UAS registration in the works
View from HQ by Dave Mathewson, AMA Executive Director
Much has happened in the world of model aviation in the last couple of months. Probably the most significant event was the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and FAA press conference held on Monday, October 19, 2015. In that press conference, the DOT announced plans to require registration for some UAS.
In reality, the DOT doesn’t yet have a plan. What it has is a concept. Included in the press conference was an announcement of the creation of a task force that is charged with creating the plan. As I write this column, we don’t yet know who will be included on the task force, but we do know that its members will include representatives from AMA, AUVSI, the Air Line Pilots Association, the U.S. Department of Commerce, Google, Amazon, and NASA.
We also expect participants will include various government agencies and others in the industry including representatives from the major multirotor manufacturers, distributors, and retailers. It’s anticipated that the task force will include as many as two dozen participants. The task force’s schedule calls for it to convene for the first time on Tuesday November 3, 2015, and have its work completed by November 20, 2015—an ambitious timeframe by anyone’s standards.
Not all inclusive, but some of the questions the task force will be considering include:
- Consistent with the past practice of discretion, should certain UAS be excluded from registration based on performance capabilities or other characteristics that could be associated with safety risk, such as weight, speed, altitude operating limitations, duration of flight? If so, please submit information or data to help support the suggestions, and whether any other criteria should be considered.
- How should a registration process be designed to minimize burdens and best protect innovation and encourage growth in the UAS industry?
- What type of information should be collected during the registration process to positively identify the aircraft owner and aircraft?
- How should the registration data be stored? Who should have access to the registration data? How should the data be used?
- Are there additional means beyond aircraft registration to encourage accountability and responsible use of UAS?
It’s probably an understatement to say that there is much confusion and misunderstanding regarding what this might mean to AMA members as well as all model aviation enthusiasts. I think the DOT recognizes that not all UAS need to be, or should require registration. AMA members have operated their aircraft safely and responsibly for decades without the need for registration, and we are resolute in our position that this must not change.
For decades, AMA has encouraged its members to place their names, addresses, or AMA number on their models. This is, in fact, an adequate method of identifying a model if needed. AMA also believes that it makes little sense to require registration for the multirotor platforms that have limited capabilities or those that fall within the “toy” category.
For the task force to be successful in its work, it first needs to establish a threshold above which it might make some sense to require registration. That threshold could be based on the platform’s size, weight, speed, or technological capabilities; however, we caution that the threshold needs to be based on substantive data, and not be merely a subjective baseline selected without any underlying research to support it.
Although AMA agrees that registration of some platforms might have a minimal impact on the small number of users flying irresponsibly, we firmly believe that most enthusiasts are responsible and want to fly safely.
This is why it is important that the DOT and FAA focus more of their efforts on education and training, and increase their support of AMA’s and AUVSI’s work with Know Before You Fly.
Finally, the most important thing the FAA can do is to increase its efforts in taking enforcement action against anyone doing something that rises to the level of causing an eminent threat to others in the airspace.
Can registration address some of the concerns of the DOT and FAA? Maybe, however, the real solution lies with education and enforcement.
See you next time …
