The Civil Aeronautics Administration (CAA) yesterday began discussions with local government officials about regulating who can operate drones or uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) and where they can be used.
The Legislative Yuan on April 3 passed an amendment to the Civil Aviation Act (民用航空法) to govern the use UAVs. President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) promulgated it on April 25 and it is due to take effect on July 1 next year.
The CAA must draft two sets of enforcement rules and coordinate with local officials before the amendment takes effect, Flight Standards Division Director Clark Lin (林俊良) said.
Photo: CNA
The first set of regulations would require owners to register UAVs that weigh 250g or more with the CAA, while owners of UAVs weighing more than 25kg would have to provide certificates detailing the drones’ specifications, Lin said.
It sets the age requirement for UAV learner’s permits at 16 years old, while people applying for regular or professional UAV licenses would have to be at least 18.
People who want to operate UAVs weighing 1kg or more would be required to take classes and pass a test, while those who want to operate UAVs weighing 2kg or more would have to obtain regular or professional operating licenses from the CAA, Lin said.
A drone operators’ blood alcohol level must not exceed 0.04 percent, and those who contravene that rule could be fined NT$10,000, Lin said.
The second set of rules covers drone inspection standards and operators’ evaluations, Lin said.
An online system for registering UAVs and applying for operator permits would not be ready until the first half of next year, Lin said.
Former president Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) mention of Taiwan’s official name during a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on Wednesday was likely a deliberate political play, academics said. “As I see it, it was intentional,” National Chengchi University Graduate Institute of East Asian Studies professor Wang Hsin-hsien (王信賢) said of Ma’s initial use of the “Republic of China” (ROC) to refer to the wider concept of “the Chinese nation.” Ma quickly corrected himself, and his office later described his use of the two similar-sounding yet politically distinct terms as “purely a gaffe.” Given Ma was reading from a script, the supposed slipup
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
The bodies of two individuals were recovered and three additional bodies were discovered on the Shakadang Trail (砂卡礑) in Taroko National Park, eight days after the devastating earthquake in Hualien County, search-and-rescue personnel said. The rescuers reported that they retrieved the bodies of a man and a girl, suspected to be the father and daughter from the Yu (游) family, 500m from the entrance of the trail on Wednesday. The rescue team added that despite the discovery of the two bodies on Friday last week, they had been unable to retrieve them until Wednesday due to the heavy equipment needed to lift