The FAA launches BEYOND Programme
A step further to integrating the UAS´ to Aerospace
Following the successful completion of the Integration Pilot Programme of UAS´ in American aerospace in October, the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) have announced its launch of BEYOND, a new initiative to continue the same.
In the words of Michael Krastsios, U.S Chief of Technology, the IPP has impulsed the American drone industry in the last three years and has experienced an unprecedented growth with great public-private alliances throughout the country.
In fact, from this side of the pond, we’ve witnessed how the US have implemented drones for delivery, transport of merchandise, electrical installation inspections or to respond to emergencies while Europe have just had a glimpse of the UTM creation with U-Space.
Would you like to know what the BEYOND programme is and what to expect? We’ll explain below.
What is the FAA’s BEYOND Programme?
According to the FAA, the BEYOND programme’s objective is to accept the pending challenges of UAS´ which the IPP programme hadn’t integrated in Airspace. Specifically, the BEYOND programme will concentrate on:
- BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line Of Sight) operations, to be repeatable, scaleable and economically viable with a special emphasis on the inspection of infrastructures, public operations and the delivery of small packages.
- Leverage industrial operations to analyse and quantify social and economic benefits of UAS.
- Focus its efforts on community participation to collect, analyse and address the needs of the population as far as UAS.
It appears that the FAA could be preparing to unfold new rules which could significantly relax restrictions of currently prohibited operations, such as night flights, flying over groups of people and BVLOS flights.
Its expected 1 and 2 will be tackled with new amendments proposed last year and that the third will be regulated with the new BEYOND programme.
