Drone

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has advised drone or unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) owners not to work with drone registration firms.

The agency stated that UAV owners do not have to seek help from any drone registration company for filing application for a registration number for their drones.

Instead, they should wait until the agency has more details of the drone registration system, to be announced later this month.

In October, FAA administrator Michael Huerta and US transportation secretary Anthony Foxx announced that a task force will be formed to develop recommendations for a registration process for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).

A group of 25-30 representatives from UAS and manned aviation industries, federal government and other stakeholders formed the task force, which is yet to submit its recommendations on the registration process.

Only one company has come forward so far to help people register their drones for a fee.

"Registration will help make sure that operators know the rules and remain accountable to the public for flying their unmanned aircraft responsibly."

The task force is expected to advise the concerned authority on the types of aircraft, which need to be excluded or included from the registration process. Low safety risk UAS such as toys and some other small UAS can be excluded from the process.

The force will provide a streamlined system of registration for making the process easy and simple for commercial UAS operators.

The taskforce is currently developing a system, which is similar to any other registration process required for a newly purchased product from its manufacturer.

It is also working on defining a minimum weight for unmanned aircraft, which need to be registered.

Huerta said: "Registration will help make sure that operators know the rules and remain accountable to the public for flying their unmanned aircraft responsibly.

"When they don’t fly safely, they’ll know there will be consequences."


Image: A drone aircraft in the air. Photo: courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.