What???
Federal agencies do not keep one cent of the fees they collect. It all goes into the General Fund. There has never been a profit motive for rulemaking. But, one Senator (R) is proposing to privatize ATC (again). If that happens, then there will be a profit motive.
Licensing for hobby flight could easily be as simple as Amateur Radio licensing. You pass a written test covering radio theory and the FCC rules. There is no application or license fee, but the volunteer examiner may collect a reimbursement fee for their out-of-pocket expenses incurred in preparing, processing, administering or coordinating your examination.
So, a thought question: What if the FAA implemented a simple licensing for hobby drone operators based on the success of the Volunteer Examiners in the Amateur Radio community? They could easily do it with an administrative NPRM. They could avoid the wrath of the AMA by reclassifying that model aircraft does not include personal multirotor drones. (Really, what are quadcopters a model of?? Besides, the AMA has never really liked multirotor drones. [yes, I am a member.]) It would establish the FAA's authority for hobby flight which would get the local governments off our back with their ludicrous rules. It would assure that most operators of personal drones have at least read the test material which would by itself reduce many of the problematic flights into questionable areas.
Can anyone tell me how this would be a bad thing?
