From the sUAS News
The government continues to delay in passing a comprehensive set of rules addressing drones, and it is unlikely to have anything until 2017.
In August, the Federal Aviation Administration missed a key deadline for developing rules for small commercial drones, which in turn infuriated the businesses who were looking to use it for product delivery services, according to the Washington Post.
But the FAA further upset the businesses, who are threatening to take their drone research overseas, because the government entity said it is likely to miss its original September 2015 deadline as well.
“We all agree that the project is taking too long,” Peggy Gilligan, a top FAA safety official, told a congressional House panel Wednesday.
Full article here FAA Delay
Comments
The proposals I have read on this site said Private certificate OR Passed the written test within 24 months. You don't need to be a pilot, just have the basic ground knowledge of at least a private pilot. The 24 months is because that is how long the test results are valid for before expiring.
Dead end
IMO..I think the FAA is stalling and waiting for some serious incident to happen, and then use that incident as a example for total ban.
PS. I am in support of private and commercial use of drones in the US NAS.
Joe LaMantia
I also think that very small UAVs are going to be the long term answer for almost all applications that don't require carrying and delivering something (ag uses mostly not Amazon deliveries).
I also think that the whole private pilots license thing is just a way of avoiding the issue rather than embracing it.
Sure a lot of stuff that you learn when getting a private pilots license is gremane to UAVs, but a whole lot of it isn't and actually having to learn to pilot in a real airplane is just plane useless and 40 hours of flight training means that 99% of the people who would want to do this can't possibly afford to do so.
I'm a private pilot too, but requiring it for UAV use is a ludicrous waste of time and an example of a government agency completely failing to do their job of figuring out what is actually necessary to train people to fly UAVs safely.
It is a complete example of the current state of political affairs where they just can't actually do anything anymore.
Total stagnation - prime example - FAA!
Comment by Chim Xotox just nowDelete Comment
By 2017 we should have UAVs that weigh less than two pounds (maybe much less) and that are capable of most functions and thus present little or no safety threat to anything in the FAA's domain. Perhaps that's the real reason for the delays. Maybe the FAA sees that coming and realizes that it will make things much, much simpler and less risky (not for us or the public - less risky for them, that's what matters).
So-called "delivery" drones are an exception of course, but they only exist for a single reason, as publicity gimmicks for the PR departments of assorted courier services, retailers, etc. Drone delivery will be happening at the same time as flying cars and jet backpacks, in other words, never.
We are already seeing smaller and smaller (and cheaper) UAVs doing exactly the same jobs as the bloated five-figure behemoths currently touted by a long list of vendors and manufacturers, with the support of their shills, not a few of whom inhabit these forums. There's a lot of money to be made selling big fat drones and very little selling little bitty ones.
Meanwhile, when you see someone here stating that they have "no issue" with the FAA requiring a private pilot's licence to operate a UAV, you might want to grab your wallet and run the other way rather than taking anything else they say at face value.
The FAA actually said earlier this year don't expect anything before 2017but nobody took much notice, if the small rule NPRM happens before the end of this year as slated its three months in the happening then decision making time for at least six months then processing through the system. Air traffickers have asked for six months training once its in so lots and lots of reasons for it to slow down way past 2017. At #sUASNews we have pinned the tail on the donkey that is 2021. Remember USAF has it pinned on 2047 and has for several years. The FAA is also leaning heavily towards a PPL (A) as the min pilot requirement which I don't have an issue with as I have one its also simple to get and relatively cheap. This will be the case until they have a working unmanned piloting qualification in place. So if you are serious about RPAS ops in the USA don't buy that big octo get your PPL first and hope that's the way it will be.
There was a meeting about all this back in November
Lets hope I am utterly wrong about all this. If the FAA really release the small rule NPRM this year as promised many many times then the clock on a two year process will at least have been started.
The FAA will just continue to kick the can down the road until the US is even further behind other Nations in the development of sensible sUAS regulations that promote sUAS commercial development.
Regards,
TCIII Admin