Forgive me but I have ZERO clue what your point is with this statement mate, in regards to what I had said anyways. Sorry but I am a tad slow atm with little sleep and being a third day of debilitating headaches making me hide from the light.
What Ray is really saying is that you are full of bull puckey. Fortunately for you and everyone else here, he's a gentleman aviator so he found the politest way to infer it without starting some sort of internet fight.
Unfortunately I am more direct and not as gentle. From reading your comments in this thread it is clear you really haven't spent a lot of time (or any) around full size aircraft. This nonsense you are talking about with airflow patterns? yeah they are there but they have almost no effect to anything heavier than a piece of paper. If they did, bird strikes wouldn't be as common as they are. If a common starling (which weighs 2.6oz) can take down a Lockheed L-188 (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Air_Lines_Flight_375) then it is plausible (however unlikely) that a small quad copter could do similar damage. Ever been inside an airplane and experienced a bird strike? I have many times in something as small as a cub to something as big as a 727. It's terrifying (and sometimes messy) even if it isn't lethal. I haven't had the pleasure of a drone strike in a small airplane but I have to imagine it's far worse. Actually I don't have to imagine the FAA has already researched it:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/faa-research-finds-drones-more-damaging-than-birds/
Remember, Birds don't carry around tiny explosives inside them called batteries. Go watch a few of those chuckleheads on youtube who hit Lipos with a stick and make them explode if you don't fully understand how dangerous the tiny batteries we play with are.
The other thing you are forgetting is that any engine producing thrust is creating an equal vacuum in front of it. It has an effect on the airflow around an airplane. In a prop plane the suction doesn't extend as far out, but a turbine? yeah things get sucked in there all the time and not just on the ground.
If the F.A.A. or the government as a whole really gave a crap about the preaching they are doing about safety they would be using the money extorted from the hobby to set aside areas where we CAN fly. They are collecting the money with ZERO disclosure what it is being used for. They simply just keep stacking rules to set the hobby up for more extortionism.
I mean seriously.. what did all that money last year they collected get used for? The F.A.A. Christmas party? A going away gift for the Obama's.
I work for a large multinational corporation in their regulatory compliance division, so that means my job is to know how government regulations work and how large corporate entities can comply. So I say this from my professional opinion and my 2 decades in the legal and regulatory industry, you have no idea what you are talking about or how your government works.
That $5 fee? it's the same fee that any aircraft pays to for registration. It isn't nearly enough to pay for the administration staff that it takes to process an maintain that registration system. The government makes up the difference in their budget. There isn't some "Slush fund" sitting around with aircraft registration fees sitting in it, it pays for what they already do so they have to use less of the overall tax payer collected funds.
you want to know where that money went? it's actually a matter of public record because the FAA's budget is a public document. Rather than sit there and cast stones like the government is "extorting" you, why don't you take some time and learn how to read a federal budget:
https://www.faa.gov/about/budget/
A word of caution - there isn't going to be a single line item for UAS registration budget, you are going to have to know some basic accounting techniques and basic math to figure it out, but there is a nice writeup of their plan for UAS in the 2016 budget estimates that includes some projected costs.
I will note that your personal attitude toward government spending is something I have seen before and is not uncommon among veterans. I can say that the whole of the government does not operate like the military when it comes to budgets and spending, there is a lot of waste that is tolerated in defense of this country that is not tolerated anywhere else. Even in the military, unless you have worked logistics there are a lot of hidden costs and considerations your average grunt isn't going to see or know about. And that is before you add in how classified information complicates things.
you want to know where that collected registration fee went? they spent it on the salaries, and paperwork, and IT for the registration list.
And we haven't even talked about how it isn't the FAA's job to "set aside" a space designated for UAS operation.
To be quite honest I am more worried about some nutbag with an aerosol can walking down the streets of a crowded city releasing a bio or chemical agent then I am anything RC related doing anything terroristic. Anyone remember their NBC training from boot camp?
I am more worried about people who think false equivalence is an acceptable practice in discussing the government.
This isn't about stopping terrorism any more that license plates on your car is about stopping terrorisim. This is about managing risk. When there were a few operators and the high cost of the tech kept people out, the FAA didn't need to concern itself with our hobby at all because the number of incidents were extremely low. Now that the costs have come down and the number of people operating RC aircraft of all kinds has grown exponentially the first step is to institute an identification system. Same as done with literally every other vehicle that has moved across this earth (including biological, or did you think Horse brands were for fun?). If you are operating within the boundaries of the law - the registration number has no impact on your life whatsoever. If however, your drone collides with an airplane because you were somewhere you shouldn't have been? well at least now it is easier to identify you and investigate. If you happen to crash through a window of a house, you can't just jump in a car and get away clean. The FAA has one concern - protecting the full scale aircraft that are in the air, and now if you are irresponsible (as many operators are) in that regard it is slightly easier for them to find you and hold you accountable. It doesn't solve all problems in all circumstances, but it solves some.
Something I will add here: in the old days it used to be a requirement of most AMA clubs that you had to have your name and address written on the aircraft somewhere. Many balsa builders used to put tags in the fuselage that you could see if the wing was removed. The reasons for this were many:
- if the plane flew away there was a good chance you could get it back
- if the plane did damage to private property, the owner's insurance under the AMA could be held accountable rather than the local flying field's policy (and in the case of multiple fields, it could at least hold the correct field's policy depending on the circumstances).
If you are flying any type of aircraft, it is just good common sense and responsible behavior to have your name and contact info somewhere on the aircraft...unless you are doing something illegal in the first place...