Work on the bugs. New amendments to the Air Code on UAVs made to the Duma

Past amendments require registration of drones weighing from 250 g, new - from 30 kg

In the spring of last year, the owners of the drones rejoiced at the good news : on March 24, 2015, by order of Medvedev, the State Duma was amended to amend the Air Code of the Russian Federation. The main part of the changes is devoted to the use of unmanned aircraft that were previously in a legal vacuum. The bill was reviewed, amended and adopted in the third reading in December 2015. The new edition of the VC came into force on March 30, 2016.

What did we get in the end? Now, on a new VC, all drones heavier than 250 grams need to be registered , get a state number in Rosaviatsia, and even register with the FSB ! In practice, the new law does not work: recently activists decided to check it and register their small quadcopters, but they were sent to the FSB away from them .

Fortunately, common sense triumphed, so on May 30, 2016, new amendments were made to the State Duma.

Under the new amendments, mandatory state registration remains only for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) heavier than 30 kg. The procedure for accounting for lighter UAS is proposed to be discussed later. Market participants believe that it is logical to consolidate their accounting for one industry center, but this will already be discussed in the framework of another bill. The main thing is to accept the current one.
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^{MP Oleg Savchenko. Photo: TASS / Ilya Pitalev}

“This draft law will allow creating real legal opportunities for the operation of UAS weighing up to 30 kg,” said deputy Oleg Savchenko, who amended the State Duma for consideration. - This is the type of UAS that forms the basis of civilian unmanned vehicles. This model aircraft, flying aircraft toys - their operation was almost impossible under the previous version of the VC: he actually stifled aircraft modeling. Our Russian model airplane team is a multiple world champion, and the VC that came into force in March seriously complicated the process of preparing it for the next world championship. ”

According to Gleb Babintsev, a member of the presidium of the Federation of Model Aircraft of Russia, tens of thousands of model airplanes are waiting for the speedy adoption of this law: “Now we fly at our own risk, every competition or training is actually a violation. With such legislative restrictions on children's technical creativity, there can be no talk of any development. We will closely monitor the fate of the draft law, we hope that the deputies and officials will not raise his hand to slow down. ”