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The second is a FRIA (Federally Recognised Ident Area) enforcement/intelligence communities; have taken
This is a circle (up to 400 ft, but higher can be obtained) parallel action with their own report to Congress.
around a defined spot location. In the FRIA, recreational
(note the emphasis!) aeromodelling can continue as it had The GAO report deals with the 2 concerns of Remote ID,
for a long time. These are not hard to obtain, subject to an driven by commercial ops and LEOs/intelligence, and
FAA safety assessment of the proposed site. Educational they are going to push hard for a "network and database "
or Community-Based-Organisations (CBO) can obtain solution, it's not known what exactly this will be but will
them with a modest amount of paperwork. CBOs have to almost certainly be built on the Internet backbone. The
meet criteria, and the correct IRS tax status. Right now, commercial operators don’t like remote ID as it pops up
the AMA and at least 3 others are FAA approved CBOs. and down, it stops transmitting when down, has a short
range, and they don't know when or how many will next
Clubs can have multiple FRIAs and temporary ones can pop up. It's difficult to plan the delivery routes in such a
be granted for special events. They are valid for 48 months dynamic environment. Law Enforcement wants to know
and can be renewed (within 120 days of expiry) There is a immediately the identity and location of the operator, and it
public list of all FRIAs. Right now, around 900 have been can take 48 hours to get this from the FAA. This will
granted, about 200 denied and as there's 2500 AMA clubs become especially relevant after the attempted
in the USA, there's many more in the pipeline. assassination of Trump on 9 July !
They are not open to the general public, only the CBO On the other hand FRIAs are very much favoured. The
members, and individuals cannot apply for a FRIA, even if commercial operators like them as they are static and can
you own a 100,000 acre ranch in rural Montana. be planned around, just like any other restricted airspace.
LEOs like them as the FAA will never grant them in at-risk,
If you chose not to fly in a FRIA, the only remaining option busy or sensitive locations.
was the third part, a Remote ID broadcast module. This is
a small device housing a GPS receiver and a Bluetooth In particular, Sec.928 of the GAO report directs the FAA to
transmitter, usually powered from the UAS battery and establish a process to approve and publicly disseminate
transmits a number of parameters including location, fixed sites for recreational UAS operations, including over
ground speed, altitude, drone-specific information and 400' in Class G airspace. Furthermore they are to prioritize
your personal ID number. The maximum theoretical range FRIA requests for fixed sites. They note that the FAA
of Bluetooth 5 is around 800 metres. It’s not exactly clear agrees with this.
who it will transmit to, but presumably the commercial
delivery drones should be able to receive it, and re-route to Europe is a mixed bag. But it is constrained by the EASA
avoid the UAS. You only require 1 Remote ID module, the direction and views, Briefly this is … With the inclusion of
FAA specifically states it can be swapped from model to model aircraft in the EU UAS Regulation, the intention of
model; it carries your personal ID number, as that’s what the legislator was not to introduce new restrictions, but to
the FAA or Law Enforcement will be looking for if they see enable EASA Member States to continue applying their
a transgression! Here’s the Spektrum one that retails for current requirements for model aircraft. It explicitly
around USD 105, but there many others, from the UK and encourages States to do so and provides various options
many EU countries. for this, with one important exception: the need for the
model aircraft owner to register themselves as a UAS
operator and make their registration number visible on (or
easily accessible within) the aircraft while on the ground.
Therefore, each EU nation can make it’s own rules, and
they have done so, Some countries have a lightweight
rule-set like Switzerland and France, others are more
proscriptive, There’s no space to cover them all here, but
y o u c a n s e e a s u m m a r y a t
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_unmanned_
aerial_vehicles
Post Brexit Britain still seems a little confused. Possibly
because they are still reeling from the insane “Drone”
d e b a c l e a t G a t w i c k i n 2 0 1 8 . S e e
So far, so good. However there was an important https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gatwick_Airport_drone_inci
development recently in May, President Biden signed the dent for coverage of this and weep.
the FAA Reauthorization Bill which is in place for 4 years.
It's huge and covers almost all aspects of FAA operation, Japan has some of the most restrictive laws, I guess they
including details like how much compensation bumped are still touchy that despite their draconian gun-control
passengers will get and the like. laws, some guy made his own gun and ammunition from
$5 worth of junk to assassinate their Prime Minister.
However, at the same time The GAO (Government
Accountability Office), the independent supreme audit There is a useful website at
and investigative office for Congress, (also commonly https://www.drone-made.com/drone-laws which claims to
known as The Congressional Watchdog) after concerns be a world-wide summary of drone-laws, But I’m not sure
f r o m c o m m e r c i a l o p e r a t o r s a n d l a w how up-to-date it’s kept.
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