Welcome to our Webinar on Part 107 being provided by DroneLaw.Pro and Traverse Legal and by InterDrone the Industry’s Leading Conference for Commercial UAV.
The Name of this Webinar is Part 107 Ask Me Anything Webinar
We are going to be taking your questions. We will be giving you a good overview of Part 107. We also invite you to take a look at the InterDrone Website, September 6 -8, 2017. As well as our Websites which are www.DroneLaw.Pro where we provide a number of different resources for you including our industry leading documents called UPs in a Box. These are all of the documents that you will need to succeed for your Drone business. Things like customer service contracts, UAV Operations Manuals, Notice of UAV Operations, Flight Crew Contractor Agreements, and the like.
We are lawyers at Traverse Legal.com, globally recognized for our expertise in internet and technology issues as well as Drone and UAS.
This Webinar is also being presented by InterDrone which is the leading commercial UAV conference each year in the United States. This year it is September 6 – 8, 2017, at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas. You want to get registered for this conference if you have any significant serious interest in commercial UAV. This is the conference that you want to get to. They will be providing all of the different technical aspects of UAV in one conference whether or not you are software, hardware engineer developer. Whether or not you a pilot or a service provider. Whether or not you are coming the cinema side of the industry interested in aerial photography or videography. They have enterprise tracks that are just out of this world. Everything is going into niche markets for Drones. So whether you want to get in the construction or mapping niche, etc., you are going to have a track just for you. The key notes are always spectacular and if you not only want to come to the conference, yours truly, Enrico Schaefer and Rob Dreer are going to be offering, Tuesday, September 5, 2017, the day before conference, a Part 107 Pre-Conference Training Day, where you learn how to pass the Part 107 FAA Drone Pilot Test. There are also other special conference items, such as Videography intensive classes and Intro Surveying and Mapping.
With that I am going to turn this over to Michael Pehl from InterDrone. He can talk a little bit more about the conference and then we will come on back and get right into our Webinar today, which is going to address Part 107 Industry issues – How to be successful as a Part 107 Pilot or Service Provider.
Michael Pehl: Part of what’s the experience so great, is that just seeing all the people come from the different sectors of the Drone industry. It is still a red hot industry with lots of innovation and forward thinking people. We have plenty of networking events – special events at the show – such as our “It’s a Drone Film Festival”. We have specialized enterprise tracts and free conferences, one of which includes Enrico’s Part 107 training, and more than 125 speakers, 125 classes, and 185 Drone Vendors that you can see what the latest Techie is showing off in the Exhibit Hall. But we are not here to brag about InterDrone, we are here to talk about Part 107 and Regulations. I will be fielding you questions in the chat. I think we are ready to get started.
Enrico Schaefer: I am going to take back the screen and then we will get rolling. So, let’s see if we can take a look at some high level view here, in terms of what is happening with Drones and USAS in Part 107. What I want to focus on today is four different stake holder groups in this presentation.
1.) Pilots – largest segment of the community. Pilots are wondering about Part 107 Waivers and Authorizations – Air Space Analysis – Customers Contracts – Operational Parameters and Manuals – Notice to UAV of UAV Operations to Neighboring Property Owners – Flight Crew Contractor Agreements and a number of other issues. As we talk to Pilots every day, we here that they have needs and concerns.
2.) Service Companies – Distinct from the Pilots is the service companies. These are the companies that sometimes hire pilots and sometimes it is the Pilot that’s both the service company and a Pilot as well. These are often times broken down into categories. The first is the Companies with Existing Clients and Customers, so first instance, it may be a company that provides services to infra structure and now they may want to add Drone services to their service offering. That is much more straight forward than you can imagine, because they already have customers. Right? They are just going to be pitching another service offering to those customers.
3.) Companies that do not have existing customers – Much larger group are those that do not have existing customers and they are going to try to shake trees to try to make it happen. Of course, from these companies a lot of them need LLCs set up, owner agreements; start up contracts, trademarks, website agreements, etc. They are looking to become viable companies in the SUAS space.
4.) Customers – We also talked to a lot of customers. Customers who are concerned with using Drone service providers and Pilots and they want diligence and then liability analysis and contract drafting.
