The AMA Government Affairs team continues to work with Congress and the FAA despite the ongoing pandemic.We have been able to conduct telephone meetings and participate in virtual video conferencing in order to continue our efforts to advocate for the hobby. In the past few weeks, we have seen developments that will impact our hobbyist community. Throughout the last year, we have been working with clubs in controlled airspace to secure Letters of Agreement (LOA) with local air traffic control (ATC) facilities. In the last few weeks, we have been able to get many of these mutually agreed–upon LOAs signed and we are happy to see that this process is progressing more quickly. In addition to securing LOAs for our clubs, we have also secured a path for night operations at fixed flying sites in controlled airspace. To streamline the LOA process for our clubs, the FAA is working to finalize a LOA checklist that will be used in its ATC manuals.
We continue to conduct Safety Risk Management panels for clubs in controlled airspace that need to fly over the FAA UAS Facility Map altitude. The clubs that have gone through this process have been successful and are being approved for their requested altitudes. This process highlights potential safety risks and results in identifying safety mitigations in order to continue our safe operations.
We are being told that Advisory Circular (AC) 91-57C will be out for public comment sometime soon, and the FAA is working to finalize this AC sometime this calendar year. This AC will include an outline for community-based organization recognition and the recreational Knowledge and Safety test. In addition, we are hearing rumors that the FAA is on schedule for a final rule on Remote ID by the end of the calendar year. Recreational operators had a large impact during the comment period on the NPRM. We have heard that there were many identified issues with the rule that will need better solutions, which include cost, broadcast abilities and FAA Recognized Identification Areas. Again, thank you to everyone who commented on the NPRM.
AMA will continue to work with the FAA to advocate for our members. As always, please contact the Government Affairs department with questions and concerns at (765) 287-1256 or amagov@modelaircraft.org.