FAA Sends UAS Registration Rule to OMB

Tuesday the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had received a proposed interim final rule (IFR) from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) concerning UAS Registration. This is almost certainly the rule that has been under public discussion for the last month or so.

The FAA is probably using the December 31^st, 2015 deadline to “develop and implement operational and certification requirements for the operation of public unmanned aircraft systems in the national airspace system” found in §334(b) of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 (PL 112-95).

Unfortunately, if the published work of the ‘Drone Task Force’ is any indication of the contents and intent of this IFR, then the FAA is completely disregarding the provisions of §336 of the same bill which specifically states that the FAA may not “promulgate any rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft, or an aircraft being developed as a model aircraft”. A key component of the definition of ‘model aircraft’ is that it includes UAS that are “flown for hobby or recreational purposes” {§336(c)(3)}.

It will be interesting to see how long OIRA sits on this rulemaking.

BTW: Readers of this blog will notice that this post comes a day later than normal. I try to make these posts the day after the regulation is submitted to OIRA. Unfortunately, OIRA is no longer able to get these posted to its web site by the next morning. I know that it is the holiday season so that may explain why it takes an additional day to get two rulemakings posted to their site.

OMB Approves FAA Drone Rule

On Friday the OMB’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) announced that it had approved the FAA’s notice of proposed rulemaking (NPMR) on the Operation and Certification of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS). This is the same ruling that the FAA and the TSA held a joint media call about yesterday. A draft of the NPRM is available and will probably be published in the Federal Register this week.

The sUAS rules would apply to unmanned aircraft that weigh under 55 lbs. The NPRM would contain a proposal to set a subcategory of micro UAS category for UAS that weigh under 4.4 lbs. A number of additional restrictions would apply to both categories of UAS.

An operator of either type UAS would be required to have a ‘unmanned aircraft airman certificate” which would include a requirement for vetting by the DHS Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

I don’t see anything that would specifically prohibit flying micro UAS or sUAS over critical infrastructure facilities unless they were already covered under existing FAA restrictions. I’ll be going into more detail on this when it is published in the Federal Register.