The last categories that we have seen a major up kick in existing companies – big companies that are now looking to integrate Drones into their own service offerings or for their own purposes and they need to develop policies and procedures and they have risk analysis. For those companies, earlier on in the Part 333 days, a lot of times it was just whoever was in the back of the room, which had a Drone, who raised their hand. What we are seeing now is a lot of top down management integration, where the company has made the business decision to integrate Drones and they are putting the appropriate resources on it in order to make that happen.
So, let’s talk a little bit about the current state of Part 107 Implementation. As you all know that Part 107 was implemented August 29, 2016, and there are really three main components of the regulatory scheme of Part 107. I want to talk a little about that. You need to understand the structure of Part 107. We do talk to a lot of Drone Pilots that passed the knowledge exam, but yet still have a lot of questions about how this regulation works. So, just because you passed the exam, this does not mean that this is the end of the road. You really need to understand the regulatory structure in how you go about building your business on top of that structure. There are some things you need to know.
1.) Part 107 is very much a Pilot based regulation. What that means is that the Remote Pilot in command is responsible for the flight operations under Part 107. Where it was under Section 333 it was a business approach, where the business would apply for a Section 333 Exemption. The business would be responsible for flight operations including the Pilot. Part 107 is completely different. Part 107 is a Pilot based regulation. The Pilot in command is in charge of the flight operation.
The second regulatory structure of Part 107 contains Prohibitions, thing that you cannot do. So if you wondering if you can run a flight, you go to Part 107 and see you if there is anything that is applicable that says “No”. If it does say “No”, there may be a waiver that you may be able to obtain in order to do that operation. So the way I always describe the Part 107 Regulations to folks is this, it has this built in – if you have your Remote Pilot Certificate – there is a lot of things that you can do. In many cases you can go and get more permission. There is typically an avenue, for folks, to be able to do things that may be prohibited on first bosh. So, a big part of the marker right now is getting that special permission that extra layer of permission to conduct an operation.
This brings us to the third component of the Regulatory structure, which is in its core; Part 107 is an air space regulation. The concept is that if you are in uncontrolled air space, then you simply follow the rules of Part 107. You can fly. You can fly right now. If you are in controlled airspace, which is Class B, C, D, and Surface E, you have to get ATC permission before you can fly. This is really important and I am sure for those of you who are out there doing this, this is the big challenge. A lot of the places that Drone Pilots want to fly are in controlled airspace. You have to wait to get permission then this is a major barrier for your business model.
So, that is a system that is going to improve in time, but I always say that the reality is that if you read the “white paper” that we did, really Part 107 has only been partially implemented. Until they figure out quickly and easily, in real time, provide air space authorization or air space waivers, real world companies have at least one hand tied behind their back. Think of it this way. You are going to pitch a customer and you are saying, “Hey, I would like to do this flight operation for you, but it is in controlled air space, so I cannot tell you if I will be able to actually do it or when I would be able to do it.” Not a very good marketing pitch, right? What the FAA is actually working on is a Smart Phone – Tablet Application that will basically bake in these grid maps, that they have been developing for controlled air space, which will immediately tell you if you can fly and how high you can fly in that airspace. So a lot of the grid maps have 100 or 200 feet limits as opposed to the 400 feet under Part 107. So you go to your flight operation, and you are standing on the ground, and you know you want to fly there, you access the application and you click on it and it says you can go to 100 feet. Now, you can go sell this service to your customer and know that you are going to be able to fly there. That is a big issue.
The way that the air space breaks down in terms of permission is this – you can get a Waiver in order to fly in certain air space or you can get Authorization to fly in certain air space. The difference is essentially this – If you are getting an Authorization it is for a single flight operation. If you are getting a Waiver it is for any possible flight operations over a period of time. SO, Waivers are broader and more challenging to secure. Authorizations are narrower and may be easier to get. Until we get to the point of implementation and the Application, Part 107 is fairly limited.
