Overnight the FAA announced a
Request for Comment on proposed BVLOS regulations. Looks like when it goes official (25/05) there will be a 20 day period open for comment.
https://public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2023-11024.pdf
"As the FAA reviews the recommendations of the UAS Beyond Visual Line-of Sight (BVLOS) Operations Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC), the FAA is considering the expansion of BVLOS operations in certain operating environments with the appropriate safety mitigations to ensure no adverse safety impact. The FAA is seeking comment to gather additional technical input on key concepts and potential approaches that the FAA is contemplating for use in future exemptions."
"The FAA recognizes BVLOS operations provide significant safety, societal, and economic advantages and benefits. Several petitioners have proposed various methods to safely operate UAS BVLOS under petitions for exemptions. Along those lines, the FAA has received several petitions for exemptions to conduct several types of BVLOS operations, which the FAA is looking to leverage in enabling the next phase of BVLOS operations. The FAA will be separately publishing summaries in the Federal Register for the individual petitions on the affected projects and seeking comments on each of those petitions for exemption"Some of the core topics they've sought comment on are:
(A) Detect and Avoid Systems Performance Standards
(B) Declarations of Compliance for Detect and Avoid
(C) Well-Clear Boundary
(D) DAA systems that include Third-Party Services / Associated Elements
(E) Use of UTM Services for Strategic Deconfliction
(F) Detect and Avoid Between Unmanned Aircraft
(G) Beyond Visual Line of Sight Shielded Operations
It is pleasing to see they are progressing this; not sure how long the review period post comment period will take. Will keep watching for updates. I daresay rather than blanket regulations, they will probably start with providing broader exemptions to certain market participants. Given how progressed DroneUp/Walmart are with deliveries already, I'd suggest they'd be up the top of the list (IMO only).
(20min delay)