[NOTE: **Updates 7-10-16] With the much-anticipated announcement of the Part 107 sUAS rule for commercial flight today [June 21, 2016], there are still many unanswered questions and the answers will most likely come out slowly over the following 60 days. We’ll do our best to keep up, and here are some great resources for learning […]
FAA
FAA Drone Registration & Location Data Updates 2016
With all the fear of personal information released with the latest public drone registry for UAS (multirotors and model aircraft) weighing more than .55lbs and under 55lbs for hobbyist/non-hobbyist use has once again popped up when the FAA released a downloadable Excel spreadsheet showing a list of drone registrations in the US by city.
Big News: Small UAS Rule at OIRA for Final Review
The UAS industry has long awaited a rule that will broadly authorize commercial UAS operations in the United States. We are now at an extremely important step in the rulemaking process. In a major new development, described in more detail here, the FAA has sent the Small UAS NPRM to the Office of Information and […]
Three Recent Changes to 333 Exemption Amendments
The FAA started posting amendments on 3/7/2016 which are different from what the FAA has been previously doing. In the past, the FAA was granting amendments to petitions to add aircraft or to add on closed-set TV/movie filming. This created a super backlog because many of the petitioners were repeats.
New FAA Drone Registration Made Easy
With all the confusion and rampant discussions from the hobbyist drone industry these past few weeks, on the announcement of the FAA’s recent drone registry requirements, I’d like to try to provide some information and walk you through the typical process that takes only about 5 minutes to complete online. Starting today, December 21, 2015, the […]
The FAA wants YOU to be registered!
As expected, the FAA and NTSB have pushed through a rather sloppy “solution” for what they think is controlling the national airspace with a generic UAS Registration program that starts taking applications on December 21, 2015. Other than a fairly benign attempt at drone education and responsible flying program through the “Know Before You Fly” campaign, […]
FAA Registration Task Force Recommendations Published
On October 19th, in response to media and analyst reports that close to 1 million drones would be sold over the holidays, the Department of Transportation (DOT) announced the creation of a registration task force (RTF) that would create recommendations for the FAA to implement a registration program for small UAS or drones in order […]
UAS community reacts to DOT press conference regarding National Drone Registry
There’s a lot of buzz going on about Monday’s press conference with U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx and F.A.A. Administrator Michael Huerta and their proposed plan to require all drone owners/operators to register their UAS (all sizes and classes) with a National Registry. And if you didn’t happen to catch the event, you can watch the […]
Breaking News: New Drone Chiefs Appointed at FAA
I mentioned in my earlier post how so often, technology moves quicker than policymaking – and this has certainly been the case for drones. One of the hold-ups on the policymaking side over the last few months has been staffing of the federal government. In the spring Jim Williams, former head of the FAA UAS […]
FAA 333 Approved, But are you Complying?
FAA APPROVED…BUT are you compliant? We keep seeing more companies taking to the web to proclaim they are “FAA APPROVED” but what does that actually mean? The problem I see is that while more and more are getting their approval from the FAA, they are failing miserably at complying or not even trying at all […]