Now one of the challenges that everyone faces is of course State and Local Laws. The deal is that the FAA has exclusive jurisdiction over the National Air Space, when it comes to air craft. Drones are air crafts. So, the FAA has exclusive jurisdiction to regulate Drones. If the FAA says you can fly, then you can fly. That isn’t what is happening at a State and Municipal level. We have a lot of State and Municipalities passing UAV specific laws and ordinances limiting your ability to fly. So, there is this tension between what the FAA and quite honestly the Supreme Court is saying, which is that the FAA is the only one who can regulate Drones and what is happening on the ground.
Now, this concept field preemption which is the concept that says that the FAA has complete control of regulating the airspace, so that there is consisting across the United States. That is very beneficial to all of you, but you do not want to be the test case having to litigate that issue. So you need understand you state and local laws. Appreciate that they may or may not be challenged and then fly accordingly.
Now what are still in effect in the State Municipal level are laws that apply to lots of different things, but can also apply to Drones. For instance, there are nuisance statutes and ordinances that make it illegal to engage in activity which would be a nuisance to another person. If you are using your Drone to create a nuisance, you can absolutely be pulled in under that Nuisance Statute and be violated.
Same thing with privacy and potentially even some trespass -If your Drone happens to crash on someone else’s property. You need to be aware of State and Local Laws and try to navigate around them where you can. Simply understand that you do not want to be pulled on one of those if at all possible.
All right, let’s talk a little bit about enforcement and liability. We get a lot of calls and emails from folks who got a letter from the FAA who are worried about the liability of flying Drones and they wondering how all of that works. The FAA does not have the resources to regulate Drones and to send people into the field. They will do investigations, but they are trying to get the local police at the front line of enforcing the FAA’s regulations. Enforcing is probably too strong. They want the local police to gather all of the right information so that the FAA can follow up as appropriate. The problem is that many State and Local Law Officials do not understand how Drone regulation works. The FAA has provided a guideline for what they want Local Police to do when taking a look at a particular Drone operation. If you do get approached by a police officer, you should absolutely cooperate even if they are in the wrong. Have all of your documentation handy and explain to them that you are legally flying under Part 107, show them your Remote Pilot Certificate, etc.
The FAA, obviously, they have a number of different things they can do if in fact you are violating Part 107. I think we all appreciate that there a lot of Pilots out there who are making no attempt to comply with Part 107. There is another group that is absolutely religious about flying compliant with Part 107. Then there are some folks in between. I tell folks this, we all know at this point that the chance of getting caught may be very small, but the consequences if you get caught are very extreme, potentially.
The way you tend to get caught is you get approached by law enforcement, a competitor reports you, or you have an accident. If there is an accident and it results in an investigation that is the most likely way that you are going to pulled in on an FAA investigation. Potentially that could scale up to a Notice of Proposed Civil Penalty. Which is what you want to avoid at all cost? There are obviously substantial financial penalties that can be imposed. They can take way your Remote Pilot Certificate; they can bar you from getting one in the future, etc. There is a lot of bad stuff that can happen. We have some resources at this link which will help you to understand Regulatory Enforcement aspect of Drones. I encourage you to go to the website and take a look at the category for enforcement. There have been some pretty extreme results. The Sky Pan is the most famous in terms of enforcement with the initial recommendations in millions of dollars in remedies and of course an ultimate resolution that was in the six figure range. So, take a look at that and make sure that you understand what can happen if the FAA gets involved.
The other thing that is really important about the FAA they are looking for actual witnesses that can actually identify the pilot. They are not going after U-Tube Videos anymore, as stand alone, although they might send out a letter out to you and say, “Hey we want more information about this flight.” The purpose of that letter often times isn’t to enforce, but to educate you. You do not want one of those letters, but if you get one it is not the end of the world. In many instances, unless there has been an incident or accident, cooperating with the FAA is often advisable.
The other thing about enforcement is liability. You do have exposure if you have a problem which causes injury or accident to a person or property. Theories obviously are negligence or even negligence pursay which means negligence is a matter of law if you are violating a Statue or Ordinance. So, the deal is if you are outside of Part 107 you are going to have a potential problem, because you are not even going to be able to defend yourself. You will be negligent as a matter of law. Of course you trespass, privacy and nuisance, intentional infliction of emotional distress, harassment, etc., all of these theories can come down on you as the Pilot, but the company hiring the Pilot and the customer. I think one of the most surprising things for folks is “well you mean my customer can get into trouble if there is an illegal Drone flight or a problem with a Drone flight?” The answer is absolutely YES. Lawyers are looking for deep pockets and how easy is it going to be to establish the liability of the customer, who may have not done any due diligence, but not only to ensure that the Pilot was properly licensed, but that they were going to be conducting the operation consistent with law. You have to be very careful that you do not want to be the person who drags yours customer into a lawsuit.
