A topic that I have not heard addressed: Every time you or I buy avgas, or step on an airliner, we fund the National Airspace System via the Aviation Trust Fund. What about all of the current (Section 333) and proposed (Amazon, Google, etc) UAV operations? They are all tying up FAA resources, yet until now, via the registration process, contribute nothing towards funding the ATF (as if paying $5 for an unlimited number of platforms is actually a contribution) . It seems that we are constantly being threatened with user fees because there is never enough money. These users pay nothing.

I wonder if we will be assessed a user fee when we have to exchange our guns for magic flying carpets?

About 7% or so of FAA funds come from the general fund:
https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/apl/aatf/media/AATF_Fact_Sheet.pdf (pg 2)
I suppose that portion might be argued to at least partially represent drone ops. Who knows.

Where I live, the federal and state automotive fuel and registration taxes collected only cover around 40% of the total cost of the road infrastructure in the state. Most of the balance comes from federal, state, and local general funds and focused tax assessments. In the county where I live, conflicts occasionally (and sometimes tragically) arise between bicyclists and motorists in front-page fashion. I often see the argument that bicyclists don't register or pay fuel taxes. Similar arguments are pressed with regard to electric vehicles (no fuel taxes, plus subsidies). Yet the majority of funds for roads are paid by everyone outside of those funding sources. I'm a believer that the roads should somehow serve everyone to the broadest extent practical, and I certainly hope the same can be expected for the NAS.

On the other hand, I think subjecting the use of the airspace below 400' currently represents a comparatively infinitesimal risk to the flying public (although somewhat more risk to the skiing public: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeviAWB0i4Y), and I dislike the thought of the folks who gave us the bloated and underperforming NextGen effort and our current GA regulatory mess claiming they have some sort of 'solution' for drones. Unless some miracle has happened and there is some brilliant but secret plan underway, I simply don't believe them. I also don't think that registration of drones will help or hinder drone safety in any way even if the fee was $500 instead of $5.

But all that is besides the point really if we are talking about covering costs instead of safety. What do you think would be an effective mechanism when funds are not generated evenly, as in most government institutions?

I think supporting a pro rata usage of the NAS for any single user group is a slippery slope. The argument for why GA users like us should be exempted from per flight user fees suddenly would become a harder sell. I say leave that can of worms sealed. Yes, we pay per the fuel tax but the damned invoiced-by-N# thing always seems to be suggested. That's the only way a drone user would be charged.

[quote]On the other hand, I think subjecting the use of the airspace below 400' currently represents a comparatively infinitesimal risk to the flying public/quote]
If the FAA is interested in keeping the UAV's below 400 feet, why would the approve the new 8000 square mile Colorado test area from 15,000msl to the surface? With the stated purpose " To prescribe UAS operating requirements in the National Airspace System (NAS) for the purpose of public safety, search and rescue, emergency management, law enforcement, fire fighting, agriculture and other uses".
I will bet that when ADS-B becomes mandatory in 2020, equipped UAV's will outnumber equipped GA. And being flown with experimental Airworthiness Certs, their ADS-B will cost a fraction of what mine will cost.

Maybe it could be like Idaho registration, which started at a penny a pound, then quadrupled in 5 years. It goes something like this: 1) It's not fair that drones don't pay into Air Space fees, therefore they will need to be registered and charged a nominal fee. 2) It's not fair to expect the overworked government employees to do more work, therefore we will have to hire more of them. 3) Now that there are more employees to collect more money, we will have to hire more supervisors to manage them. 4) Drone operators, recently registered with big bro will now have to pay triple last years' fee to pay for new administration cost. 5) it's not fair to expect the same number of government employees to collect triple the amount of revenue with the same number of personnel, therefore more need to be hired. 6) New supervisors . 7)More fees. More minions 9) More admin. 10) More fees....

Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather, rinse, repeat. Lather......

flynbeekeeper wrote:If the FAA is interested in keeping the UAV's below 400 feet, why would the approve the new 8000 square mile Colorado test area from 15,000msl to the surface? With the stated purpose " To prescribe UAS operating requirements in the National Airspace System (NAS) for the purpose of public safety, search and rescue, emergency management, law enforcement, fire fighting, agriculture and other uses".
I will bet that when ADS-B becomes mandatory in 2020, equipped UAV's will outnumber equipped GA. And being flown with experimental Airworthiness Certs, their ADS-B will cost a fraction of what mine will cost.

The uses that will be pursued in the proposed area in your neck of the woods will not likely have anything at all to do with public safety, search and rescue, emergency management, law enforcement, fire fighting, or agriculture. It will be for military reasons- nobody is going to pay $100k plus for something to pull out of storage once every other year to go find a lost hunter when other solutions are better and cheaper. The clients will always be the military, and the companies behind this are 100% committed to this clientele. The fact that they are doing what they are doing means they didn't get invited to the same holiday parties that Lockheed, General Atomics, and the rest attended to to grant themselves unfettered access to MOA's and civilian airspace for a couple of decades, and now they are trying to get theirs. The idea to create this new airspace is a back door grant to a few private companies. Let them keep looking. Mexico, for example.

As for ADS-b, the US version of the ADS-b system barely has the ability to support the volume of traffic in commercial and GA aviation today in busier areas. Adding a lot of drones to the mix could create capacity issues. I don't think a sweeping mandate for lots of UAS flights to be equipped with ADS-b units is technically possible. ADS-b is rapidly becoming a past time for amateurs out there. Fully "compliant" ADS-b in and out systems are being made for a few hundred dollars, with displays. High schoolers are coding up the software in some cases. A dedicated hardware platform could easily be under a hundred bucks from end to end by the time this settles down. The GA solutions, and their costs, already look like bad jokes.

So I believe that either ADS-b will not work with a large volume of UAS traffic entering the system, or the low costs will migrate to GA.

UAS traffic flying around in the NAS is a big unknown. I don't like it in principle, but I also don't see any big movement to get in it way by the general public until Cessnas and Pipers fall from the sky with bits of UAS parts embedded in them. The idea that regulations will evolve to favor UAS traffic is a real possibility though, given where the money is in this story.