The government has the power to hold drone operators accountable when they operate the remote-control aircraft recklessly, a federal safety board ruled Tuesday in a setback to small drone operators chafing under Federal Aviation Administration restrictions. The National Transportation safety Board, which hears appeals of Federal Aviation Administration enforcement actions, ruled that small drones are […]
Yamaha Demos Agricultural RoboCopter, But Humans Can’t Unleash It Yet
By Evan Ackerman Agriculture is (arguably) where drones are going to be the most useful in the near future. Drones have already proven their usefulness to hobbyists and the military, and agriculture is the next huge commercial frontier. And although commercial drone operation is still waiting for official approval, at least in the United States, […]
McKenna Pursues Federal Regulatory Preemption in Unmanned Aircraft Systems (“UAS”) Arena
McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP (McKenna), on behalf of members of its UAS Advisory Group, has petitioned the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requesting that any Notice of Proposed Rulemaking issued by the FAA addressing small unmanned aircraft systems (“sUAS”) include a regulation that expressly preempts state and local regulation of sUAS including design, sale, distribution, use, or operation. […]
Drones appear on Jackson City Council’s radar
Dustin Barnes, The Clarion-Ledger 3:52 p.m. CDT September 9, 2014 Drones flying around Jackson – or at least the idea of them – have caught the attention of the City Council who is now pondering how to get ahead of the supposed inevitable occurrence. A proposed ordinance, brought up by Ward 3 Councilwoman Larita Cooper-Stokes, […]
What UAVs can learn from manned aircraft
By Chris Anderson – 3D Robotics Here’s a very interesting article on Medium from a Marc Ausman, a pilot, on what the lessons in FAA regulation of manned aircraft suggest about the right path for unmanned ones. Excerpt: There are regulations governing how a plane can be operated depending on the weather conditions. Good weather flyers […]
Scholars Say No to FAA’s Model Aircraft Regulati
By David Schneider Last week, a group of researchers, teachers, and administrators from 16 institutions of higher learning including Harvard, Duke, and Stanford, registered their objections to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration’s recent “Interpretation of the Special Rule for Model Aircraft.” They did that by submitting, with the assistance of counsel, a 13-page letter in […]
FAA Has Commercial Drone Regulations Backwards
The FAA is investigating New York City realtors who are using drones to document properties. They’ve also issued guidelines saying the use of model aircraft (drones) by farmers is unlawful. The guidance is the next absurd step in the never ending saga of government agencies that can’t figure out how to regulate new technology. The […]