Now let me flip that around a little bit and tell about the opportunity there, because it does come up a lot. One of the things we talk a lot about, continually, is professionalism. The way that all of this is going to expand and grow and that the market is going to become even more viable. Ok… This should be reviewed as a professional Drone service. The key here is you want to be selling professionalism. You want to be engaging in professionalism, because if this is going to become a market that is a free for all. Then guess who is going to win. It is going to be the kid next door who bought a Drone. Who isn’t complying and who is offering pricing that is not viable as a business. You really need to be careful about what you are doing and you can use professionalism in order to market your services.
By way of example: You have a customer. You are pitching that customer. The customer is wondering why they see you. Why did they get a much lower bid from someone else? Why should they be hiring you? The answer is because need to hire a professional from liability point of view. They have liability if they hire someone who is not compliant. At the end of the day, they are going to want to treat this particular service offering in a way that is a kin to other professionals. Lawyers, doctors, engineers, and commercial manned pilots are professionals. We want the Drone service industry to also be viewed that way. That is all of our responsibility.
We are going to take a break here and we are going to take some questions. What I am going to ask is to ask Mike or Cathy to do is go ahead and post questions in the Skype Chat Box, so that they are more organized and I will be able to see them online. I will handle those questions one at a time. I see Mike is typing. Alright.
Justin says, “Hello. I would like to request discussion on the legality of flying over roadways in urban or rural areas and areas with uncontrolled population. He knows the policy, but would like to have these points confirmed or clarified.”
Enrico: Justin you can go ahead and unmute your mike if you want to, so if you have a follow-up to my answer you can go ahead and ask it. It is a great question.
Under Part 107, as I think that most of us realize, the Regulatory approach here is that you cannot necessarily fly over roadways or over people. Right? So, there is a limit for what you can and cannot do in terms of being able to fly in particular places. Now this question can be broken down in a couple of different ways. The concept of flying in urban areas is different than flying in rural areas. If you want to fly over roadways in rural areas, then chances are you can under Part 107 as long as there are….it is very limited… sparsely populated… and as long as there are no people that are not in a protected environment such as a car. Let me see if I can find the particular regulation really quickly here. Just one minute. I may not have book marked that particular one, because that one is a little concerning to folks. If I come across it again, I’ll post it in the chat. The answer is it is going to depend on the circumstances. You can fly over cars and roadways if in fact it’s not going to purpose a hazard. It could be reckless for a number of reasons: You are too low. You are too close to the traffic. Right? There is no prohibition, pursay, on flying over roadways. Uncontrolled population I am not sure what that means, but you cannot fly over people. Justin, does that answer your question if you are on board? Alright….
Michael: I am going to interject for just a second. We do have a number of people who have called in that might be responsible for the background audio. We are sure that you have questions too, but we are going to hold your questions, until we have reached everybody in the chat. This way we are not all fighting for space.
Enrico: Got it. Excellent. Thank you.
Uri asks, “Part 107 implications for using Drones in agriculture.”
Enrico: Great question. Number one I will tell you it was a space that predicted initially to be one of the big niches, but it wasn’t. Now we see that it is starting to take hold drones in agriculture is one of the easier operations to conduct, because it is typically uncontrolled Class G airspace, which means you do not have to go get a Part 107 Airspace Authorization or Waiver to fly in Class G. So that is the good news. The harder part is that you still cannot fly beyond line of sight and a lot of the agriculture applications, two or three years from now, will be beyond line of sight. Having said that, we have a client right now, that is in a different country- an initial 3 million dollar agriculture project and they are spraying crops. It is 3 million dollars just to get started.
