On November 7, 2013, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released its first annual Roadmap outlining the FAA’s approach to safely integrate unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) into national airspace system (NAS). The Roadmap contains current and projected future policies, regulations, technologies and procedures that will be needed for extensive UAS integration. It also presents target dates for certain objectives leading to UAS integration.
Additionally, the Roadmap considers the evolution of UAS operations once all of the necessary requirements and standards are in place. The FAA recognizes that rules, regulations and standards may need to be updated and revised in the future The Roadmap can be found here.
Concerning more immediate action and in accordance with a congressional mandate, the FAA plans to select six test sites to begin work on the integration of UAS into national airspace. The sites will conduct research to determine what requirements are needed for safe integration of UAS.
In addition to publishing the Roadmap, the FAA also released the UAS Comprehensive Plan. As required in the 2012 FAA Reauthorization, the Joint Planning and Development Office developed a plan to safely accelerate integration of UAS into the national airspace. The UAS Comprehensive Plan outlines a multi-agency approach to integration and details the overarching interagency goals and objectives. The partner agencies will work to achieve the goals and objectives and, in the course of doing so, may develop agency-specific plans. Agencies involved in this coordination effort include the Departments of Transportation (DOT), Defense (DoD), Commerce (DOC), and Homeland Security (DHS), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and the FAA. The Comprehensive plan can be found here.
For information on UAS integration into domestic airspace, please contact Ronce Almond at (202) 457-7790