The big hurdle to overcome before commercial drone applications will be allowed on a large scale is remote drone identification. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has now launched a test program to speed up the drone identification rules. Up to eight test programs are to be paid for by drone industry parties.
In a WSJ article from yesterday, it is reported that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is significantly behind on implementing Remote ID for drones and that new rules are likely still years away. Raising concerns among industry officials that “the delay could stymie their most ambitious plans for years.”
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.
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for Congress to create an online test or tutorial for recreational drone pilots and to prevent section 336 from being repealed.