The concept there is that they were sending people out with sprayers into the fields and obviously they can use drones, that are little bigger than the DGI models are typically, to carry those fertilizers. They are actually going to fly within line of sight. So, they are going to be conducting operations in order to do the AG there. The other thing that you are going to understand about agriculture, ok, agriculture is more than just crops. It is claims adjusting. It is documentation. It is finding cattle in crops. It is documenting crop damage from overspray. We do a lot of work in the agricultural insurance space. Drone services to service providers in AG and so you are going to see some growth in that market as well. Ok.
Eda asks. Wait…go ahead.
Uri: This is very insightful. We are developing the drones in Europe for specifically crop spraying scenarios. So if you can share the company name that you mentioned that would help us to also get in touch with them and get some insights.
Enrico: That’s great, Uri. Send me an email enrico@dronelaw.pro and I will do an introduction email to you.
Eda asks: “Laws for flying in areas with unknown ownership and unknown population for geographic areas.”
Enrico: So the concept here is that ……guys I can here you talking. So laws for flying in areas with unknown ownership. Part 107 Regulation does not preclude you from flying over other people’s private property. The Regulation isn’t designed to try and figure all of that out. So if the question is can you fly over other people’s private property or property that you do not know who owns it the answer from the FAA’s point of view is there is nothing in the regulation that doesn’t say no? However, that doesn’t mean that’s the way that the law is ultimately developed, right?
There is Supreme Court case acknowledges that air crafts can fly over private property at a particular reasonable level. The reasonable level is going to depend on what is going on that property. What is the reasonable expectation of privacy and property for that owner? If it is a private home and you are flying 20 feet over there property, near their home, there is a good chance that FAA Regulations not withstanding a State law would find that that is a nuisance or an invasion of privacy. You have to be careful.
What we recommend is this, we have particular contract package for $350 and it contains documents that are Notice of UAV Operations. So when you can, we encourage you, as a matter of industry standards, to at least provide notice to neighboring property owners if your flight is going to be near or over their property. If it going to be over their property, there is a separate form in the package that allows you to get a sign off. The issue is this, “Do you really want your drone to get shot down, because you flew someone’s property line and then the FAA said it was ok be this your defense?” You’d rather not get the drone shot down. So, take advantage of the opportunity to provide notice, set expectations. People who are surprise by drones react almost completely different then people who actually know that the drone operation is actually going on. Guess what, that may bring property owners as a potential customer. So, providing them notice and introducing yourself is almost a good idea.
Eda: That was very helpful. Can I ask a follow-up question? What if it is for educational purposes?
Enrico: If it is still for educational purposes, under Part 107, right, you have more flexibility to be able to have non Remote Pilot Certificate holders to fly those drones. It is the same answer. It is not a FAA issue; it is a State and Municipal law issue. The reality is we do not know, it is going to take years for the courts to figure out where the edges of that are. Like I said before, we tell all of our clients, you do not necessarily want to be the test case. So, you’ll take some risks always in this business, but you should try and reduce your risk wherever you can.
Geological mapping is tricky, because it is identifying property and it is a big task. If you had to go to the office of deeds and figure out where everyone lived and how to contact them it would be costly. When you get rural the concept of notice and permission it is sometimes less important.
Gersch asks: Please talk about integrating Drones in the college setting in regard to compliance, insurance policies and exemptions.
Enrico: Ok, you do have flexibility to have non Remote Pilot Certificate owners fly drones in an educational setting. There is a whole set of rules under Part 107 that addresses that. Compliance is there are specific guidelines under Par 107 that you could follow for a college setting. The other more practical issues, right, insurance and policies. As with any larger organization what you need is a policy manual essentially, that is Part 107 compliant that says, “Here is what is going to happen before every drone flight and this is how every drone flight for education is going to incur. Here is the record keeping that is required. Here are the affirmations that people are going to participate are going to make. Here are the waivers that everyone going to sign and these types of things.” We do a lot of work helping design the operations manuals for particular groups. For your educational setting, that operations manual is going to look slightly different than for a construction site. There is a lot of overlap, because a lot of it is going to be Part 107. However, you are going to want it tailored to your specific needs.
