One of this season s most hotly anticipated Christmas gifts — recreational drones — will also come with a big caveat: registering them with the Federal Aviation Administration.
This is not a kite, said the FAA s Marke Hoot Gibson, during an interview Wednesday morning at the Drone World Expo in downtown San Jose. It s an unmanned vehicle with capability to do wonderful things for society, but also can cause great harm if not flown properly.
Hundreds of thousands of first-time drone hobbyists will have to have to register their quadcopters and other hobby aircraft with the federal government after the FAA finalizes its registration process before Dec. 31, just after as many as 1 million drones are anticipated to be sold during the holiday season. A task force of government and industry representatives has been meeting for several weeks and is due to deliver their recommendations on Friday. While some relatively harmless drones could be exempt from having to be registered, most of those sold at stores are expected to be affected.
The FAA has already promised that the process will be easy and operators shouldn t have to need to hire a consultant to register their drones.
Gibson, a former Air Force pilot the FAA hired six weeks ago to help advise the agency on drone traffic control issues, said the registration process is just the first step in a longer-term process to develop an elegant drone traffic control system for the United States.
Above: Google presented this visual to NASA earlier this year showing its vision for an automated air traffic control system for drones that relies on cell phone networks, sensors, drone-to-drone communications and other technology to track the vehicles and keep them from crashing into one another.
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