Would Allow Operation Over Crowds

The FAA is considering modifying its UAV rules to allow flight over crowds, according to Administrator Michael Huerta.

At a speech at the Interdrone conference in Las Vegas this week, Huerta said that the proposal would be released by the end of the year. "We’ve been successful because we’ve been willing to be open-minded, to be flexible and to be creative," Huerta said in the speech.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports that Huerta also said the FAA is working on rules to allow BVLOS flights, but did not give a timeline for such a rule to be proposed or implemented.

Huerta said that the agency's primary focus continues to be the safe integration of UAVs into the National Air Space. “Everyone I talk to is approaching this new segment of aviation from a perspective of safety first,” he said. “Despite our sometimes different viewpoints, we all agree on one thing: and that is we all want to see the safe integration of unmanned aircraft.”

But such an integration will never be a "finite process" given the rapid pace of innovation in the drone industry, according to Huerta. He said there could be as many as 600,000 commercial unmanned aircraft in operation by this time next year.

So, while the agency and the industry have made a great deal of progress with regards to UAVs, "the work has just begun," Huerta said.

(Image from file)

FMI: www.faa.gov