Registration Fee And Minimum Age For Flying Drones Suggested After Changi Illegal Drone Incident

Changi airbase is not your airspace. If I was a pilot and something like this delayed my flights I would get mad for sure.

I mean 55 flight delays and 8 diversions because of your silly drones is definitely anger-worthy.

The consequences of this? There are going to be restrictions about owning a drone.

But…$20 dollars to register a drone sounds a little pricey, doesn’t it?

New Rules and Restrictions

So for starters, you could see an age restriction now.

According to recommendations from an advisory panel set up by the government, they’re asking for users to be at least 16 years old in order to legally register a drone. This includes any and all devices with a take-off weight of above 250g.

Any younger? Well, then this is a no-fun zone for you.

Oh and to any non-local visitors, this includes foreigners and tourists as well. You may not escape this fate either.

Coverage

The panel is also considering if it should cover all unmanned aircraft (UA), whether commercial or self-assembled. They also feel a reasonable grace period of three months should be given to encourage registration. 

Honestly, we ARE pretty late to the party. Don’t get too annoyed at all this.

Countries such as Canada, China and the United States have already introduced mandatory drone registration regimes. The UK and Australia are planning to follow suit too.

The 250g weight requirement is pretty standardised, but the registration fees range from $7 to $45.

Hi, can I request we manage to get $7 dollars too?

Is Everybody Onboard?

As with all things, there are mixed emotions about this.

Mr Mark Yong, chief executive of drone operations platform and solutions firm Garuda Robotics, is actually pretty cool with almost all the new rules.

However, his main issue is the cost, that it might become more expensive to operate drones as a whole.

“We pay for the operator permit and activity permits… I hope fees for operators could be more reasonable.”

This is perfectly understandable, as drones can be seen ranging from the humbler $181 model to something as insane as $2221.41+.

Then imagine being Lecturer Scottz Lip, 42, who teaches his students how to operate drones as part of the environmental and water technology diploma at Ngee Ann Polytechnic.

Having to own multiple drones for something like that would be extremely expensive on the school. Lip even agrees that “the cost could be waived initially to get more people on board.”

I understand the necessary evils of introducing all these restrictions, though. Imagine having a drone just willy-nilly flying into your space to screw up a flight.

Or to simply annoy you.

Either way, I’m broke. Guess my UFO dreams shall be on hold for a while longer.