The AMA Government Affairs team has been working with clubs that are in controlled airspace to secure Letters of Agreement (LOA)\u00a0for their flying sites.\u00a0The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 requires all flying sites within controlled airspace to have\u00a0a\u00a0LOA\u202fwith\u202fair traffic control (ATC)\u202ffacilities.\u202fThroughout\u00a0the past year,\u00a0AMA has\u00a0been working with a team within the FAA to obtain agreements for\u00a0approximately\u00a0350 clubs.\u00a0Most clubs had pre-existing\u00a0agreements in place which helped streamline this process.<\/p>\n
There are certain factors that are used to determine altitude limits at flying sites. In controlled airspace, altitudes are preapproved\u00a0using\u00a0the\u00a0FAA\u2019s UAS Facility map<\/a>\u00a0values.\u00a0That\u00a0stated, many\u00a0flying sites need altitudes that are above the facility\u00a0map values,\u00a0which require a Safety Risk Management\u00a0(SRM)\u00a0panel\u00a0to take place.\u00a0Clubs can contact AMA and request altitudes higher than the FAA UAS Facility Map.\u00a0These clubs\u00a0will then\u00a0be\u00a0put on a priority list that AMA provides to the FAA.\u00a0The\u00a0requested\u00a0altitude\u00a0limit\u00a0can\u00a0vary\u00a0at each flying site and\u00a0will\u00a0depend\u00a0on\u00a0the\u00a0operations\u00a0and safety mitigations\u00a0that take place\u00a0at the site.<\/p>\n SRM\u00a0panels\u00a0work\u00a0to identify, analyze, and assess potential safety risks and find mitigations to ensure clubs can continue their safe operations\u00a0at their flying sites.\u00a0These panels consist of a trained facilitator on the SRM process,\u00a0AMA representatives, FAA representatives, subject-matter experts\u00a0or\u00a0third-party stakeholders, and panel observers.\u00a0Some factors that are analyzed include fixed site location\u00a0in\u00a0reference to the closest runway surface, airport departures and approach procedures, law enforcement\u00a0activities, and manned air traffic operations.\u00a0The goal of the SRM process is to treat\u00a0any risks that are\u00a0identified during the process and develop a plan to continue operating safely in the National\u00a0Airspace\u00a0System.<\/p>\n By the end of the year, the FAA hopes to provide a checklist in ATC manuals to\u00a0conduct SRM panels at the local level in hopes\u00a0of speeding\u00a0up this\u00a0process. At this time, there is only a process for SRM panels to be conducted for clubs in controlled airspace. We hope to have a process for clubs in uncontrolled airspace soon.\u00a0AMA will continue to work with the FAA to advocate for our\u00a0clubs and\u00a0members. As always, please contact the Government Affairs department with questions and concerns at\u202f(765)\u202f287-1256 or\u00a0email\u00a0amagov@modelaircraft.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The AMA Government Affairs team has been working with clubs that are in controlled airspace to secure Letters of Agreement (LOA)\u00a0for their flying sites.\u00a0The FAA Reauthorization Act of 2018 requires all flying sites within controlled airspace to have\u00a0a\u00a0LOA\u202fwith\u202fair traffic control (ATC)\u202ffacilities.\u202fThroughout\u00a0the past year,\u00a0AMA has\u00a0been working with a team within the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1002439,"featured_media":3955,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,34,10,116,56,7,150,47,32,136,143,146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-400-foot","category-airspace","category-congress","category-dot","category-drone","category-faa","category-laanc","category-member-questions","category-nprm","category-registration","category-remote-id","category-section-349"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1002439"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4311"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4313,"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4311\/revisions\/4313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amablog.modelaircraft.org\/amagov\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}