By Jack Nicas
Updated Dec. 14, 2015 2:14 p.m. ET
Most drone owners will have to register their devices starting next week under rules aimed at controlling the sharp increase of unmanned aircraft in U.S. skies that officials fear threaten public safety.
The rules, unveiled on Monday, apply to drones heavier than a half-pound—which covers virtually all consumer devices other than palm-size toys. The rules require drone owners to register on a government website to receive a unique user number that they then must attach or write on any drones they own.
Users who purchased a drone before Dec. 21, when the rules take effect, will have until Feb. 19 to register. Drones purchased after Dec. 21 must be registered before their first flight. Registration costs $5 but regulators are waiving that fee for the first 30 days.
Registration is the latest step in the drone industry’s transition from a hobbyist community to a mass-market commercial industry. Regulators said they wanted to signal to drone users that the devices are more than toys and that misuse could lead to punishment.
Regulators said registration would help them hold reckless drone operators accountable and deter unsafe flights. The registration process would also put regulators in contact with drone users, enabling better education about drone rules.
”Registration will enforce the need for…users to operate unmanned aircraft safely,” Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told reporters on Monday. Drone “enthusiasts are aviators, and with that title comes a great deal of responsibility.”
Some recreational drone users criticized the rule as a regulatory overreach. The Academy of Model Aeronautics, a decades-old model-aircraft group, said the requirement violates a 2012 law that largely prohibits the Federal Aviation Administration from regulating recreational drones. The group said the rules are “counter to Congress’s intent” and create “an unnecessary burden” for drone owners.
The FAA said it can require registration under existing aircraft-registration laws, meaning failure to register a drone technically carries the same penalties as failing to register a commercial aircraft, including fines of as much as $250,000 and a prison sentence of three years.
Those penalties would only be used in “egregious situations,” said Deputy FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker. The agency plans to enlist local law enforcement to help enforce registration, though it said it would push any unregistered users to comply rather than punish them.
The registration rules came together in just two months—an exceptionally fast timeline for aviation regulations—after Mr. Foxx initiated an expedited rule-making process in October in response to an increase in pilots’ in-flight sightings of drones.
Pilots reported drones flew closer than 500 feet to their aircraft 241 times from December 2013 to September 2015, according to a recent analysis of government data by Bard College researchers. In 28 of those cases, pilots said they had to maneuver to avoid a collision with the drone.
Some drone users questioned how registration would reduce such incidents because it is unlikely pilots would be able to read a small number on a drone as it passes in midair. “The number will only help if they actually recover the craft,” which is rare, said Peter Sachs, a Connecticut attorney who tracks drone issues.
The rules largely follow recommendations made last month by a federal task force, though the FAA added the $5 registration fee. The task force had recommended making registration free, but the FAA said laws required it to charge for any aircraft registration. Though the fee will be waived for the first 30 days, registrants will still have to enter credit-card information to verify their identity.
Task force member Brandon Torres Declet, chief executive of commercial-drone firm Measure LLC, praised regulators for their speed in creating the new rules.
The drone industry is “becoming more like manned aviation every day, and we have to come to terms with the fact that the FAA is going to continue to put additional rules and regulations in place,” he said.
Original article can be found here: http://www.wsj.com
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