There is insurance available it will be Global Aviation for educational centers running drone activities. You need to talk to your adjuster and make sure that your insurance covers the particular activity that you are conducting and if they do not know the answer there are a lot of resources out there. There is a guy by the name of Sky Smith at skysmith.com. He is a guy that works with a lot of clients to be sure that their policies are covering their operations.
In terms of exemptions, the good news is under Part 107 you need to become compliant with Part 107. If you are under controlled airspace, you will need to get a Waiver for that airspace, so that you can operate. If you are looking to get started right away, the educational answer is almost always find a big indoor space, because you are not regulated by the FAA as long as you are indoors. Gersh, does that help? Okay.
Kimber asks: “Can you file a flight plan to fly in controlled airspace as opposed to waiting for a waiver?”
Enrico: Under Section 333, that was essentially part of the model, but under Part 107 which is what 99% of the people are doing right now, you have to wait for a Waiver or Authorization. We have a whole series of free training videos, on DroneLaw.Pro, on how to navigate the Waiver and Authorization system. We think that you as drone pilots and operators need to be able to work that system as a core part of your business. It is like a neurosurgeon who does not know how to use a knife. We do get hired by folks to help them to the process, the first time or two, and trying to educate them as we go so they can take over from there. Kimber, the app is going to help solve that problem that everyone is struggling with Airspace Authorizations and Waivers.
Kimber: Can you say the app again?
Enrico: There is no app. There is one being developed by the FAA. Let me talk a little bit about that more specifically. So, when Part 107 was implemented, the FAA issued press releases saying, “Ok, we are there. We are implementing Part 107.” August 29, 2016 comes along and now it was pretty clear that this was a gross overstatement, because until you can get real time authorization in controlled airspace Part 107 operations are going to be delayed. What they quickly said was that they were developing an application based on these grid maps which have altitudes in each mile squared grid. Those altitude maximums then become the first layer of permission and Waiver and Authorization that you can get. You can simply download the application to your Smart Phone or other Smart device. You will launch the application. It will know exactly where you are. You will say I need a Part 107 Airspace Authorization and it will say yes or no and what is the altitude in real time. Now, if you need a waiver, recall that we talked a little bit earlier a difference between a waiver and an authorization. An authorization is going to be there for a single flight operation, and you can go back every day and just keep getting your authorizations. If you are looking to fly in a particular area repeatedly over a period of months or years, you’re still going to need a waiver. My guess, my belief is that that’s still going to be the FAA website, which is where you currently apply for waivers and authorizations. So let’s see here, if you go to this webpage, which is “www.faa.gov.us/request waiver” , this is where you currently go to get a waiver or air operation and controlled air space authorization. You have to fill out this form that they’ve got and follow these steps and wait for weeks or months to get even potentially a no. So, the deal is that if you are looking for air space authorization, it is going to be controlled. If you’re going to look to fly in an area repeatedly for lots of different types of operations, you’re still going to need a waiver and you’re still going to have to ask the website. It is a very frustrating thing for everyone to realize that everyone is in the same boat.
Shaun asks: “If a state has banned drone use in state parks and historical sites, which is nice since we the tax-payers pay for that space. Good point. As the FAA controls that air space, is that even valid?
Enrico: Good question, this is one we touched on a little earlier. But, let me take a little deeper dive into it. So the FAA controls the air space, but the state parks and historical sites and national parks control their land. So, what states and national parks can do is tell you that you can’t take off from within the park. That is their jurisdiction. What you can do is fly within line of site over a national park if you’re standing outside a national park. So, that’s not particularly helpful for the places that a lot of folks want to fly within national parks. But right now that is the way that it is working. So, if a state bands all flights over their property no matter where you’re standing; that probably would not stand up to judicial scrutiny. If they are saying you cannot take off from within their parky, then they certainly can make that happen.
Kimberly: “Can you have a spotter like a floor caddy to extend your line of sight reach.”
Enrico: Yes, it’s called daisy chaining. It is a little bit more complicated, because you have to be able to turn over controls. We have a lot of clients, for instance, the pipeline infrastructures space that are looking at all different ways to get drones in the air in a cost-effective way which includes potentially getting a waiver in the line of sight restriction. Which isn’t being granted very often now, but will be more and more as the time goes on. If you’re in a remote air space, then it is more likely you will get a waiver for line of sight. And also, as you’ve suggested this daisy-chaining where the pilot in command, all of your part 107 pilots are stretched out in a row, and they’re turning controls over from one to the next once you can no longer see altitude, attitude, and direction. Which is what you have to be able to do for the line of sight restriction is be able to tell the altitude, attitude, and direction of the drone…. Thank you very much.
