Friday, March 11th, 2022 and the BVLOS saga . . .The ARC Report to the FAA

[BigAl07]

As many of you may already be seeing, yesterday the FAA Released a VERY long report on UAS BVLOS operation.

First off let me break it down for those who have only seen the headlines.... we are NOT ALLOWED TO FLY BVLOS without a Waiver right now. I repeat

we are NOT ALLOWED TO FLY BVLOS without a Waiver right now

This report is merely the Final Report of the Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) on UAS BVLOS operation. This is only a committee making recommendations to the FAA. It will take time for the FAA to "digest" this report and then come up with what they want to take from it. Then they will likely, at some point in the future, create a new Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) which will then have to go through the long process of Public Comments etc. Once that time period has expired the FAA would then take into account the comments from the Public (or not) and make revisions or possibly start the actual process of actually codifying their final rule. This could be a long process or a VERY long process.

If I had to "guess" I would estimate a Final Ruling could be 12-24 months away at best. There are a LOT of variables at play here and it's not going to be easy to say the least.

 

[rolling56]

Why would anyone want to fly BVLOS anyway? It will never be like it used to with people like Casey flying his drones in NYC and being stupid. I've never flown BVLOS that I can recall. I might have lost sight of them in the sun for a short period of time.

People see the features for the drones and think wow I can fly +/- 3 miles away...and do it. They don't register their drones with the FAA or even know they need too because they just read the features..then crash them or lose them.

 

[Ajkm]

Why would anyone want to fly BVLOS anyway?

Quite a few scenarios actually: the big one is delivery over a distance, whether that be medical supplies, or goods, to remote locations; SAR; inspections or mapping over a wider area, to name just a few that immediately come to mind.

Other countries, such as Canada, are already a good way along in their development of a regulatory framework, particularly in the area of the JARUS SORA process.

 

[rolling56]

Quite a few scenarios actually: the big one is delivery over a distance, whether that be medical supplies, or goods, to remote locations; SAR; inspections or mapping over a wider area, to name just a few that immediately come to mind.

Other countries, such as Canada, are already a good way along in their development of a regulatory framework, particularly in the area of the JARUS SORA process.

I'm talking about RPIC in the USA. Seems I opened a can of worms.

Sorry @BigAl07 I guess I took the bait haha Delete my posts if needed to stop the worms.

 

[BigAl07]

Why would anyone want to fly BVLOS anyway? It will never be like it used to with people like Casey flying his drones in NYC and being stupid. I've never flown BVLOS that I can recall. I might have lost sight of them in the sun for a short period of time.

People see the features for the drones and think wow I can fly +/- 3 miles away...and do it. They don't register their drones with the FAA or even know they need too because they just read the features..then crash them or lose them.

No matter what rules we have there will always be those who think they know better or they are simply above the law. This goes for just about any law/rule on the books.

I don't ever intentionally fly BVLOS and I too will "lose sight" of the aircraft due to objects in LOS but I also will immediately start to remedy the situation. When I fly large tracts of land I will re-locate to maintain LOS even over hundreds of acres. That's part of what we do.

 

[BigAl07]

(Copied from Mavic Pilots forum, OP is Vic Moss)

Are you a US 107 Pilot? Or are you getting your 107?

The FAA recently released the 381 page BVLOS ARC report. BLVOS ARC stands for Beyond Visual Line of Sight Aviation Rulemaking Committee.

This report is full of great info and suggestion for the FAA when it comes to BVLOS flight in the US. However, as I mentioned, it's also 381 pages long.

To that end, we've scheduled a live webinar for Friday, March 18th, at 6:00PM ET. Kenji Sugahara, CEO/Pres of DSPA and Greg Reverdiau from @pilotinstitute will talk about the process, contents, and what happens next. We'll also have a live Q&A.

Kenji was on the BVLOS ARC, so he'll have some great insight, and Greg has spent the last few days slowly reading and digesting the report. They'll have some great content.

Greg will be hosting it on his YT channel, go here and set the reminder.