From: Forbes
Today, the UAS America Fund, LLC announced their formal request to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for a proposed regulation to govern all commercial operations for extremely lightweight drones operated at low altitudes. The petition — which is supported by a scientific study using FAA data — lays out a segmented approach to regulating different categories of UAS. The scientific study was conducted by a former NASA engineer who served as a member of the orbital debris analysis team for the space shuttle Columbia accident investigation.
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The proposed regulation would govern all commercial flights of drones weighing three pounds or less, operated below 400 feet, at least five miles away from airports and by pilots with a demonstrated level of aeronautical knowledge. (Full
disclosure: Earlier this month, I conferred and brainstormed with Brendan Schulman about the merits of a rule for very small unmanned aircraft. Separately, in a 12866 meeting last week, I formally discussed with and urged the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs to adopt a different, albeit substantively similar rule).