There it is – the FCC Order: DA-25-1086A1.pdf
Bans all foreign made drones, quadcopters, radio-controlled aircraft and all components including batteries, controllers, motors, servos, etc. And not just from China but even those made in Europe.
Since batteries eventually wear out and die, thus this de facto grounds most existing drones within a few years. The US has no manufacturing of drone and RC batteries, motors and servos.
The only alternative will be to buy commercially made drones from US companies – none of which are marketed to the consumer. They sell only to businesses and government – at 2x to 3x the price. This FCC Order was lobbied by corrupt companies like Skydio because of their inability to make competitive products – it is protectionism on steroids.
The FCC appears to have violated the Administrative Procedures Act with this Order – as no one was awae of this draconian action. The FCC and others were discussing bans on DJI and possibly Autel – they never told the public they planned to ban all drones and components from other countries.
An additional complication is that radio-controlled toy cars use many of the same components as RC model aircraft – including controllers, batteries, motors, and servos. How will the FCC distinguish between a motor used on a toy RC car and a toy RC airplane? (Yes, the FCC is really this stupid to have proposed this unenforceable rule).
As long suspected, when the US government proposed its original Remote ID requirements, they also proposed banning homemade aircraft usage except at a limited number of authorized airfields. Only existing airfields would, under the original proposal be grandfathered. No new locations could ever be added – such that over time, the number of approved airfields would gradually disappear.
I suggested back then that eventually, an FCC Part 107 license would be mandated to fly any remote-controlled model aircraft (quad copters or RC hobby planes). This is where we are landing.
With this FCC Order, President Trump has accomplished what the FAA and FCC failed to do a few years ago – he has banned all future radio-controlled aircraft except commercial products made by a few US companies.
The RC hobby has been shot in the head. Many hobby stores will simply go out of business.
The next steps are obvious:
- FAA will mandate a Part 107 license for any toy aircraft flight
- Only commercial/industrial products priced at thousands of dollars will be permitted to fly in the Airspace system.
- In one swoop, this clears the airspace for drone delivery services from Amazon, Walmart, UPS and others.
We no longer live in a democracy – we live in an authoritarian industrial society that exists purely for the oligarchs.
