Support grows for drone registration
Supporters of a registration scheme for drones have won over one of the local industry’s leading innovators.
The Airline Pilots Association appealed last month for an urgent review of drone rules in the wake of incidents where drones were spotted by police flying close to heliports on the West Coast.
Commercial drone industry pioneer Robyn Kamira has now backed the association’s call for a drone registration scheme, agreeing that buyers should be required to register before or at the time of purchase.
The goal would be to ensure that if a drone was flown dangerously, its owner could be identified.
A Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) spokeswoman said it was consulting with drone users on whether the existing rules were working for them, and wanted to develop more ‘‘integrated’’ policies in the longer term.
‘‘But there are no immediate plans to review the rules around [drone] use in New Zealand,’’ she said.
‘‘At this stage, we still believe that the costs of administering a licensing system for [drones] would outweigh the benefits.’’
A source said the CAA was caught in a conflict between safety concerns and the Government’s desire not to stifle innovation.
Kamira’s company, Paua Interface, has been appointed by the CAA to help administer an 874 square kilometre test zone in Northland’s Hokianga region.
The area has been earmarked for drone flights at up to 3000 feet, out of the line-of-sight of operators, during daylight hours, but flights must still be approved by the CAA.
Kamira also owns a company, Medical Drones Aotearoa, which plans to use drones to deliver prescription medicines to the remote community of Mitimiti from November, in what is the first confirmed trial in the Hokianga airspace.
The 80 or so members of the ‘‘isolated marae community’’ face a return journey of about three hours to drive to and from their nearest pharmacy, Kamira said.
The trials in November would test whether delivering medicines by drone could be a practical alternative, she said.
‘‘Mortality rates in rural areas are higher than in urban areas and that is partly about access to medicine.’’
Cost, travelling times and road closures all contributed to people either not picking up or rationing their medications, she said.
United States drone company Flirtey is in separate discussions with the CAA about a plan to start delivering pizzas via drone from a Domino’s store north of Auckland later this year.
Explaining her support for a drone registration scheme, Kamira said most ‘‘if not all’’ of the problems surrounding drone use concerned recreational users, who often received drones over Christmas.
‘‘You can give a drone to a five-yearold but they can do some damage and the more drones we have in our sky, the more risk they present.’’
She did not believe it would be practical to ask people to register drones after the purchase.