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BMFA and CAA renewals


Steve Gilbey
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OK I renewed my BMFA and payed the £9 for my CAA renewal at the time and have now received an e mail from the CAA asking me to renew my model ID. I thought that the BMFA would do this having paid the fee to them, am I wrong in assuming this and if so I will need to get a refund of the fee from the BMFA and then renew directly with the CAA. Views on this please

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Andy Symmons cleared this up in a post last week but I received an email from the BMFA yesterday clarifying the situation. It just said to ignore the CAA email and, before the expiry date of the current registration, we'd get a new operators number (starting wth GBR) which won't change afterwards.

Geoff

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I think I'll call that fake news!

The minimum character height for the ID is 3mm.

Nothing specifies that it must be carried inside the model.

If the model is genuinely so small that it cannot accommodate the ID then it is likely to be under the 250g threshold to need the ID applying.

I easily added an OP ID in a concealed place on the outside of my tiny FMS Alpha Jet last year before realising it was under 250g.

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Posted by philip pember on 02/02/2021 18:37:09:

the new CAA I D numbers with dashes are 19 digits long, will strugle to hide them inside small aircraft.

More to the point, the actual ID numbers (after the GBR-OP- bits) are eleven letters and one numeral long.The question is why the CAA needs to encode information in a sequence that has approximately 33,000,000,000,000,000 permutations?

That's more than anyone who is alive plus anyone who has ever lived on the entire planet.

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Posted by Andrew Calcutt on 02/02/2021 20:46:12:

Did any one have the registration number checked,?has anyone turned up at your field and checked your aircraft?Do these officials work weekends?what is it all about?

As there's been virtually no flying since registration became a requirement it's hardly surprising o-one's been checked. However I doubt if any would have been checked had it been a normal year.

Geoff

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Posted by Andrew Calcutt on 02/02/2021 20:56:33:

The CAA assumes it owns the airspace,I would imagine they will sell to the highest bidder,but this is a commodity that they do not own.

So what is your point? Are you willing to fly without meeting the trivial cost and registration compliance? If you then got caught and had your model confiscated and the statutory fine would you then take the CAA to court?

If you had the time and energy to do that, then good for you.

For me it's simpler to just comply. It's not going away.

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Since these have to easily visible, what is to stop me from copying someone else`s then displaying it on my models? I could then go on to commit many sins and the other guy would get the blame; also it would save me 9 quid a year (for now) and a load of aggro.

Did mine on Dymo tape last year and they are now barely visible, so another £20 down the drain for the machine.

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I find all the fuss about this rather OTT.

Registration & paying via BMFA is easy, it is really simple and cheap to buy printed sticky labels online and put them on your planes.

£9 per year is less than 2glow plugs & about the same as a large pot of glue.

Complying with our regulations is simple and I don’t believe beyond the capability of anyone.

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I've forked out the £9 per year as it's a small price to pay to keep the Devil at bay.

Here's a thought though.

Almost every household in the country has owned at least one car at some point since the number plate was a legal requirement, and ownership is growing. The average number of cars per household is now around 1.3.

No issued number plate has ever been repeated and the current system is good for the next 30 years.

The maximum number of characters that have ever been used is 7. Just saying......

 

Edited By Gary Manuel on 02/02/2021 22:24:49

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Posted by Jonathan M on 02/02/2021 20:21:01:
Posted by philip pember on 02/02/2021 18:37:09:

the new CAA I D numbers with dashes are 19 digits long, will strugle to hide them inside small aircraft.

More to the point, the actual ID numbers (after the GBR-OP- bits) are eleven letters and one numeral long.The question is why the CAA needs to encode information in a sequence that has approximately 33,000,000,000,000,000 permutations?

That's more than anyone who is alive plus anyone who has ever lived on the entire planet.

I remember working on a database that involved a national registration number, and the numbers were not issued in a simple sequential way with only every 11th number being used. 11 being a prime number it was supposed to be some sort of security/error avoidance process. Not being a mathematician I never did really understand why!

Perhaps the same "thinking" is at work here.

Dick

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Posted by Andrew Calcutt on 02/02/2021 20:56:33:

The CAA assumes it owns the airspace,I would imagine they will sell to the highest bidder,but this is a commodity that they do not own.

Correct. It belongs to the landowner. But it is controlled by the CAA as an arm of government. I own the land my house is built on, but what I can do with it is controlled by the local authority, as an arm of government - ulimately to the benefit of everybody.

I don't have to like it, but I pretty much have to lump it...

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Posted by Mike T on 03/02/2021 00:52:31:
Posted by Andrew Calcutt on 02/02/2021 20:56:33:

The CAA assumes it owns the airspace,I would imagine they will sell to the highest bidder,but this is a commodity that they do not own.

Correct. It belongs to the landowner. But it is controlled by the CAA as an arm of government. I own the land my house is built on, but what I can do with it is controlled by the local authority, as an arm of government - ulimately to the benefit of everybody.

I don't have to like it, but I pretty much have to lump it...

Good. I'm part of "everybody" so I shall fly wherever I like devil

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Hundreds of of billions of permutations, inspectors working 24/7/365 (also bear in mind only the police and customs can seize stuff), registration take up of about 10% of 'eligible' drones sold, and when I renewed mine direct rather than via the BMFA I got my old number starting with 'OP' not the 19 digit one starting with 'GBR'.

THE ENTIRE THING IS A TOTAL NONSENSE.

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Posted by Denis Watkins on 03/02/2021 06:38:09:

The authorities have the advantage now, with registration and online intelligence to track interlopers

from flying in areas that they should not be, and can bring the model down, to safeguard the public,

then can track the culprit to their front door.

None of that is true now and it won't be until a very long time in the future,

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