PHOTOGRAMMETRIC ENGINEERING & REMOTE SENSING
March 2017
169
SECTOR
INSIGHT:
.
com
E
ducation
and
P
rofessional
D
evelopment
in
the
G
eospatial
I
nformation
S
cience
and
T
echnology
C
ommunity
By Jonathan Rupprecht, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Rupprecht Law
H
ow does information influence me and my busi-
ness? How does the information about the new
federal drone regulations, and state and local
law issues influence you and your business? With
the great influx of pilots in this area, is your service going to
become more and more commoditized? Are there particular
waivers that you need now to fully realize the cost-saving po-
tential of your use of drones? Should you start talking with
your local elected officials to prevent any potential local drone
laws? What is your game plan on staying up to date on chang-
es? Keep these questions in mind as we dive into each of the
points below. In this article, I will first discuss some topics
related to the new federal drone regulations and then I will
discuss state and local law issues.
F
ederal
A
viation
R
egulations
(P
art
107, W
aivers
,
etc
.)
The FAA’s new Part 107 drone regulations went into effect
on August 29, 2016 and things have been taking off- literally.
I’m going to talk about some topics that professionals using
drones should be aware of regarding the regulations. All of
the numbers used are current as of December 11, 2016.
Part 107 Statistics
The Remote Pilot Airmen Knowledge Test was first made
available on August 29
th
. A source inside the FAA shared
with me that from August 29th to December 6th, 12,822
individuals have passed the exam (an 88% pass rate) and a
total of 27,644 individuals have applied for their Remote Pilot
Certificate through the Integrated Airman Certification and
Rating Application portal. A total of 22,488 individuals have
already received their Remote Pilot Certificate.
There are two options to applying for the Remote Pilot
Certificate: (1) being a current Part 61 pilot or (2) by passing
the initial knowledge exam. It is interesting to note that of
the 27,644 individuals who applied, 14,822 (66%) are current
Part 61 manned aircraft pilots.
Part 107 Waivers and Authorizations
If you need to do something different from what Part 107
allows, you will have the option of requesting an authorization
or waiver.
There are nine regulations that are waivable. There have
been 209 waivers granted to date. The waivers issued have
been for 4 years. The large majority of the waivers granted
have been for night operations. My data shows the average
time to obtain a night waiver approval takes around 26 days
from filing to approval with the quickest ever being 13 days.
This is extremely fast compared to what some of you might
remember with the 333 exemptions taking up to 8-9 months to
approve. Hoot Gibson of the FAA said at the Drone Advisory
Committee on September 16, 2016, that night waivers are
the most requested waiver followed by operations over people
and beyond visual line of sight waivers. There has been one
waiver granted to allow over people operations to CNN and
two waivers to allow operations beyond the visual line of sight
of the remote pilot (BNSF Railways and PrecisionHawk).
If you want to operate in Class B, C, D, or E at the surface
airspace, you have the option of obtaining an airspace
authorization (618 approved to date) or a waiver from the
requirement to obtain an authorization (0 to date) to operate
in that airspace. In effect they are the same but an airspace
waiver will be for a longer period of time (~1-2 years) than the
airspace authorization (7-8 months max). No one has received
an airspace waiver so the 1-2 years is an educated guess.
Over People Operations Notice of Proposed
Rulemaking (NPRM)
The FAA is trying to issue a NPRM for a set of regulations to
allow operations over people sometime very soon. The NPRM
is currently in the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs
(OIRA) for review. This is the last step before it is published
in the Federal Register for the public to comment on. Once the
comment period is closed, the FAA will look at the comments
and respond to them and/or tweak the proposed regulations
in light of the recommendations. The FAA must internally
sign off on the final set of regulations (final rule) and then
submit the final rule to the Department of Transportation for
approval. If approved, the final rule then goes back to OIRA
for approval. If OIRA approves it, it will get published in the
Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing
Vol. 83, No. 3, March 2017, pp. 169–170.
0099-1112/17/169–170
© 2017 American Society for Photogrammetry
and Remote Sensing
doi: 10.14358/PERS.83.3.170
