Guest Blog: Suggestions For BVLOS Drone Rules

Submitted by Roger O'Neill, Overhead Intelligence.

In early 2025, the FAA is anticipated to release a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) for Part 108, aimed at regulating Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) drone operations. This landmark step could revolutionize drone operations in the U.S., offering greater airspace access to commercial drone operators while maintaining safety for current airspace users. Below are proposed rule changes to address challenges in Remote ID requirements, right-of-way laws, and operational risk management, ensuring a balanced integration of drones into the National Airspace System (NAS).

Eliminate the Operator Location Broadcast from Remote ID
The introduction of Remote ID laws aimed to enhance airspace coordination and empower law enforcement to act against nefarious drone users. However, the effectiveness of Remote ID in achieving these goals has been questionable.

Nefarious drone users are never going to be compliant. This has become abundantly clear with the countless high profile drone incursions including the one used in Butler, PA prior to the assassination attempt on President Elect Trump. If Remote ID was an effective policy for law enforcement, then we would also likely have better clarity on the countless drone sightings in New Jersey.

It would be prudent to eliminate some of the latent policies within Remote ID regulation that try to make it into a law enforcement tool; starting with the removal of the Operator Location Broadcast requirement within “Standard Remote ID”.

The operator location broadcast has technological hurdles that make it both impractical and difficult to implement. First, this rule assumes that the drone has an operator. There are many drone operations today that require no operator with examples like drone-in-a-box solution and other autonomous drones.

Second, this law assumes that the operator is within some reasonable distance of the drone so that law enforcement can locate the operator, however most drones can be operated over the internet from anywhere in the world. Additionally a drone’s control can be handed off to an operator in a different
location or can have multiple operators.

Third, this law assumes a stable telemetry link between the operator and the drone which can become incredibly challenging in long range BVLOS operations. Finally, this law requires each or any of the operators to have some position source at the location of their operations, which is easy for drones which are operated from cell phones, but most commercial BVLOS operations are conducted indoors from computers with no built-in GPS.

The operator location broadcast is the single worst component of Remote ID and needs to be removed to get broader adoption. A better solution would be to simply require the broadcast of the takeoff location which would deal with all of the cases listed above.

Restructure Right-of-Way Laws Surface - 500ft agl
Part 1: Non-compliant Aircraft
I write this section at the risk of offending many of my friends and colleagues.

There are very few manned aircraft operating regularly below 500ft agl, and there are even fewer operating at those altitudes legally. Unfortunately, the vast majority of manned aircraft operating at these altitudes are also not ADS-B compliant. The list includes: aerial spraying operations, helicopters, seaplanes, legacy ADS-B exempt aircraft, hobbyists, and Part 103 Aircraft.

Helicopters and ag sprayers often have both legal justification and necessity for these low altitude operations, but the other operators have a much more slim legal argument and an even slimmer necessity to be operating at these low altitudes.

There are three primary reasons why aircraft are not equipped with ADS-B Out: Cost, no electrical system, and fear of being tracked. The third topic is the dirty secret of many operators and especially true with commercial operators who often stretch the
interpretations of laws like the definition of daylight and VFR conditions.

There are ample affordable ADS-B out systems on the market today. Most helicopters cost over $1 million and can sometimes cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to operate. An ADS-B Out system can cost as little as $3,000 installed. Unfortunately, the “cost” argument is often used to justify non-compliance when in reality most operators fear that ADS-B data might be used for enforcement rather than safety, discouraging compliance.

This paper does not by any means condone elicit flight operations, however, this does highlight an issue with FAA policy that was initially expressed at the early inception of
ADS-B. There needs to be clear regulation that bars the FAA from using ADS-B data as a policing tool to better protect the privacy and rights of operators. For example, adding
strict warrant and probable cause requirements for the use of historic data for enforcement purposes would ease many operators into compliance.

Part 2: Right-of-Way Restructuring
As previously mentioned, there are very few manned operators who have legal justification for operations below 500ft agl given the requirements of 14 CFR § 91.119 Minimum safe altitudes. This paper is not an effort to clamp down on the joys of low
altitude flying, but rather to propose a restructuring of right-of-way laws at the altitudes between the surface to 500 feet above to favor those who are ADS-B compliant.m0-500 feet AGL is where drones have been legally relegated to operate. Yet drones have been given no airspace rights and “must yield the right of way to all aircraft, airborne vehicles, and launch and reentry vehicles.”

