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FAA Remote ID Requirements?

I hear what you are saying but I am of the mind that the early days of the "drone" - when drone pilots could take off from anywhere at any time, for the first time in model aviation history - those were the days when no longer did a UA pilot need to be part of a local club, nor an AMA member. They were no longer bound by rules or procedures that had previously been in place and provided safe conflict-free operations across the country for over 70 years.

The FAA had up until that time; left ALL of the regulation of RC/UAs to the AMA and had no intention of changing things. I call the period between the first DJI Phantom and some point before the Phantom 3's release - "The Wild Days". The period stretching from around 2013 to 2015. Without ANY regulation on the books for "drones", a lot of irresponsible drone pilots did unthinkable and stupid things with their drones. It was clearly demonstrated that drone pilots without training or experience, given the opportunity and equipment, would fly well beyond their own capabilities. Need Proof? Check the 'crash and flyaway' section on Mavic Pilots. ;)

The media, always on the lookout for a headline saw their opportunity. When drones starting showing up in places where they never should have been in the first place - "drone" became synonymous with an object of ill intent. That sticks with us today and forever. Once we got the attention of the federal regulators; the writing was on the wall.

Amazon has all but admitted that their drone delivery was a massive drain on the company. Mass delivery by drone is never going to be a thing. But I do believe that the FAA understands that the sky is no longer the domain solely of manned aviation. With that, and the history of drones in mind - RID sort of seems inevitable.

I do get why some pilots like to think they're "exploring" or "on a mission" when flying BVLOS but me personally, I'm fine with VLOS.

I'm not arguing against all rules on drones, I just feel that they should be more logical and focused on safety than they are. I have always felt that the FAA classifying on UAVs as "aircraft" was the wrong method of dealing with safety concerns. For the most part I think most drones should be classified as what they are, which is a potential hazard to actual aircraft. To me this is like the DOT classifying your kids power wheels and go carts as "motor vehicles" and then trying after the fact to figure out how to register, license, and track them in case the want to drive on actual highways rather than than just trying to figure out how to catch and punish people who do that. The rules could have been designed more to encourage people to fly inside an envelope that would be really difficult to interfere with real aircraft.

Granted, stopping people from breaking the rules is always going to be hard and RID is one of the few things could make it easier but I think it remains to be seen how effective it really is.

One thing that FAA rep said in that interview was the RID tracking was strictly a local thing, I wonder if it will remain that way? It wouldn't surprise me if people or a company started to monitor RID information and broadcast it to the internet. This is already done with police, fire, etc radio scanners. RID transmission will have a much shorter range than police radio, but also won't require any special hardware to receive it so it would be easier for people to re-broadcast it on to the internet.
 
Never thought of a rebroadcast over the internet.
Being the programmer that you are @dylanfm you might find this website interesting Welcome to opendroneid.org - Open Drone ID

I'm really not much of a programmer, I just like to tinker with stuff. I had looked at that website awhile ago, but didn't really spend much time on it. It doesn't look like there has been any updates to the site since 2020, but it looks like there has been some updates to their git repositories more recently so maybe work is on going. It is definitely interesting but I'm not sure how/if it matches up with the RID rules (which came out after 2020).

The way I read the rule was that RID module manufacturers would need to get approval of compliance from the FAA. the Open Drone ID project seems to provide software that would comply with the RID rule and hardware recommendations, but I don't see that as ever getting approval from the FAA. So I think we will always be stuck with buying RID module hardware from a company that will have gone through the hoops to get approved by the FAA. Because this will still be a bit of a niche market I think the module prices will always be fairly high (relative to other DIY built drone components).

Something that remains to be seen for me is if it will be possible to move a RID module from one drone to another easily. The requirements for the RID module is that it broadcasts its serial number and ".. the Certificate of Aircraft Registration of the unmanned aircraft used in the operation includes the serial number of the remote identification broadcast module". So will I be able to one RID module serial number to multiple UAV registrations?
 
Something that remains to be seen for me is if it will be possible to move a RID module from one drone to another easily. The requirements for the RID module is that it broadcasts its serial number and ".. the Certificate of Aircraft Registration of the unmanned aircraft used in the operation includes the serial number of the remote identification broadcast module". So will I be able to one RID module serial number to multiple UAV registrations?

For recreational pilots, they will have only one registration number which, when the final rule takes effect they will have to go into the registration and apply the "Modules" serial number to that registration.

I have not found hard proof (wording by the FAA) yet, but it would make sense that if a 107 pilot flying multiple aircraft (I am one of those), we would simply do the same with each unique commercial registration we have by tying them to the single module serial number. It would seem to me that as long as the modules serial is tied to every drone that one flies, RID is satisfied since the FAA could identify the serial number of the module and see what drone it is tied to.



RID Mod.jpg
 
For recreational pilots, they will have only one registration number which, when the final rule takes effect they will have to go into the registration and apply the "Modules" serial number to that registration.

I have not found hard proof (wording by the FAA) yet, but it would make sense that if a 107 pilot flying multiple aircraft (I am one of those), we would simply do the same with each unique commercial registration we have by tying them to the single module serial number. It would seem to me that as long as the modules serial is tied to every drone that one flies, RID is satisfied since the FAA could identify the serial number of the module and see what drone it is tied to.



View attachment 29208
To my knowledge for §107 registered aircraft if you only have one module you will have to access the registration portal on FAA DroneZone and switch the module to the aircraft you are flying.

This was one of the discussions that was a hot topic on the Pilot Institute’s §107 Course Facebook Group for students.

It follows the same pattern as having to register each individual aircraft used in your business.

Kind of stinks!
 
I agree @Ty Pilot. Have you by any chance found anything on the market other than the $300 unit advertised by Vertigo Drones?
In addition to the DroneTag Beacon, I purchased a BlueMark db120, 129 Euros, they ship to the U.S.A.

It's about 30% larger than the Beacon. Shipping is a two-step process, so the first time it's "delivered," don't. go to your door looking for it.

They also sell a smaller version for 20 Euros less that uses the aircraft power.
 

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