Also: 737 Max Airline RtS, EPA Aircraft Standards, NATA Gets Extension, Life Link III

The FAA has released long-awaited final rules for drones.

The new rules will require Remote Identification (Remote ID) of drones and allow operators of small drones to fly over people and at night under certain conditions. These rules come at a time when drones represent the fastest-growing segment in the entire transportation sector – with currently over 1.7 million drone registrations and 203,000 FAA-certificated remote pilots. Remote ID will help mitigate risks associated with expanded drone operations, such as flights over people and at night, and both rules support technological and operational innovation and advancements. We’ve teased this for a while but ANN will be returning to a daily webcast schedule right after we start 2021... which we hope will be a much better year than what we’ve just been through. With much of aviation still struggling, increasing our schedule may not seem to be all that careful a move, but the fact is that our aviation community deserves all the honest, REAL-journalistic support we can give it, and this is one more way to do it. There are a number of major changes coming your way. The first is the debut of a special new Airborne series devoted to affordable aviation, Airborne-Affordable Flyers -- which will also be supporting the coming debut of the next-generation SportPlane Resource Guide. NATO air forces across Europe scrambled more than 400 times in 2020 to intercept unknown aircraft approaching Alliance airspace. Almost 90 percent of these missions - around 350 - were in response to flights by Russian military aircraft. This is a moderate increase from 2019. Russian military aircraft often do not transmit a transponder code indicating their position and altitude, do not file a flight plan, or do not communicate with air traffic controllers, posing a potential risk to civilian airliners. All this -- and MORE in today's episode of Airborne!!!

Airborne 12.30.20 is chock full of info in this Daily News Episode, Wednesday, December 30th, 2020... Presented by Aero-TV veteran videographer and Airborne Host Kimberly Kay. Kimberly is supported by ANN Chief Videographer Nathan Cremisino, as well as ANN CEO/Editor-In-Chief Jim Campbell. This episode covers:

• The Drone Biz Gets Long-Awaited (Feared) New Regs
• Airborne Programming to Expand In 2021
• Russian Border Flights Require Over 400 NATO Intercepts
• 737 Max Returns To US Passenger Service
• EPA Finalizes First Greenhouse Gas Emissions Standards for Aircraft
• NATA Gets Extension of Existing Relief and New Check Airman Exemption
• Life Link III Plans New Air Medical Base in Rhinelander, Wisconsin

Get Comprehensive, Real-Time, 24/7 coverage of the latest aviation and aerospace stories anytime, at aero-news.net. And be sure to join us again tomorrow, for the next edition of "Airborne Unlimited" here on Aero-TV. Thanks for watching. See you, again, tomorrow!

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