Federal Aviation Administration debate potential drone usage regulations in newsrooms
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) titled "Normalizing Unmanned Aircraft Systems Beyond Visual Line of Sight Operations". This proposed rule aims to provide a clear and predictable pathway for safe, routine, and scalable UAS operations, including news gathering activities.
Under the NPRM, news organizations would benefit from a more streamlined and practical framework for routine, beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drone flights. The proposed regulations for newsrooms include:
- Permits valid for 24 months: These grants newsrooms operational authority with reduced FAA oversight compared to past regulations.
- A limit on the fleet size, allowing news organizations to operate up to 25 active UAS capable of BVLOS operations.
- An increase in the permissible drone weight for news operations from 55 pounds to 110 pounds.
These provisions are designed to balance operational scale with safety oversight, providing newsrooms a more streamlined approach to BVLOS drone flights.
The NPRM establishes a two-tiered approach for BVLOS drone operations:
- Operating permits for lower-risk operations with limited scope and complexity
- Operating certificates with stricter requirements for higher-risk, more complex missions involving larger drones or operations over people.
News organizations would likely fall under the permit category, benefiting from less stringent but still regulated conditions. The NPRM also requires that BVLOS drones must:
- Fly at or below 400 feet,
- Avoid large open-air gatherings (with nuanced requirements for operations over people),
- Obtain approval for operational boundaries, number of daily flights, and takeoff/landing/loading zones.
The proposed rule does not directly address the specific regulations for news organizations using UAVs, but the category of "aerial surveying" encompasses newsgathering, videography, and photography.
The detailed breakdown of the proposals and their potential impact on news organizations is available for review here. The News Media Alliance (NMA) has provided an analysis of the proposals, which includes the aforementioned changes for newsroom drone operations. The NMA's analysis is also available for review here.
Comments on the NPRM are due on Oct. 6. The proposed rule is necessary to support the integration of UAS into the national airspace system (NAS). Additionally, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) proposes to make complementary changes to its regulations to ensure it can continue to impose security measures on these operations under its current regulatory structure for civil aviation.
[1] Source: FAA's NPRM titled "Normalizing Unmanned Aircraft Systems Beyond Visual Line of Sight Operations" [3] Source: News Media Alliance's analysis of the proposals
- The proposed rule, "Normalizing Unmanned Aircraft Systems Beyond Visual Line of Sight Operations", offers news organizations a more streamlined framework for BVLOS drone flights with permits lasting up to 24 months.
- The FCC is not directly addressed in the NPRM, but data-and-cloud-computing technology might play a crucial role in handling the content from video drones.
- The proposed regulations allow news organizations to operate up to 25 active UAS capable of BVLOS, with an increased permissible drone weight limit of 110 pounds.
- News organizations are expected to follow specific rules if using UAVs, as the category of "aerial surveying" encompasses newsgathering, videography, and photography, and detailed analyses on the proposals can be found on the FAA's and News Media Alliance's websites.
