UK Drone Registration Scheme

[electrotor]

Consultation & response opportunity - please do not waste it even if you are cynical about the whole business.

https://consultations.caa.co.uk/finance/drone-registration/?mc_cid=13772fa07f&mc_eid=fc5aec7505

[electrotor]

Having just completed the survey (it takes 2 minutes) I can say that I was trying hard not to be cynical about the whole thing. The focus is on the level of charge.
Once again they have failed to define what a "drone" is. There is NO general agreement within the industry or hobby. This failure rather negates the purpose of the exercise.
Secondly it financially  penalises those who  responsibly operate SUA within current regulation and are already paid up members of organisations which the CAA recognises.
Thirdly, it will not address the problem of irresponsible operation.
Fourthly part of the cost is to finance the exercise itself.

[electrotor]

Just to clarify one earlier point, this is being presented as "The UK Drone Registration Scheme" Reading further into the background, it will apply to all SUA users, however we know from the myriad of postings on other threads that there are issues with what constitutes a drone. Some people will simply ignore it, under the impression that, as traditional model flyers, they do not operate drones are are therefore not required to register. This has not been well thought out.

[FPVSteve]

£2.8m to cover basic admin and infrastructure costs. Got to love government consultancy projects.

[ched]

So the people who have to pay to comply with the law are the ones who are paying for 'a national education and awareness campaign'. So why, if it's a government law that they wish to make the public aware of do the registered users, who know the legalities, being forced to pay to educate the public??????

[FPVSteve]

I mean when you think about it, in a way it makes FPVUK etc obsolete because there's little point in being insured if you're going to obey every single rule anyway. You'd be hard pushed to put yourself into a situation where you'd actually need insurance at all.

Interesting times.

[ched]

I mean when you think about it, in a way it makes FPVUK etc obsolete because there's little point in being insured if you're going to obey every single rule anyway. You'd be hard pushed to put yourself into a situation where you'd actually need insurance at all.

Interesting times.

Not sure about that, there is always the unexpected. Say a prop broke or an esc failed and the uav crashed into something or someone that was 50 meters away before  the crash?

[FPVSteve]

Yea I know but how likely is it ...

[ched]

Yea I know but how likely is it ...

True, not very likely. I guess not many claims that's why it's cheap for the level of cover.

Maybe it would a good addition to the registration. Charge £25 and include insurance. OK so no way gov would do that but it would be an incentive to register as there would be a benefit.

[ched]

I wonder if we should suggest that their predicted number of registrants is way too low. That way the cost per person would be lower  :D

[BigT]

I know some are not total fans of the BMFA but this time they are on point
https://bmfa.org/News/News-Page/ArticleID/2583/CAA-proposes-%C2%A316-50-annual-registration-charge-Act-Now

[FPVSteve]

So the question is - are we going to pay it, or boycott it? If the BMFA are kicking off about it, it suggests that they (being the largest representative "force" of model flyers in the UK) have not been listened to during consultation because I suspect if this fee had been proposed it would have been slapped down quickly.

It's almost as if the agenda was set...................

[BigT]

Know what Steve, despite being a loyal trades unionist in the 70's fighting the arrogant bosses running the british motor industry at the time, I am not really  in favour of mass disobedience but in this instance I might consider it.

[ched]

The funny thing is that the introduction date is November. So my guess is a lot of people don't fly in the winter. So the initial uptake will be way lower than the gov are predicting. If you have no intention of flying in the winter you would wait till early spring to see how things were going before even considering registering.
I wonder if they will just jack up the price if the uptake is too low?

Remember dog licences? I think they abandoned it due to lack of participation!!!!

[electrotor]

Nail on head.