You Can No Longer Fly or Purchase a Drone in Beijing | PetaPixel
I suspect the US will eventually do something similar but not a full prohibition. All general use drone usage will eventually require a Part 107 license and registration of every drone with the government. Flights, not just those in regulated airspace, will require online approval through the LAANCS system.
Most flights not at RC club airfields will require a Part 107 license.
Hobbyist use will be eventually be restricted to approved FRIA areas (Federally Recognized Identification Areas), which are basically already existing radio controlled model aircraft club airfields. Membership in the club and membership in the AMA is generally required to fly at these locations – this can easily run more than $100 per year.
None of this makes much sense – there has yet to be a fatality from a consumer drone and in the entire nearly 100 year history of RC model aircraft in the US, there’s been one fatality and that to the operator of the craft. You may have noticed also that the scary media reports of mystery drones have vanished – once they figured out most reports were of stars, Starlink satellite trails, human aircraft operations, and authorized drone flights. And all of the media reports that breathlessly reported drone versus airliner collisions turned out to be bird strikes or aircraft maintenance/structural failure – not collissions.
