mr. lobiondo: mr. farenthold. mr. farenthold: you are talking about the need to register drones and enforcement. would that be all drones? or is there some size limit or some cutoff point in which you ought to be able to have a toy drone without having to turn your identity over to the ederal government? >> interesting question. the way we approach is analyzing the capabilities of the vehicle vis-a-vis altitude, range, speed. to see if they could actually end up in airspace shared with airliners. mr. farenthold: i could go on amazon, this is the best-selling u.a.v. i guess they have, it's $45.90. i can have it by friday because i'm an amazon prime member for free shipping. the shipping weight is 1.1 pound. it has a range of 50 meters. that's 165 feet. you're surely not saying that needs to be registered. captain canoll: if it can fly to 1,500, to 2,000 feet yes, sir. mr. farenthold: if it gets to the feet of 50 meters, it's only 165 feet. captain canoll: i'm not sure if that range is being expressed as a lateral range

mr. lobiondo: it does nt serve any of us. if their voices cannot be heard, it stifles competition and that's not good for any of us. mr. collins: when things change and we can't give input. that's just a problem. we are coming up on our time of closing. any last comments? mr. lobiondo: thanks for inviting me -- mr. loebsack: i have learned something tonight and i appreciate your comments and i want to touch about the city square. that is so important in in our rural districts. kind of hard to explain that to our more urban colleagues but we have to do the best we can. but a pharmacy is so absolutely critical to the economy of a small community. it is necessary to serve the population but it's important for the economy. we have a pharmacy in iowa, it's off the square a little bit, but it is such an important institution in its own right. every christmas, they have wonderful christmas decorations. people come to depend upon them to do the things they depend on them, not just the pharmacy. if they were to go under, i'm not sure t

mr. lobiondo, did off question for him? >> you can have drones monitor the crab pots? [ laughter ] >> that's next. [ laughter ] >> that's next. thank you, mr. larsen, mr. young? >> thank you, mr. chairman, and the ranking member for holding this hearing. you know, the university of alaska in fairbanks is named one of the designated area test sites for the uas systems. but the frustration siff the certification of authority process, mr. whitaker. is the faa doing anything to shorten this process? they've been granted but it takes a long, long time. why does it take that long? are you improving that time factor? >> we are, sir. we've taken several steps. with respect to the test sites we initially issued a blanket certificate of authorization for operations up to 200 feet. we recently last month increased that to 400 feet so that streamlines the paperwork process pretty dramatically. there may still be some exemption requirements but they should be much fewer now and the exemption process itself we have streamlined but we do a safety analysis on each of the applications s

mr. larson for his opening remarks. >> thank you, chairman lobiondo for holding this hearing on aviation safety. i'm pleased we're here to address this timely topic of the safety of uas in the national airspace. the number of unmanned aircraft being sold in the u.s. is staggering. according to one industry group, the number of uas sold this year could reach 700,000. that's a 63% increase over last year. other reports suggest that figure will soon reach one million. and it will continue to grow so the natural question becomes who are flying these million plus unmanned aircraft? many, as we're going to hear, are responsible and safe users. these include serious hobbists such as those represented by the academy of model aeronautics. but unfortunately, they also include people who are not familiar with the rules of aviation or concepts of aviation safety. there are 600 plus reports of near passes between conventional aircraft and drones so far this year. that tells us what we need to do more to reduce the likelihood of a drone ending up in the flight path of a commercial airliner with hundre