Public Safety Drone News

I’ve been working on my next webinar on night flight and in doing my research there is good news on the horizon when it comes to getting approval to fly at night. In the not too distant future, all Part 107 pilots may be eligible for night flight. But both COA and Part 107 pilots will require additional training to ... Read More »

There have been recent marketing efforts and press releases from vendors praising the Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) flight operations that will allow public safety pilots to fly further. Before anyone gets excited about purchasing such technology, I invite you to ask more questions and get more facts. At present such highly regulated flight may be available under a ... Read More »

For about a year now I’ve been talking about additional UAS oversight from the FAA. A recent document most would never see talks specifically about how a special focus on some oversight activities. Here are the highlights. “The analysis indicates UAS do pose potential risks to air transport due to UAS sightings in communities bordering airport approach and departure paths. ... Read More »

NASA picked the Lone Star UAS Center for Excellence & Innovation and the Nevada Institute for Autonomous Systems to hold demonstrations of the agency’s drone traffic management system. The testing is slated for March and June in Reno, Nev., and July and August in Corpus Christi, Texas. NASA is trying to “help the commercial drone industry understand the challenges posed ... Read More »

The FAAs Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability (LAANC) software solution have rolled out and I’ve finally had a chance to test it with several different providers. LAANC allows UAS pilots to get automated approvals to fly in the previously off-limits airspace. LAANC requests are checked against airspace data in the FAA UAS Data Exchange such as temporary flight restrictions, ... Read More »

The smartypants at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) have been doing some very cool things with automated UAS flight, without a pilot or GPS signal. https://youtu.be/vDYy3L9nvLk While their work focuses on solutions for the military, clearly their work filters out into consumer consumption as well. DARPA was the leading developer of things like the internet, GPS, speech translation, ... Read More »

The FAA has sent out this notice to UAS Part 107 pilots. Important information for COA pilots is below the Part 107 update. The first Remote Pilot certificates were issued in August 2016 and are nearing the end of their 24 calendar month currency. Remote drone pilots must complete a recurrent training course or pass a recurrent knowledge test within ... Read More »

The Uniform Law Commission (ULC) is working on proposals for new guidance for states to develop laws from. Generally, the ULC does very good work to help states consider new rules, regulations, and laws they may want to work towards getting into statutory law. https://youtu.be/HJdyz-LS52M According to The Drive, “The ULC’s primary example regarding the insufficient legal preparedness revolves around ... Read More »

House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) introduced a bill (H.R. 6401 (115)) that would give the departments of Justice and Homeland Security new counterdrone authorities. It’s similar to a Senate committee-approved and White House-endorsed measure ( S. 2836 (115) ) that also would grant the departments relief from the Title 18 law forbidding the destruction of aircraft and allow ... Read More »

The NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System just shared this disturbing drone story. A private pilot sighted what was thought to be a large bird in controlled airspace. The pilot’s confusion changed to surprise when the species was identified. The pilot reported, “I departed Grand Prairie Municipal Airport at 2,500 feet with a southerly heading until I was clear of Cedar ... Read More »