This week in drone news, we discuss a recap of the Drone Advisory Committee held on June 19, 2020. Remote ID and UTM were hot topics discussed along with recommended changes to the drone culture. In the second part of the video, we discuss an update from the FAA regarding your hobbyist registration. 

Timestamps

0:40 DAC Meeting Recap

- Get your own Pilot Institute T-shirt or Long Sleeve T: https://amzn.to/30CLtBw

Drone Advisory Committee 

Drone Advisory Committee met last Friday and it was broadcasted live. 

Final rule in Dec 2020 for Remote ID

I have to be a little cynical. This means that the FAA already went through the 50,000 comments that were left in the NPRM, in about 60 working days. That’s over 800 comments per day. 

There was discussions about the need for a UTM and I detected a hint at wanting to know where UAS are, even in uncontrolled airspace. 

Joe DePete, the president of ALPA took a large part of the meeting congratulating his team mates for coming up with pillar of operation that, in my opinion, are already in place for most serious commercial UAS pilots.  

I applaud the push for a learning-focused environment but… 

He kept bragging about the safety records for the airlines (which is indeed great) but also he showed a serious lack of understanding of the UAS industry. 

While I appreciate that manned aircraft organizations are trying to bring the safety culture (I do the same with our PI courses), their lack of credentials in the UAS world reduces their credibility drastically.

Brendan Schulman from DJI is the only one who spoke for UAS operators in the field by reminding everyone in the DAC that the industry had a perfect record thus far with no fatalities and hundreds of millions of flight conducted. 

Sadly, no talk from the AMA representative for the FPV community. 

FAA Registration for Hobbyists

The FAA released a statement saying that the first batch of registration that was recently extended to December 12, 2020 will expire soon. 

Initially, back in 2016, Hobbyists had to register. Then they didn’t, and then they had to again. For those who initially registered but didn’t ask for their money back, the FAA had extended registration until December 12, 2020. 

Registration can be renewed within 180 days so you can login today to the FAA drone Zone and renew yours. 

The registration number will remain the same, and 

The new expiration will be December 12, 2023 (3 more years).