By Erin Delmore
Correspondent
Call them the “Tickle Me Elmos” of 2015. The hot items of the holiday season this year: drones. More than a million are expected to fly off shelves by Christmas. The FAA is looking to get out ahead of it by requiring owners to register their devices with the Department of Transportation.
“It seems rushed,” said Steve Cohen, President of the Drone User Group Network. Cohen is a still photographer-turned-drone-enthusiast who teaches land, air, and sea robotics at Bergen County Technical Schools’ Applied Technology High. His organization is fighting for a seat at the table as the FAA drafts registration guidelines. The Administration has said it hopes to have a framework by Thanksgiving.
“We should be able to track back who’s using a drone if there was an incident” Cohen said. “You’ve got tiny ones kids fly in their living rooms, or in their backyards — does that need to be registered? We would like to see some threshold of either what determines legality, or what determines a weight class.”
His group is pushing for anything under two kilos, or, 4.4 pounds, to be considered a micro unmanned autonomous system, exempt from the registration requirement. This one is 6.7 pounds, camera included.
“We’re open to registration of aircraft that has capability of flying at altitudes that could potentially interfere with other aircraft. Our concern is the need to register toys. What is the dividing line,” Cohen said.
Cohen practices flying his drone at Dunkerhook Park in Bergen County. Nearby dog-walkers and joggers don’t stop to ask questions: a surprise for this headline-grabbing technology. It’s fighting a bad rep after one user’s drone crash-landed on the White House lawn, another at the U.S. Open. Another flew too close to a passenger jet near JFK Airport in July.
FAA Administrator Michael Huerta called it a “troubling trend.”
“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,” Huerta said in a statement.
“We don’t want people doing dumb things with drones, but we don’t want the whole thing thrown out the window because of a few stupid people,” Cohen said.
The technology’s been a boon for photographers and filmmakers. Cohen says drones could shuttle life-saving resources to underdeveloped countries and revolutionize the logistics industry here at home. This week Walmart announced it would join Amazon and Google in exploring drone delivery.
“Why not move that traffic to an aerial route? Just like we have helicopter routes, we could have drone routes, and have your mail room on the top of your building,” Cohen said.
At Dunkerhook Park, Cohen flies his drone between 200 and 400 feet, at a fraction of its capability, in airspace generally off-limits to manned aircrafts. While some criticize legislation as playing catch-up to usership, Cohen remembers the first car laws passed in the country: They focused on how to protect horses on the road. And, he says, look where we are now.