Patrick’s RID letter to President Trump.

February 21, 2020
President Donald J. Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20500

RE: FAA Remote Identification of Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Notice of Public Rulemaking.
Docket No.: FAA-2019-1100

This proposed rule constitutes a credible threat to the national security of the United States of America.

Mr. President;

This proposed rule will only serve to bolster the growing monopoly enjoyed by a Chinese toy (import classification) Company. Shenzhen Dà-Jiāng Innovations Sciences and Technologies Ltd. is purported to have secured $1.6 billion in investment moneys, some coming from the People’s Republic of China. That same investment money is and has been spent influencing State and Federal lawmakers, as well as the Federal Aviation Administration, ultimately allowing DJI to dump low cost drones into the marketplace.

Simple, non-intrusive, and more cost-effective measures, like point-of-sale registration for “aircraft,” have not yet been tried. This simple measure would ensure both privacy and
accountability but were aggressively lobbied against by big box retailers and DJI.

The United States of America is the birthplace of aviation and has been responsible for great advancements and achievements in aviation. Aviation luminaries like Howard Hughes, Paul MacCready, Samuel Langley utilized model aviation to achieve these innovations.

Many of the systems that US warfighters have come to rely on, like Aerosonde, Scaneagle, Predator and Reaper, Raven, Puma, and Wasp; were only possible because of the innovations and supply chains developed by the domestic remote-control hobby ecosystem.

That once robust marketplace is now in disarray and this is in turn leading to poorly crafted rules not based in science; and these rules favor offshore manufacturers that negatively impact an already beleaguered domestic aviation industry.

Proposed Remote ID solutions should neither be spearheaded nor influenced by the Chinese. We as a nation need an Aviation Administration that promulgates rules that enable and promote innovation as well as support a robust Aviation ecosystem in the United States.

This proposal is by and large flawed since it obviously lacks input from SME’s, commercial end-users, and American citizens whom enjoy the safe modeling hobby. RID is bad for American aviation!

Sincerely, Patrick Egan

CC: Hon. Kamala Harris, Hon. Doris Matsui