Unmanned

At long last, Congress in February passed and the president signed into law multi-year legislation reauthorizing the FAA. The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 was several years in the making; the FAA had been operating under temporary funding since the mid-2000s. It’s set to expire in four years, though, so we’ll get to go through this process again in the near future. The new law includes a wide-ranging set of provisions. For example, it mandates new pilot certificates bearing a photograph of the holder.

Key Takeaways:

• The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 reauthorized the FAA after several years of temporary funding and mandated new pilot certificates bearing a photograph.
• The new law directs the FAA to swiftly integrate small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for law enforcement use and sets a strict deadline (September 30, 2015) for developing regulations allowing larger, privately operated UAVs with "sense and avoid" capabilities in national airspace.
• The author expresses strong concerns regarding the safety implications of UAV integration, predicting potential accidents between manned aircraft and UAVs, and questioning the FAA's capacity to oversee these new regulations given its understaffed status.

Key takeaways sponsored by Aviator Pro | Start Your Training ->

See a mistake? Contact us.