After years of dawdling, the Federal Aviation Administration in 2014 began to ramp up its regulatory efforts regarding drones, as these unmanned vehicles became more common in the skies to the bureaucratic equivalent of warp speed.
Within two months, officials say, they will lay out rules requiring drone owners to register their aircraft. That’s sensible, so long as the rules don’t sweep in the owners of the smaller drones that pose little if any threat to larger aircraft. The very act of getting a government license and having to review the rules for operation should impress upon drone owners the seriousness with which authorities view their responsibilities to stay clear of airport flight paths.
With registration, drone owners will also realize that if they lose track of and crash a drone, authorities will be able to trace it back to them — with potentially serious consequences.
Registration is hardly a complete answer to the problem of close calls near airports. But it’s a valuable and necessary start.
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