2020: The majority of the RC flying to become illegal?

A few days ago the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) released preliminary rules for UAVs and remote controlled drones, the 'Prototype' Commission on Unmanned Aircraft Operations, which are due to come into force by 2020. I have read the regulations in full, and whilst I live in hope that they simply represent a very early draft due for revision, in reality I fear they will have grave consequences for the RC modelling community within only a few short years’ time. At a stroke this document seeks to make an educational, entertaining and highly popular hobby illegal - or at least so inaccessible as to be a nightmare, if not impossible, for most common people to participate in.

Reading through I naturally assumed I would find that these rules would be specifically applied to multi-copters or industrial and commercial operations or similar. It seems however that the bureaucrats want to with one sweeping set of rules ham-fistedly bunch all models together regardless of their type, make or purpose. In other words, these rules seek to cover everything from paper airplanes and toys, right through to almost military-spec drones, saying nothing of the glaringly obvious differences among these aircraft.

The 'prototype' regulations explain that there will be three main categories. The first, the 'open' category seems to be the most important to the RC world as the other two, the 'special' and 'certified' categories are designed for industrial and emergency service use.

The first ‘open’ category is subdivided into four further categories (stay with me here..); A0, A1, A2 and A3 – The first of these is absolutely free in that it doesn’t require the pilot to have any special licenses or for them to register themselves anywhere, however there are many extremely strict limitations that both the pilot and their UAV* are subject to. Fortunately there isn’t an age limit, so potentially even a toddler could fly in this category, but with what I hear you ask? Well, an aircraft up to a take-off weight of 250g (including batteries) which cannot not fly higher or further than 50 meters (150ft) from the pilot. Also its maximum horizontal speed must not exceed 15m/s (54km/h or 32mph) and the UAV must be able to be flown without any training. Oh, and finally it must not be capable of causing any serious injuries… Dear T-Rex 250 owners, you can forget about this category immediately.

This will not fit into A0 category...