“I have had a life-long passion for/obsession with aviation. I started flying RC aircraft as a teenager, and that motivated me to pursue a degree in aerospace engineering and to work as an engineer in the aerospace industry. Over time as technology developed, my interest and participation in the RC hobby got me to learn how to design things in CAD, got me into 3D printing, computer programming, electronics design and assembly, CNC machining, RF theory, and many other aspects of technology, all inspired by RC. I have been a member of Civil Air Patrol since I was a teenager, and now as an adult member I use the RC hobby in that program to educate current teenagers in Aerospace Education and STEM. Some of it is “drones”, but a lot of it is just foam board FliteTest planes and traditional RC flying. Some of these young people have gone on to be pilots in the military and civilian sectors, others to be engineers for NASA and Boeing and Lockheed etc. Some had no real interest in manned flight but caught the bug hard when they started participating in RC. I’m extremely concerned that the proposed regulation hasn’t been thought out from the perspective of the “little guy”. The kid who just wants to connect with his dad, or his friends through a love of flight. Or the dad who wants to connect with his son. Or daughter! The next John Glenn or Kelly Johnson who just likes to tinker in the garage and “see what happens” and learn. Those people pose no danger to our skies. But what does pose a danger to our skies is losing an entire generation of would-be engineers and pilots and scientists who were never inspired down their path because every molecule of air was inaccessible to them, either because it was off limits, or because no one makes anything in his price range that he/she can use or experiment with. I the problems the FAA are trying to solve are (mostly) valid, but I also believe that their proposed solution is the most onerous and restrictive option available to them, and that simpler, less restrictive, and more cost-effective solutions exist today that would solve most, if not all, of these problems.”