The US FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) proposed rules for commercial drone usage, applicable to civil drones weighing 25kg and below. On the positive side, the rules clearly define the usage scenario for commercial drones including
Limiting flights to daylight time and to visual-line-of-sight operations, and away from bystanders
Maximum flying speed of 100mph (160kph) and an altitude of 500ft
The operator must be at least 17 years old and obtain special certificates.
We believe the new regulations satisfy the requirement of major commercial applications such as oil & gas inspection and agriculture. On the other hand, the new rules: Bar an operator from dropping any object from the drone and rule out commercial drone usage for home delivery.
Although the FAA?s regulations are negative for the adoption of drones in the home delivery market, there are still wide areas of
applications for drones to explore such as recreation, industrial inspection & land survey, natural disaster & humanitarian relief and wireless communication. We believe the FAA?s restrictions on home delivery reflect its safety concerns, especially after recent accidents such as a small drone crashing into the White House on 26 January 2015
