
A federal appeals court shoots down the FAA’s drone registry requirement - ryan_j_naughton
https://techcrunch.com/2017/05/19/a-federal-appeals-court-shoots-down-the-faas-drone-registry-requirement/
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emef
Regulations are important to keep people safe (it's pretty easy to build
quadcopters that go 80-100mph), but I don't see what registration
accomplishes. More accountability?

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cr0sh
Accountability for those who register and post the ID on their machines. I
look at it as a "show of good faith" \- ie, I build a drone and by registering
it, I say "I will do my best to be safe with it, but should something happen,
I will put my ID on it so you can find me, in the event that I don't own up to
the issue".

At the same time, though, I think that some of the restrictions on what and
how you can fly should be loosened up for hobbyists that agree to register.
Certain design limits should be made larger or changed, and certain operating
criteria should also be changed.

For example, if I register, I should be able to create a fully autonomous
drone, and be able to have it fly out of line-of-sight (LOS), and/or have full
first-person-view flight capabilities without my needing LOS to control it (or
at least allow for a spotter to need LOS while the pilot can be sans-LOS).

Of course - this doesn't make much sense; if you don't register at all, and
fly, then nothing would really stop you. But I guess if you were caught, heavy
fines or something could be brought against you as punishment for not
registering and causing a problem (above and beyond any other laws broken).
Registration would not cause those fines or whatnot to kick-in, but it
wouldn't protect you from any civil suit or other laws broken of course (maybe
there could be insurance for that).

