Do you have a reference that documents the FAA involvement, or are you just guessing?
I watched and monitored the process. All of the info I mentioned can be confirmed with some limited Internet searching. You think the FAA, who is the sole organization charged with administering airspace was not involved in the law used to make airspace safe?
Now you are definitely guessing.
Yes. That is why I made that clear when I added the word "guess" and underlined it.
The rules may look close to you, but they are not. Part 107 permits a lot of stuff that recreational pilots are not going to do - operations under various waivers, operations in controlled airspace beyond simple LAANC authorizations etc.. So sure - it could be one set of rules but then everyone is taking the Part 107 test. That's what you want?
What I propose is that commercial requirements could be greatly reduced, hobby requirements could be slightly increased and some additional rules could be added when more restrictive flights are needed. I'd venture to say that 99.9% of all drone flights are your typical flight in the park on a weekend. So only involve additional requirements when those .1% flights are involved.
For example, I fly for fun on the park. The person next to me doing the same thing is in the business of selling his/her photos. That person is required to do a _whole_ lot more and even has different restrictions just because he/she makes a buck off a photo? It is the same exposure and risk. If a person wants to fly in an area that is higher risk, only then require them to meet a higher standard. The risk has _nothing_ to do with making a dollar... it only has to do with the actual flight. So, it should be easy to govern 99.9% of all flights under one roof.
The problem is that the system started off kind of broken. It was then made worse by adding things here and there. They then had the ability to start all over and fix everything but they chose to simply take what was in place and twist it until they felt it met some artificial need. In other words, they started off wanting to push a square peg through a round hole and they just got a hammer big enough to make it work.
My 2 cents. Sorry for getting OT.
What I'd really like to know is how the police treated the drone in this situation when they found it (i.e. they were supposed to let it just sit there in the field untouched until they found and confirmed who the owner was. Yeah, I'm sure that really happened) and did they ever use the registry to locate the person.