OV9

Is anyone else with a drone bothering you do this?
If your drone weights over 250g (so basically any drone) you pay £9 a year and do an online test and this will ensure drones never get abused again apparently.

I must say I think I’ll just sell mine and buy DJI’s new Mavic Mini for Christmas which weighs 249g. Being so small I can just leave it in the car’s glovebox too so I’ll take it to more places

It'll appease the PC-brigade, Daily Fail-reading types who erroneously will assume that registration means an end to annoying cvnts buzzing them around 747s on final and other acts of stupidity.

Yes, somehow I doubt that the people who are going to use drones around airports or to drop drugs into prisons will register them...

I ended up getting rid of mine, as just wasn't using it. I do recall registering it though, and doing some sort of online questionnaire/test, but never paid a fee. That must have been late 2017 or early 2018, as pretty sure I sold it in 2018...

I do wonder if it's still registered to me though after reading an article about it earlier..? I was kind of tempted by the Mavic Mini, but assume it would be something I'd use very infrequently. Tempted to get one of those 360 cameras as a gimmicky toy to use instead.

Nipper got one last Christmas - it's NEVER been flown.

Problem with my drone (DJI Inspire) is that it’s too big - I couldn’t take it with me to Europe as it has a suitcase which takes up 1/3 of the boot and I’d rather have 1/3 more space for bringing back food/drinks. As it happened I did end up with the boot completely full. Then assembly and disassembly is too much of a faff. In the UK I just chuck it in the boot fully assembled.

Only thing which worries me about the Mavic is flying it in the wind as it weighs nothing, plus it must be very hard to see a phone sized drone at anything more than 40 metres but at least it should also make it less likely to draw attention as I imagine it’s also considerably less noisy.

Is this registration/test a precursor to introducing harsher rules/penalties/enforcement?

Apparently so - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... e-launches

Rich B wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 6:38 am Is this registration/test a precursor to introducing harsher rules/penalties/enforcement?

It's law, you have to register them or face prosecution. Nothing to do with "being bothered" like our favourite fantasist says up top.

The issue is though, as has been stated, that someone who wants to cause 'trouble' with their drone won't bother registering in the first place, and with operators hard to locate it's just a pointless exercise.

Simon wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 2:40 pm The issue is though, as has been stated, that someone who wants to cause 'trouble' with their drone won't bother registering in the first place, and with operators hard to locate it's just a pointless exercise.

But with a well publicised registration scheme, then there’s little difficulty establishing what is considered “trouble”.

Rich B wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 2:50 pm

Simon wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 2:40 pm The issue is though, as has been stated, that someone who wants to cause 'trouble' with their drone won't bother registering in the first place, and with operators hard to locate it's just a pointless exercise.

But with a well publicised registration scheme, then there’s little difficulty establishing what is considered “trouble”.

Sorry I've got baby brain. What do you mean?

I'm saying 'what's the point of a scheme when the people who break the rules in their flying will just break the rules and not register'. So you won't know who they are anyway when they cause trouble around an airport, for example..

I don’t think they ever caught the Gatwick drone person did they? Despite having all the intelligence, military and Police who couldn’t do shit. So even if it had a serial number they couldn’t have figured it out

Simon wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 3:23 pm

Rich B wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 2:50 pm

Simon wrote: ↑Wed Nov 06, 2019 2:40 pm The issue is though, as has been stated, that someone who wants to cause 'trouble' with their drone won't bother registering in the first place, and with operators hard to locate it's just a pointless exercise.

But with a well publicised registration scheme, then there’s little difficulty establishing what is considered “trouble”.

Sorry I've got baby brain. What do you mean?

I'm saying 'what's the point of a scheme when the people who break the rules in their flying will just break the rules and not register'. So you won't know who they are anyway when they cause trouble around an airport, for example..

You're obliged to physically display your operator id on the drone, so I suppose those without would be simple enough to spot, but like anything the lawless are lawless.

How are you going to spot a tiny serial number on a drone at anything more than a few metres away
(The ID number is 3mm tall)

One solution could be that the drone broadcasts the operator ID, so anyone with a receiver can capture it. That could help with registered devices.

However spoofing and the lack of ability to do anything to disable a drone will probably kill that idea.

The problem with that idea Alex is the assumption the RC equipment just sticks to one channel. The RC gear I have for my planes uses 2 channels at any time and constantly frequency hops to mitigate against both interference and snooping at the same time.

3rd fixed ID broadcast channel? I don't really think it'll work as per previous post.

The difficulty was proving that your drone was the drone that caused the annoyance. So, with this law, if you are stopped by the police near the area a drone has been sighted and have a drone, they can charge you for failing to register. Either way they get your details.

Surely that’s a win if you’re a looking to cause a nuisance. You will only get slapped with a £1000 fine rather than a prison sentence therefore it’s still much better to not register