Erich: I was told you can fly over people, unless you are a certain height above.
Enrico: No, the per regulations preclude you from flying over people. Period; unless you are recreational. If you are commercial, you cannot fly over people. The reality is that the big issue was initially “What is over people??”. The FAA has stated publically that the over people means directly over people. I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense, as drones are typically going to careen into people, and strictly drop straight down. But currently, that’s the way the regulation works. You can get a waiver for that, and again the FAA’s approach here is two years ago was an iron grip. A year ago, it was a pretty –damn tight grip. This year it is a little less tight and they keep loosening up and loosening up and loosening up the grip. Unless, unless, there is an incident or an accident with the manned aircraft in which case you can all expect there are going to be restrictions on drone use. And the regulations can tighten up at any time, that’s why we have a responsibility to make sure that all of our fellow pilots are flying legally and within not only part 107, but industry standards. Which are beyond part 107, not required, but for all of us? You know, it sounds like we are getting a little interference. If you guys could make sure you are covering your receivers if you’re not muted, that’d be great. So we do have, by the way for the educational piece if you want, again contact me at enrico@dronelaw.pro. We do have them a memorandum on educational, a use of drones in educational fields that we can give you. Ok, so we have another question from Larry, two parts.
Larry asks: “Potential job to photograph a property that is eleven nautical miles west of a major airport. Properties under class B airspace and not in Class B.” What that means everyone is that the airspace is often like an upside down wedding cakes. Whereas below a certain level, you can be in Class G, but if you get high enough you can get into another class of controlled airspace like B. Ok the question is, “Am I allowed to fly under class B?” The answer is yes, in general unless there is some other restriction. But if you’re in class G airspace as long as you comply to part 107. The second Question is “This property is still within the mode C 30 mile zone of an airport. My drone does not have a transponder. Am I legal to fly my drone within mode C zone of class B without a transponder? If you’re in class B, you’ve got a problem. You are going to have to get authorizations and transponders are very typical and authorization requests within controlled air space. But what if you’re saying is that you’re in class G or under that shelf, you don’t need a transponder. Ok? So, the answer is what air space are you in, controlled or uncontrolled? If it’s uncontrolled you do not need a transponder, but if you are in controlled, then you are going to apply for a waiver or authorization. But in many instances, we recommend adding a transponder amongst several other safety items to be able to convince the FAA that this is going to be a safe flight. Ok, next.
Larry: This is the guy asking the question, sorry I interrupted you. Um, so we don’t really need a transponder if it is not in Class G?”
Enrico: Yeah I kind of missed that, you don’t need a transponder if you’re in class G is correct.
Larry: (muffled) if it is under the Class B but still within …
Enrico: Yeah, you’re… it’s not. It’s all air space, ok? So mode C isn’t going to affect the answer. If you’re in class G, you do not need a transponder. Irrespective of mode c.
Larry: Ok thank you….
Steve asks: “I was denied a waiver for flying over people as a fire department pilot justifications as firefighters are protected by the gear and helmets. FAA says “what about the victims?” It is the firefighter’s job to protect the victim. How can I word this waiver request to meet the performance standards?”
