Forbes blogger Gregory S. McNeal is reporting that the FAA will make a major announcement on the commercial use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) Thursday when it gives the movie industry permission to legally use remotely piloted aircraft in production. What Forbes also says is that the deal with Hollywood will set the basic standards, including pilot certification, for anyone else that wants to use aircraft without an onboard pilot for commercial use. In his blog, McNeal says the movie deal will mark the first approval of “drone-specific rules and standards that will enable Hollywood to be exempt from existing aviation regulations.”
As might be expected, the approval, assuming it happens, didn’t come easily. Seven companies that are already doing UAS cinematography, currently in other countries, filed specific exemption requests to the FAA in May, but about four years of prep work went into presenting those requests. The toll of the process was evident in McNeal’s discussion with an unnamed representative of one of Vortex Aerial, one of the companies involved. “We are very proud to be a part of this monumentally historical event. Being the result of over four years of industry leader collaboration we can only hope that this most daunting and financially taxing of tasks will finally come to fruition and not be yet another false start for our industry,” McNeal reported the spokesman as saying. As we reported earlier this month, the FAA has received dozens of similar exemption requests and McNeal quotes an FAA official as saying that number has reached 45.
