I too am not a model aircraft enthusiast (I bought a consumer drone for photography purposes), but I did join the AMA. They are not just a “club”: they are a lobbying and advocacy group that has long worked hard to protect Section 336 (Part 101), and they also provide group liability insurance for their members.
They are also the ones getting the short end of the stick, and I feel for them. Community-based organizations like theirs have been around longer than the FAA. Their membership was relatively small: mainly middle-aged men building fixed-wing and helicopter RC models in their garage, maybe taking a supervised child or grandchild to a grassy field to fly safely and responsibly. Hobby shop owners were careful to vet and lecture their customers about proper use. These guys were community-minded, accountable, safety-conscious and respectful of their society—and because they self-policed and operated within the spirit of their group, legislators and law enforcement gave them latitiude and they didn’t need overly restrictive regulations. They worked hard to maintain their legal right to practice their hobby safely and responsibly, including the special rules granted them under Section 336.
I think the big mistake of the past was deciding that consumer drones qualified as model aircraft. I do see the challenge: some of those model hobbyists experimented with multi rotor aircraft (including quadcopters), and blazed the trail for the inexpensive consumer technology that so many of us enjoy today. (Of course, it is difficult to draw a well-defined line now: if you exempt model quadcopters as different from consumer drones, what’s to prevent drone manufacturers from selling basically off-the-shelf drones as nominally “DIY hobby kits”, finding loopholes and skirting the spirit of the law like gun companies do? Slippery slope...)
With consumer drone use exploding (over 2.5 million drones sold just in the US in the past twelve months alone), and anyone 13 years or older able to register and fly a drone under the same special rules, it must have really taken model aircrafters by surprise. Suddenly their skies were filled with more and more, cheaper and cheaper drones—many of them operated by yahoos that didn’t know, didn’t care to know, or didn’t care to observe, the rules they were supposed to follow.
Section 336 is very explicit about flying under CBO rules such as the AMA’s—and admittedly those CBO rules are pretty lax, given they were originally designed for that small group of self-policing model aircrafters. Truthfully, many drone users claiming to fly under Section 336 have never even looked at the AMA’s or other CBOs’ safety rules.
Now I hear people exchanging exasperated stories about close encounters with drones, reports on the news, and crazy stuff like that UK passenger airline that almost hit a drone at ~18,000 feet! The public gets paranoid, worrying about death from above, privacy and spying, pedophiles, noise, and general nuisance. Legislators respond rashly to the public outcry, passing overly restrictive and ill-informed laws and ordinances. The yahoos don’t care about the laws and continue to practice the reckless, irresponsible and annoying behaviors in increasing numbers, while the model aircrafters and responsible sUAS operators bear the burden of their actions. It snowballs from there.
There is a lot of great stuff in HR302: changes long overdue for commercial airline flights (minimum seat sizes, no dogs in overhead bins, no taking seats from paid customers, working lavs, disabled access, pregnant women pre-boarding, etc). Believe it or not, I read the 1200+ pages of it two weeks ago. Even most of the drone stuff is good (funding vocational and community college education to train UAS pilots, opening the door to new commercial uses like delivery, etc), and I like the idea of some sort of test or license, which they’ve prescribed as being administered at the CBO level. But putting model aircrafters under the increasing jurisdiction of the FAA? Deeply unfair.
I wrote to my senators and representatives advocating that the bill not be passed as is, just because I feel so badly for the model aircrafters getting roped in with the bad drone operators. But it is hard to kick a giant piece of legislation back for one point out of thousands. And really, something needs to be done because consumer misuse is only going to get worse.
With costs so low and access so easy, it’s not the commercial users and model aircraft hobbyists that are crowding the lower skies: it’s consumer drones. The bar of entry is too low. And that could ruin it for the rest of us that operate safely, courteously and responsibly.
There was a time when anyone with enough money could buy or build a car and do whatever they wanted with it. There was no DMV, no seatbelt laws, no license or registration, and in some places weak or nonexistent traffic laws mainly geared toward carriages and horses. Then consumer vehicles became so affordable and commonplace that eventually more and more controls had to be passed: yahoos were everywhere, hurting and annoying too many people. Today, nobody loves the DMV, but everyone agrees that we need licenses, minimum ages, tests and drivers’ ed for our own common sake. Passing the driving test and getting a driver license has become a celebrated American rite of passage, a coming-of-age milestone. No one wants to roll back the clock to 1900.
As for me, well, as long as 336 exists, I can fly for fun, safely, responsibly and in accordance with the rule of law. I belong to the AMA to support their efforts and to show my appreciation, as well as to benefit from the advocacy they give (and their group liability insurance that hopefully I will never need). If the law adds a recreational test, I am already Part 107 certified, so I’m sure I could clear that hurdle easily. And no matter what I can still fly commercially under Part 107. The useful industrial applications of sUAS continue to grow, and so the government recognizes a viable industry worth protecting and bolstering. Even so, commercial drone use is getting economically squeezed by increasing competition, and so true commercial use will ultimately limit itself in numbers by its own profitability. I’ll keep my commercial certification even if I don’t end up flying for profit: it’s still a great tool in my photo bag!