from Forbes
Any hope for legalizing small commercial drone operations in the near future were dashed by Jim Williams, head of the FAA’s unmanned aircraft office, speaking yesterday in San Francisco to the Small Unmanned Systems Business Exposition. Although small unmanned aircraft rulemaking- applicable to those under 55 pounds – is expected to begin by the end of this year, the entire rulemaking process for significant rules, according to Mr. Williams, takes 7 to 10 years. And, he stated, that this rulemaking would certainly be considered significant. So it seems that no rules are likely to be finalized until the end of 2021 at the earliest and possibly not until 2024. This is much later than many in the commercial UAV community that I have spoken with expected and hoped for.
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Alan is serial entrepreneur, active angel investor, and a drone enthusiast. He co-founded DRONELIFE.com to address the emerging commercial market for drones and drone technology. Prior to DRONELIFE.com, Alan co-founded Where.com, ThinkingScreen Media, and Nurse.com. Recently, Alan has co-founded Crowditz.com, a leader in Equity Crowdfunding Data, Analytics, and Insights. Alan can be reached at alan(at)dronelife.com