Proposed new remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) registration and RPAS operator accreditation scheme (PP 1816US)

I believe that "upping" the current Sub 2K excluded category into the Commercial group (and therefore increasing the cost of registration considerably), is unnecessary and quite damaging to certain groups of operators.

It's going to hurt small, primarily-hobbyist operators that do the occasional paid job as a side-venture, rather than running it as a business. For myself, for example, I have a registered business, operating in the Excluded category - but 99% of my flying is done for my own personal use, with only 2 (small) paid gigs in the last 3 years (for a princely sum total of $240 - which wouldn't even cover my registration costs under this proposed change).

Instead, I would suggest keeping the current 3 tiers of operator, but refining exactly what can/can't be done in the middle category. I don't personally think that things like real estate drone-shots should be legal, as an example, due to the reasonably populous nature of what they do. Essentially, the "real" commercial operators could/should move up, leaving the excluded category for folks that "dabble". Not too sure how you would go about classifying/categorising (or even identifying) that... but it's my suggestion :)

Not sure if changes are required... but also not sure how things like $60 K-mart drones as Xmas presents realistically fit into this. Do you really expect them to pay another 30% on top of that for registration of something their 14yo kid is flying (and will likely lose/break in the first day or two of owning it)??

Honestly, I'm unsure on this one. One of the main issues I have, is that I've not seen how it is you intend to tackle the folks that are the ones that have caused this to happen - the so-called "cowboys" of the drone-world, that happily go out and breach the reg's and thumb their noses at CASA and their reg's.

No registration for them, so no fall-back on them if their drone is lost after doing something bad, etc, etc.

I'd like to see more information around this - because from what I've seen up to this stage, enforcement has been very much lacking with our existing regulations... how is this going to be improved by additional fees, registration etc. that those that are breaching the reg's are most likely to ignore?? otherwise, it's just going to end up as usual that the "good guys" are penalised financially and time-wise etc. with having to deal with all of this stuff, while others are out flying their drones quite happily without any of the above.

Perhaps every 2-3 years instead? There's a very good chance of drones being replaced within that time frame, so it would mean that folks essentially only need to register their drone the once...

As per my previous response, though - how is this going to be enforced/monitored fo those that choose not to comply??

Good way to ensure folks are up-to-date with their knowledge.