Enrico: Ok, the answer is very very difficult. Flying over people is really one of the things that the FAA is not comfortable with right now. So we’ve had clients that are in controlled, construction zones where the safety meeting at the beginning of the day is going to tell everyone what is going to happen with the drone. Everyone has got a helmet on, and the FAA still won’t let those folks fly over folks at the site. Now, what they then have to do is design an operation where they are simply not flying over people as part of the operations for now and wait for the FAA to loosen up. Um, fire departments; you guys have an advantage in policy reasons why you want to fly are much stronger than for profit construction site. So we do anticipate you all will be at the front of the line in terms of flying over people. Now the other alternative route is to go get a public COA which can take a long time, but may potentially give you the permissions you’re needing with regards to people. So, that’s a different path then part 107, but it is one that is that is out there and we worth with municipalities to get public COA’s on the chance that the public COA may provide operational potential, you don’t get under part 107. Steve does that help?” Any additional questions, send by email. We will get those answered. I want to take a quick look at the business of drones and turn it over to Mike and kind of wind this up. I want to talk a little bit, we know about the practical limitations. That will be the waiver and authorization problem in the air space problem. Understand this; this is an emerging technology market. Right now, this it’s a lot of folks going out convincing folks to use their drone services. This will become a much larger market when the demand for services is driving the market. Meaning, that the phones ringing off the hook because you have an advertisement or a webpage, right? We are really not there yet, but you can feel it, you can feel it happening. We get calls for years and you can sense that the market is starting to come alive. And it has the market demand search driving the market as customers get comfortable with drones. As big companies start to worry that their competitors are going to start using drones. They better get in the game. That’s going to start driving the market, and you know, on the ground where we are with all of this. I will tell you, very first time, we can start to feel that happening. How quickly; remain to be seen. Part 107, authorization app is going to really help. But, there is going to be a turning the corner where all of a sudden the market grows very quickly. Ok, so we talked about supply and demand. We talked about professionalism, we’ve got a lot of client examples of very successful; drone operators. Let me tell you one quick story. One of our clients had not ???? About becoming a drone service provider until august 28th of last year. August 29th he took the test, or he signed up to take the test. He is now conduction more drone operations than virtually any other drone service provider in the country. From August 29th last year, the difference is perseverance and commitment. This is a new and emerging market which means the hurdles and barriers are going to be everywhere. Do you have what it takes to get over those hurdles and barriers? If you do, you can be like the example I just cited for you. If you don’t, you will eventually do what many people have done, which is think that this is something that they want to do and then abandon ship. Ok, so our approach at Traverse Legal and Drone Laws is to get you flying and to get your profitable. We get you aren’t making a lot of money yet, a lot of you. So we try to keep things down in terms of cost, so you can get there. In terms of drone pilot service companies, we have this thing all the documents you need to succeed. Let me show you that real quick, if you go to the drone law website, we’ve got something called ‘The ops in a box’. These are all the contracts and manuals you need for your drone service business to peer and present and operate professionally. For your customer contracts, for your notice of UAV operation, your contract agreements, your website terms of use, take a look at the website if you have any questions about that. It’s all designed, they’re $350.00 a piece, and you can get hour training videos to go along with them. Large organizations are starting to see a top down approach which is great. Of course for more information, you can go to the websites, I am available afterwards at enrico@dronelaw.pro to answer your questions or interact. I am now going to turn it over back to Mike so that he can talk a little bit about what inner drone has coming up and a little bit about what he is going to do for you as a major spiff in order to get in the conference. Let me find Michael here, there you are Michael, and I am turning it over to you my friend….”
Michael: Ok, so ugh thank you for participating today. Any questions that we weren’t able to answer, send them over to Enrico or to me at questions@interdrone.com and we will make sure we answer them textually via email. We will also have a recording of this up somewhere and anyone who signed up for this webinar will receive a notification when that goes up so will you be able to review it in case you missed something or didn’t hear something correct. But, as a bonus for joining us, you can get a 15% discount either a 3-day all access pass to InterDrone or the preconference and 3 day all access pass and the code for that is ‘DRONELAWPRO” all caps and all one word. DRONELAWPRO, use that when you register for InterDrone and you’ll get a 15% discount when you come to the show. Um, we have lots of great speakers like Enrico at the show., for every industry this year, we have enterprise tracks, for agriculture, construction, um search and rescue as well as infrastructure inspections, mining and aggregates, and basically anything under the sun that involves drones. As well as cinematography. So, thank you everybody for joining us today. Hope to see you soon, hope to see you at the show, you could always find us on interdrone.com, we’ve got news all year long, if you subscribe you will find out about great webinars like this. We will provide the recording of the webinar as soon as we get it produced and make that available, right? Alright everyone, that concludes that for today. We appreciate everyone that attended, and we will see you at InterDrone. Thanks everyone. See you later.