Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)

You only have to see a few videos like these to understand why governments are getting so nervous about drones.

Various government agencies globally, such as the FAA, Canada Transport, and the English Department for Transport (DFT) are all springing into action after a Black Hawk helicopter hit a drone over Staten Island, another drone hit a passenger airplane over Quebec City Airport and there was a near miss with a drone at Gatwick Airport.

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The Northeast UAS Airspace Integration Research Alliance (NUAIR), a coalition of private and public entities and academic institutions in New York and Massachusetts. is creating the most advanced airspace corridor in the country, right here in the state of New York. The 50-mile corridor will be used for drone safety and performance testing as well as the development of drone traffic management systems so that one day the FAA may allow drones to fly beyond line-of-sight.

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CNN has another exclusive as it received the first waiver of its kind from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to fly drones over crowds. The news network announced on Wednesday that it received approval to fly a Vantage Robotics Snap drone up to 150 feet in the air over crowds and groups of people. Up till Wednesday, this was strictly off-limits, but it seems that the FAA has changed its mind. The safety features of the Snap drone may have played an important role in acquiring the approval as this drone comes with cages over its rotors to prevent injuries.  The drone only weighs 1.37 pounds and recent research has indicated that weight is an important factor in reducing the risk of injury.

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Skyward has been approved as a LAANC provider, an automated, fast-track approval process to allow commercial drone pilots to gain instant access to controlled airspace. This is a huge step forward as it reduces wait times for commercial drone operators to mere seconds whereas the traditional approval process could take months.

Skyward, which is owned by Verizon, is the first FAA-approved vendor to begin administering the automated Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability (LAANC) approval process. They have announced that the system will go live this fall at the following four airports: Cincinnati International Airport (CVG), Reno (RNO), San Jose (SJC), and Lincoln (LNK). The FAA plans to include 49 airports in the program by the end of next year.

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At an event in Brussels on October 12th, the Chinese drone manufacturing company DJI announced the release of the new product called AeroScope, that will enable local authorities to identify and track airborne drones. With the release of AeroScope, DJI is catering to safety and security concerns from government agencies,  such as the FAA in the US, EASA in Europe and the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority as they are grappling with the “unmanned traffic management”, or UTM question, while protecting drone pilots.

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Drone registrations up are up in North Dakota in general, but since the federal government released the first list a year ago, drone registrations for commercial use are up fourfold, reports the Bismarck Tribune.

The drone market is growing very fast, no doubt, but experts believe it suggests that the drone industry could become part of our everyday lives.

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Always wanted to fly a drone and capture some footage of the Statue of Liberty? You’d better hurry up as you have less than a week to do so. The U.S. national security and law enforcement agencies requested the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to restrict drone flights at ten Department of the Interior (DOI) locations. As of October 5th, 2017 the FAA will use its existing authority under Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations (14 CFR) § 99.7 – “Special Security Instructions” – to address concerns about unauthorized drone operations over 10 Department of the Interior (DOI) sites, including the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore. The FAA and DOI have agreed to restrict drone flights up to 400 feet within the lateral boundaries of these sites:
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If you have ever wondered what the best pilots can do with a drone, you have to watch this video. It is called “Flight of the Year” and showcases Paul Nurkkala’s drone flying skills. The footage in the video seems almost incredible. Nurkkala flies the drone on top of, inside, underneath and in between the freight cars of a moving cargo train. The train crosses a bridge in the video and that too becomes an obstacle, that Paul exploits to show his expert drone flying skills. He expertly steers the drone through and over the bridge. Making it all look too easy.

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