By: Ben Gielow



On Wed., 5 Feb., at 1000 EDT, the U.S. House Aviation Subcommittee will
hold a hearing entitled, “The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012:
Two Year Later” with the FAA administrator, the Government
Accountability Office, and the Department of Transportation Inspector
General. You can watch the hearing live by clicking here. The hearing will likely spend considerable time discussing the FAA’s progress on integrating UAS into the national airspace. 



The Committee’s Summary of Subject Matter
notes the FAA is behind schedule in standing up the six UAS test sites
and releasing the notice of proposed rulemaking for small UAS. The
Committee also reemphasizes that Congress gave the FAA authority to
allow some limited UAS operations before the small UAS rule is
finalized, which is what AUVSI recently highlighted in a letter to the FAA Administrator
requesting UAS be allowed to fly in areas posing little risk to manned
aircraft or people on the ground, such as around power lines, pipelines
and rural farms.