The FAA’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the use of small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) is now on the Federal Register, which means comments are now open. Comments on the long and complex rule are being accepted until April 24. The rule was posted to the Federal Register late Friday and is officially published as of Monday so it really hasn’t had a chance to gather many comments. As of late Sunday there were only two, both critical of the rule and suggesting substantial changes.
The FAA is expecting thousands of comments on the rule and if the first two are any indication, it will be a long process addressing all of the concerns. For instance, Richard Weil says it doesn’t make sense to make certificated pilots take the course on the air regulations that is mandatory for commercial drone operators. He also questions the value of the biennial reviews of the material. Christopher Booth, meanwhile, has a host of criticisms and suggests the FAA “throw this nonsense out and start over.” Since it took about 10 years to get to this point, there are a lot of people who might disagree with that sentiment.
