Drone Regulations

The UK’s  Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) regulatory body has taken an important step toward enabling UAV activities to scale, with its proposals to loosen rules for beyond visual line of sight drone operation (BVLOS).

A Pennsylvania man has been charged with illegally flying a DJI Mini 2 drone over Baltimore’s M&T Bank Stadium during the recent National Football League (NFL) AFC Championship game. The incursion of an unidentified and unapproved drone during the Jan. 28 playoff was deemed a serious enough threat that security temporarily suspended the game.

It’s no secret that UK police have been energetic and innovative adopters of drone technology in public service, law enforcement, and first responder activity, but a recent survey suggests those forces need to do a better job in assuring security of their UAVs and the data they collect.

If drones are being deployed to keep people safe from sharks at the city’s beaches, the New York Police Department (NYPD) figures they may prove just as useful in broadcasting audio messages to residents of areas facing emergency situations.

China has presented a list of new rules applying to drone flight by civilian users, whose objectives for protecting public safety and national security – particularly, it would appear, the latter – don’t exactly strengthen individual liberties in the skies.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has published its final guidelines explaining how UAS manufacturers and government agencies can measure the noise level of their drones, ensuring they are not a nuisance to people and wildlife.

I’m trying something new. Each week I’m going to recap my favorite stories from the past week as well as our discussion during the weekly live stream. I’ll fill in some of my opinions on the topics, throw an interview in here or there, and see where it goes from here. Hope you enjoy it.

Officials in New York are proposing changes to rules that strictly regulate drone activity within NYC, but UAV businesses and other operators hoping to see the end of the city’s quasi-blanket ban on flights aren’t likely to be singing the praises of liberalization just yet.

Telecom company BT Group has released new research indicating the UK needs to take steps to catch up with other nations currently leaving it behind in terms of drone operation and service readiness – a somewhat counterintuitive finding given the nation’s innovative aerial efforts over the past couple of years.

A group of next-generation UK aviation tech companies and associated organizations have released a white paper urging the government and national regulators to move quickly to create rules enabling effective integration of beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flights by drones and other craft into the airspace, and unleashing their full potential economic contributions that risk being undermined if such activity is held back.

Drone navigation and awareness tech specialist Airspace Link is taking another step in its efforts to permit operators of all kinds to remain as fully informed on activity around their craft as possible with the launch of its AirHub Portal solution.

A new drone flight advisory service is now available for pilots in Australia, and it’s free for all users.

Winter is a great time to visit national parks. Many national parks in the US have recreation centers that support winter activities such as skiing, sledding, and snowshoeing or offer guided tours and classes. But if you’re thinking of taking that drone with you to admire the beauty of nature from a different vantage point, think again. Flying a drone may be prohibited at the park you are visiting.

DJI has launched the application process for Mavic 3 and Mavic 3 Cine users who wish to obtain the C1 class identification label for their aircraft under the new European drone regulations. Here’s how to get one for your drone…

The European Commission is moving to accelerate the use and diversification of UAV services across the European Union (EU) with the adoption of its Drone Strategy 2.0, which, in addition to tapping into what’s expected to be a vigorous growth area, seeks to reduce the opportunities for malevolent actors to abuse the technology.

Manna Aero CEO Bobby Healy is preparing to nearly quadruple the company’s current potential client base in Ireland with the start of drone deliveries in a large Dublin-area town in a few months. From there, he plans to launch activity in European Union nations he considers ready for aerial services. Healy tells DroneDJ in the second part of our interview why he believes its regulations put the EU in particularly strong position to take the global lead in emerging UAV-based services; how Manna’s full-stack drone manufacturing and operation model gives it a business advantage; and why a trained programmer who successfully built two tech travel sector companies decided drone deliveries would be his next challenge.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has issued its first set of guidelines on the construction and layout of future vertiports, providing a critical basis of uniformity for developers of advanced air mobility (AAM) services and infrastructure to work from.

A group of aviation and drone sector companies in the UK are banding together to work toward increased use cases and frequency of beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flights across the nation, and propose policies to regulators permitting wider deployment of those missions.

Australian aerial logistics and drone delivery company Swoop Aero is working with its national Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in a project aiming to harmonize and streamline the remotely piloted aircraft (RPAS) certification process of both countries.

The UK government has released a study it commissioned on the effects of drone activity in coming years, with best-case scenarios in it forecasting an additional $54 billion in economic growth and 650,000 potential new jobs by 2030.

Updated analysis from researchers at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center is offering officials across the US an idea of how well or poorly their states rank in terms of preparing for increased enterprise and public service drone use and provides them ways to improve their readiness as activity nears expected expansion.