FAA announces drone registration rules as report highlights soaring dangers

The main point: if you, Mr. or Ms. American, own an RC aircraft/drone/quadcopter/whatever that weighs between 0.55 and 55 pounds (including any payloads), you have until February 19, 2016 to register it with the FAA and pay a $5 fee.

The full set of rules is available as  PDF on the FAA site HERE. I admit to having not read the whole thing… but then, it’s 211 pages.

I’m of two minds here. On the one hand, RC aircraft seem to becoming more and more common. The technology is getting cheaper and easier to operate; it has transitioned from something requiring considerable funds and skill to operate to almost something you can buy in the checkout aisle of the grocery store for your eight-year-old. With that comes the fact that more and more of them are ending up in the hands of jackasses and dumbasses; they’ll crash them into other peoples property (or other people); interfere with aircraft; use them to spy on other people, and just generally annoy the hell outta folks.

On the other hand… new federal bureaucracy. Which means new bureaucrats, new laws, new regulations. All of which will likely be not only immortal, but also liable to immense growth. Regulators who will see their purpose in life to stifle innovation at every turn.

Basically, I think the regulations were pretty much inevitable. Probably dodged a bullet here… the Feds could have easily decided to just outright ban RC aircraft. But that’s not saying that that couldn’t still happen down the line. The more the government gets involved in something, the more power the government has to ruin that something.

Whattaya wanna bet: coming soon, similar efforts to regulate lasers and high power LED flashlights.