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FAA Approves More Commercial UAV Operations

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Key Takeaways:

  • The FAA issued five new exemptions for commercial drone operations, significantly broadening legal uses beyond filmmaking to include construction monitoring, oil/gas inspection, agriculture surveillance, and mapping for companies like Trimble, VDOS Global, Clayco, and Woolpert.
  • Despite this expansion of approved commercial operators (now 11), the FAA is significantly behind its mandated September 2015 deadline for integrating UAS into the national airspace, having missed target dates for all completed tasks, in contrast to Europe's established drone regulations.
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The FAA yesterday issued another five exemptions for commercial UAS operations to four companies under Section 333 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012. The new exemptions greatly broaden the spectrum for legal commercial UAS uses, which has previously only been approved for movie making operations operating in controlled environments. The companies that obtained the latest round of exemptions are Trimble Navigation Limited; VDOS Global, LLC; Clayco, Inc.; and Woolpert, Inc.

Clayco, Inc. will use its drones for construction site monitoring and Trimble will incorporate its own UAS, the Trimble UX5 Aerial Imaging Rover, into the surveillance of such operations as oil and gas, mining, construction and agriculture.

Pia Bergqvist

Pia Bergqvist joined FLYING in December 2010. A passionate aviator, Pia started flying in 1999 and quickly obtained her single- and multi-engine commercial, instrument and instructor ratings. After a decade of working in general aviation, Pia has accumulated almost 3,000 hours of flight time in nearly 40 different types of aircraft.

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