I've been seeing a lot of back and forth on this and cant really get a straight answer. The Remote ID deadline came and went and I upgraded my modules and registered everything like a good boy, but I fly at a local spot and there's a guy there every weekend with what is very obviously an unregistered quad, no Remote ID broadcast, flies way too close to people, the whole deal. I've mentioned it to him once and he basically shrugged.

so is the FAA actually doing any real enforcement on recreational flyers or is it still mostly on paper? I'm not trying to get the guy in trouble I'm more just wondering if I went through all the hassle of complying for nothing. read something about them doing some spot checks at flying events but couldn't find much detail on whether regular park flyers are getting cited.

From what I understand enforcement is still pretty spotty, the FAA just doesnt have the ground resources to be checking every park. Most of the actual citations ive heard about were either near airports, after incidents got reported, or at organized events where there was already some official presence. That said the liability exposure if something does go wrong and your stuff isnt compliant is a whole other issue, like the Remote ID thing is almost secondary to just having your registration sorted if anything happens.

your guy sounds annoying though, those are the people that end up making the news and then everyone gets new restrictions dumped on them

ugh this is such a frustrating topic. i complied too and it cost me like $80 between the module and the extra battery weight i have to compensate for on my freestyle build. there's definitely a gap between the rules existing and them actually being enforced consistently but i dont think that means ignoring them is smart, more like the system is still catching up. supposedly some of the newer broadcast detection tech is making its way to law enforcement but i havent seen hard numbers on how widespread that actually is yet