“The rules are in place and people have been waiting for these rules to come out for a long time”. Drones must also weight under 55 pounds, are prohibited from flying higher than 400 feet and must remain visible to the person operating it.
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“It ensures that a burden on our industry and our department is relieved”, said U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.
The FAA estimates the new regulations could generate more than $82 billion for the us economy and create more than 100,000 jobs over the next 10 years.
After Monday, people interested in piloting drones must pass an examination testing their flight skills and knowledge before being allowed to fly.
A new era in agriculture opened on Monday as the Federal Aviation Administration new regulations for routine non-recreational use of small unmanned aircraft, or drones, went into effect.
On the first day the rules were in effect the FAA had already granted 76 exemptions, a lot of them to companies that want to fly drones at night, Huerta said. It replaces a cumbersome exemption process that required the personal approval of head of the Department of Transportation of each flight operated for a non-recreational objective.
Drones are already used for everything from inspecting farmland to surveying damage from the recent deadly quake in Italy. “Drones are helping to create a whole new means of realizing the American dream”, he added later. The National Science Foundation recently announced it was investing $35 million over the next five years in research and development of drone design.
“The only barrier there, it wasn’t the technology, the only barrier was regulations”, Anderson said.
Industry experts say the licensing will open the floodgates, because previous rules for the commercial use of drones has been hard. “Many, many industries want to utilize these”.
Burns believes we’ll see drones delivering packages within the year.
They can transmit the photos taken from their drone to produce 3-D images that pinpoint damage even further.
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The Air Line Pilots Association issued a statement Monday saying it has urged the FAA to “take a stronger stance” to require both a written test and a flight test of remote pilots, “just as pilots of manned aircraft operated for commercial purposes do”. The FAA is offering both an online training course and sample questions for aspiring drone pilots to prepare for the exam.
