FAA Approves a Fleet of 324 Commerical Drones

It's a bird. It's a plane. It's a drone.

The Federal Aviation Administration approved a fleet of 324 commercial drones -- the largest fleet ever OK'd at one time.

Measure, the company that owns the drones, said in its petition to the FAA that the drones would be used for "aerial data acquisition."

According to the FAA, commercial drones are commonly used in movie making, "precision agriculture" and real estate photography.

Measure provides its services to companies in several industries including agriculture, disaster relief and insurance, infrastructure and energy. The company says its drones can be used to monitor pipelines and aid in search and rescue operations.

Among the companies using Measure's drones are Boeing (BA), IBM (IBM, Tech30), UPS (UPS), the American Red Cross and the American Farm Bureau Federation.

Measure compared the use of drones to satellites. With drones, the company said, visual images are better and the data is collected in real time.

The FAA has approved over 1,000 commercial drone requests. Measure's approval far exceeds the others; the company said the next largest was for a fleet of about 20 drones.

Measure said it is the first Washington, D.C.-based company to get FAA approval to use drones commercially.

Full article here Measure

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Comments

John Dennings September 2, 2015 at 8:00am

Could I also add the XC Mark1, XCM2 ... XCM10? These are some custom builds I am working on or have in mind, that may or may not fly in the next few years.
John Dennings September 2, 2015 at 7:52am

Had the same reaction as Rob, and John, not sure I understand your comment.

So let's see: I've got 10 UAVs, say, and apply for 333 for them. Then just to make it future proof, I list a couple hundred more, and I would be good to go for any of these too should I decide to expand my fleet? Hard to counter Gary's point that the 333 system is starting to look like a joke ...
Developer

John Arne Birkeland September 2, 2015 at 4:35am

Rob,

1.Operations authorized by this grant of exemption are limited to the aircraft approved by the Secretary of the Department of Transportation for operation under Section 333 (Attachment 1) when weighing less than 55pounds including payload. Proposed operations of any other aircraft will require a new petition or a petition to amend this exemption.
James Dunthorne September 2, 2015 at 2:46am

Looks like another subsidiary of precision hawk. Big numbers!
Moderator

Gary Mortimer September 1, 2015 at 9:32pm

They have not given 324 N numbers to that company, I think measure has gone through the previous 333's and asked to be able to use all types previously approved. In theory there should be flight manuals and a safety risk management system attached to that approval for each of the 324. The 333 system is a bit of joke when it comes to what they are letting through. They will need to do much better with the small rule NPRM.
Rob_Lefebvre September 1, 2015 at 8:16pm

Why is Attachment 1 basically a list of every UAV type ever made?

This reply was deleted.