I feel safer already.

250 - 24970 grams. Makes me want to drop a 249 gram object on somebodies head.

I think I will start working for Trump's election team.

Although this is seemingly simple, I would bet it will have little to no effect on the safety of the NAS.

JMHO

Validating stupidity isn't rational. Even if competent and comprehensive.

I agree. How many full scale planes have crashed because of drones????

Why should any agency that is responsible for public safety be expected to wait until AFTER there is a loss of human life before doing their job...?
No reasonable person needs to be told that registration is THE solution...but most reasonable folks ought to see that it's the most logical first step towards successful prosecution of offenders whether they are registered or not.

Probably fewer than the number of people on the ground that have been maimed/killed by 'drones,' some bearing AMA registration markings.

The task force pointedly set the threshold for mass of a sUAS required to be registered based on consideration of safety of persons on the ground. They did not base it on the potential for crashing into full scale planes, citing a lack of data to justify doing so. .

This would make sense only if registration would have prevented any incident in the past.

I don't think I could come up with a single incident that would have been prevented by a registration Law.

I do not see the wisdom of being able to assign blame post incident. If and only if the person at fault is a follower of the rules.

Who said anything about loss of life? Even a 55 pounder amounts to a fender bender. Model airplanes including large ones have been around a long time and people have been doing stupid things for a while. Nothing has happened, and when it has there has been little damage to the aircraft. I'm not saying we should allow people to fly in front of aircraft. But registration is an overkill!

The answer is none! NaDa! No one has been killed by an air to air collision with a model airplane or drone!

The answer is none! NaDa! No one has been crashed by an air to air collision with a model airplane or drone!

The intent seems to be to weed out some of the persons that are not followers of the rules, prosecute and make examples of them, i.e., for the deterrent value.

Like they would know or care about registering?

Maybe so, but so what? As I said it was not a consideration in the recommendation by the TF for a 250g mass threshold for sUAS..

But 12 to 15 case of serious injury to a person on the ground over that last few years according ot the AMA.

You can't compare the odds of a traditionally operated RC craft doing serious harm to the odds that exist with drones. The vast majority of Traditional RC crashes take place within the relatively safe confines of the club field.
By design, a large percentage of Drone crashes are destined to take place OUTSIDE of the safe confines of where the pilot has chosen to operate..
I don't even know how to respond to the "55 pounder is just a fender bender" line without sounding disrespectful.

Wow...he's getting the kid gloves treatment! :)

And yes..the 55 pound comment is odd. I've seen what a much lighter plane can do when striking a person on a mower. Multiple fractures of a leg, pins and rods.....$125,000 settlement. Hardly a fender bender.

Possibly not, until a few cases of non-compliance get some publicity. That is likely to provide some 'education' that gets attention.

You know Sporty, you're never going to be happy with this. Too bad you weren't there to tell them how to do it. Did you comment as DOT provided for? I did, and was surprised that the product nicely encompassed what I submitted. Probably a drop in the bucket or totally coincidental, but just maybe............

After reviewing the document, I would say it is a reasonable and rational approach. Currently, at all AMA sanctioned fields we are required to have our AMA number in or on the model. Simple enough. The federal number might even surpass the AMA i.d. number requirement.
Everything else I own has a number attached to it; cars, houses, weapons,.... ME. If this will allow law enforcement an opportunity to control those who are doing stupid or illegal things, I say fine.

AMA DIssent
 

Just found this in USATODAY.

"The Academy of Model Aeronautics, which represents 180,000 hobbyists nationwide and participated in the task force, wanted to file a dissenting opinion and was prevented from doing so, executive director Dave Mathewson said. Mathewson said factors other than weight should trigger the registration requirement, such as whether it could fly higher than the current 400-foot FAA limit.“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,” Mathewson said.


"http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/11/23/faa-gets-recommendations-register-all-drones/76253444/"

Here are my questions.
Why was AMA prevented from filing a dissenting opinion?
Since it can't be filed... could the AMA post the dissent please?
What is preventing AMA from sending a letter to the Administrator?

