All drone or unmanned aircraft (UA) that are more than 250g of weight will required to be registered before you can legally operate them. This law will take effect from 2 April 2020, as mandated by the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) in their press release.
If you are thinking that is why the the DJI Mavic Mini was designed to weight exactly 1g below this require at 249g, you’ve guessed right. This is also the main selling point of the Mavic Mini. Many countries like the US, Canada and the UK has the same requirement that requires you to register any drone 250 and above before you are allowed to fly them. DJI Spark is 300g, so you WILL need to register if you have one. I’m currently on a DJI Mavic Pro.
Fortunately, the steps to sign up is pretty straight forward. Here are some requirements:
- You need to be at least 16 years old at registration. If you are below 16, you need to have the UA be registered by someone eligible, and have obtained their permission to operate it. (this is impt – see next point)
- All activities involving the UA will be held accountable by the legal registrant of the UA. (So if you 15 year old decided to do something funny with your drone, you will be prosecuted. Not them.)
There are 3 key actions in this UA registration process.