The right-of-way rule under 14 CFR § 107.37 has led to countless failed developments of onboard Detect and Avoid (DAA) systems. The principle of onboard DAA is flawed; the
idea that you can somehow equip a sub-55lb aircraft with the equivalent of a mini air defence system is practically impossible. The most effective systems on the market are small radar systems that cost around $20k, weigh over 1kg, and emit frequencies that the FCC is not fond of having broadly scattered around the country.

Fortunately the FAA has already solved onboard DAA with ADS-B; it’s light, it’s cheap, it’s required by law, and it's highly effective in all weather and lighting conditions. Most
commercial drones are already equipped with ADS-B In and some form of automated avoidance maneuver system. However, there still remains a significant number of non-compliant manned aircraft, many of which regularly operate at low altitudes.

The Bottom Line
This paper proposes that all non-compliant aircraft below 500ft agl must yield the right of way to compliant aircraft including compliant UAS. Generally speaking, the proposed right-of-way laws would give priority to compliant aircraft when operating below 500 feet AGL and would shift DAA responsibility to non-compliant aircraft when operating below 500 feet AGL. Here's a suggested new right of way hierarchy below 500ft in order of right-of-way privileges:

Airspace management should reflect the risk, purpose, and value of the operation. Just as commercial aircraft have priority over hobbyist pilots in controlled airspace, commercial drone operations should have right of way over hobbyist aviation activities at low altitudes. This would ensure that operations with greater economic, safety, or public value are prioritized.

Broaden Remote ID to Include Part 103 Aircraft and Aircraft with No Electrical System
There is currently no pathway to integrate Part 103 and aircraft without electrical systems into the NAS, and these types of operators are surprisingly abundant below 500ft agl. The existing Remote ID protocol and equipment could easily be implemented on Part 103 aircraft without onboard power. It could likely be run directly on the user's cellphone. Non-compliant users almost all carry cellphones which are almost all able to
receive Remote ID messages.

Clarify Right-of-Way Laws with Part 103 Aircraft
Regardless of the above proposed right-of-way changes, the FAA needs to clarify right-of-way rules between Part 103 and Part 107 aircraft. There is no clear distinction about who has the right of way in the laws. Part 103 aircraft (i.e. PPG, Ultralight) and Part 107 aircraft are both required to give way to “all aircraft”. There needs to be clarification on who is responsible for giving way in a scenario where 103 and 107 aircraft may share
airspace.

Part 103 Right-of-Way Clause
14 CFR § 103.13 Operation near aircraft; right-of-way rules.
(a) Each person operating an ultralight vehicle shall maintain vigilance so as to see and avoid aircraft and shall yield the right-of-way to all aircraft.

Part 107 Right-of-Way Clause
14 CFR § 107.37 Operation near aircraft; right-of-way rules.
(a) Each small unmanned aircraft must yield the right of way to all aircraft, airborne vehicles, and launch and reentry vehicles. Yielding the right of way means that the small unmanned aircraft must give way to the aircraft or vehicle and may not pass over,
under, or ahead of it unless well clear.

ADS-B In and Remote ID In Requirements for Part 108 Aircraft
Future BVLOS approved aircraft under Part 108 should be required to be equipped with ADS-B In and Remote ID In receivers and some preprogrammed avoidance maneuvers
in the event of encountering other compliant aircraft while operating BVLOS. ADS-B In has been proven to reduce accidents in manned aircraft by significant margins as
studied by the AOPA.

ADS-B is a highly effective DAA system. Let's use it for drones rather than imagining that we can build some super technology that will provide onboard DAA.

Recognize Risk Reduction for BVLOS at Night Below 500 feet AGL
With very few exceptions, there are almost no manned aircraft operations below 500 feet outside of designated airports. A large contingent of non-compliant aircraft cannot legally operate at night because they lack electrical systems. Flying manned aircraft at low altitudes at night is extremely high risk because all low altitude operations rely on visual references for navigation. Drones almost never use visual references for navigation, thus night time operations pose the same risk to a drone as day operations. The Air Risk of BVLOS operations is significantly reduced at night due to the extreme improbability of encountering other non-compliant aircraft in uncontrolled airspace at night. Additionally ground risk is also significantly reduced due to the reduced likelihood of encountering exposed foot traffic at night.

The FAA should recognize this inherent night time risk reduction by having more permissive BVLOS operations at night given ADS-B In and appropriate lighting on a Part 108 drone.