If drones are treated like airplanes, the FAA will require a pilot’s license, an airworthy certificate, annual inspections, transponders, radar reflectors, air-traffic control, proof of insurance, flight plans and drone license plates. If they make the drone license plates heavy enough, it should solve all the problems. Or there could be drone police flying around looking for other drones. Actually, drones will be like smoking pot — don’t do it, but many will anyway. Some common sense requirements: propeller guards, a separation from airports, springy landing gear and a maximum altitude allowed to keep them out of the way of manned aircraft.
Thomas Cechner, Lockport
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Last aviation czar did not earn pay
Regarding Thursday’s editorial calling for higher pay for Chicago’s next commissioner of aviation: Rosemarie Andolino has been paid more than she deserved for the past decade given that she did not object to the illegal destruction of Meigs Field in 2003. She was not the commissioner then, but she was in charge of the modernization of O’Hare. Any real aviation expert would have known that eliminating Meigs from Chicago’s airport system was an egregious mistake in the Chicago area for air traffic, public safety, medical flights, emergency preparedness and convention business.
Rachel Goodstein, past president, Friends of Meigs Field