My understanding is that the report was unanimous. They specifically said no dissents. FAA announced this morning.

Just wondering. Simple questions. Simple answers.

An LTMA1 at AMA max allowed speed of 200MPH (293 fps) has the same kinetic energy as a average weight Mini-Cooper at about 22 mph. I'm fairly certain that if a car of that size crashed into someone, it could be fatal. Even with a 2 second shut down timer on loss of signal, that same aircraft will cover 500 feet before the engine stops, let alone how much further it will go before it hits the ground. Now put it at 400 feet in the air -- it can go a very long way.

Here is the actual AMA statement:

http://amablog.modelaircraft.org/med...-registration/

Agreed...would even go so far as to say that car hitting a pedestrian at half that speed could be fatal, if not serious. I've seen some catastrophic injuries occur as a result of low speed collisions. Recently we had a member flying a Yellow Aircraft F-16 at the field, 10S set up. Cruising by doing a low level high speed pass and as he started to pull up towards the end of the field, a scale heli popped over the trees at about 300 feet at best. The plane veered off sharply to the left the heli kept right on coming. It all happened within 3-5 seconds at best, and there is no doubt that F-16 at 20 or so pounds would have completely taken that heli out of the sky. Can only imagine the kinetic energy that had stored in it. Scary.

Thanks for that. They sound frustrated.

The simpler they keep the criteria, the less confusion there will be.
The AMA goes on record that they did everything they could though...lol.

"Based on its years of experience the AMA cautioned against unnecessarily encumbering the toy industry........"

Awww.........that's so sweet. Mother Theresa must be smiling down them.:)

Above in red, sorry about the formatting on that last cut and paste...came from a .pdf!

They rule with a velvet glove.

Needless to say, he didn't mow the lawn after that. And oddly enough, he told the pilot "go on up, no problem, I'll go cut over there". One plane in sky, one mower on the ground, and the rest is history. $125k was actually a good settlement That was I believe 6-7 years ago. I wasn't a member then, was just coming into the hobby. No more flying while mowing, even if the guy was like, sure!

There's actually a lot of data on the injury potential dropped objects from the construction industry, and its obvious that even what we might consider small objects have big injury potential.

So, assuming the victim is wearing a hard hat, a 249 gram object will likely cause:

- a medical treatment injury when it falls from above approx 18 meters
- a lost time injury when it falls from above approx 25 meters
- a fatality when it falls from above 40 meters

Source: http://www.dropsonline.org/resources...ps-calculator/

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Well, the data doesn't lie. A mini-coooper sized vehicle at 22 mph (approx 35 KMH) that hits a pedestrian results in a fatality about 10% of the time. Why would the potential injury from an LTMA1 at 200mph be any less dangerous?

http://www.rcuniverse.com/forum/atta...mentid=2132202

Good to see Best Buy and Walmart were included in the rule making process. Ronald McDonald must have had previous commitments, and couldn't make it.
Just a thought, how are those laser laws working?

maybe they should just keep this committee together and have them tackle the laser pointer issue as well...two birds with one stone and all.

Have they caught anybody recently? Seems most stay a mystery.

A Mini Cooper into an airliner at 22 MPH would be a fender bender. Granted it would be more with a Cessna 152. Get off the stupid plane hitting a person. How gullible do they think we are!

Might have asked before...but where do you come up with this stuff? Scale aircraft hit people and injure/kill them, and RC aircraft have hit people...I gave a specific example above.

Are there laws in place that would apply in situations like this? What does voluntary registration solve in your example? Not trying to argue; i'm honestly asking.

Why the emphasis on hitting people? The issue is midair with full scale aircraft, especially airliners. If a Mini Cooper is traveling at 22 MPH into an airliner it would be a fender bender. They are not registering toys because they are afraid of them hitting people. In fact the FAA can do nothing about that.