One of the main hurdles preventing commercial drone applications from taking off in the US is Remote Identification of Unmanned Aircraft Systems or drones. Without Remote ID, officials will have no idea who is flying, where, where to, and for what purpose, and thus the FAA will keep their foot on the brake when it comes to allowing commercial drone services. The process of making Remote ID a reality has yet been delayed again by another three months as shown in this significant rulemaking report from August from the US Department of Transportation (USDOT).

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Yesterday, Brendan Schulman, DJI’s Vice President of Policy & Legal Affairs, pointed out in a tweet that per the USDOT rulemaking report, UAS Remote ID rulemaking had been delayed by another three months. This is indeed unfortunate as Remote ID for drones is the first regulatory hurdle to be overcome before we can expect the rules for flying drones over people or at night to be finalized. The new projected date for the ‘End of Comment’ period is now set at 10/29/2019, but keep in mind that this a projected date, not a fixed one.

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Earlier this month U.S. aviation regulators quietly filed a new proposed rule that would require recreational drone pilots to place their government assigned drone identification number on the outside of their aircraft. Currently, the roughly one million recreational drone pilots that are registered with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are already required to identify their drones but the marking can be placed inside the battery compartments for instance where it is not easily visible.

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DJI’s VP of Policy and Legal Affairs, Brendan Schulman talks about the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Congress and how new upcoming regulations may impact hobbyist drone pilots. Brendan has been part of the Aviation Rule Making Committee (ARC) to create a report with recommendations for the FAA. This report addresses among other things, remote identification. Brendan is also working with other stakeholders from the manned aviation world, the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA) and DJI customers on a proposal for Congress to create an online test or tutorial for recreational drone pilots and to prevent section 336 from being repealed.

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