By Philip Butterworth-Hayes
It is difficult to find a US drone industry executive say a single negative thing about the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) new beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drone rule proposals. After so many years of obfuscation and delay, this huge raft of proposed rule-making is exciting news for drone operators, especially if they are in the business of delivering large amounts of cargo, or carrying out infrastructure inspections, over long distances.
The proposals fill in some important gaps in the regulatory process for developing commercial UTM services in the USA. The Part 146 proposal has drawn particular plaudits from the UTM community. This is the section which formalises the role of Automated Data Service Providers (ADSPs), which include UTM providers.
“Part 146 provides the missing regulatory link for UTM,” says Amit Ganjoo of ANRA. “It establishes certification and accountability for data service providers that will manage conflict detection, conformance monitoring, and other critical capabilities needed for BVLOS operations at scale….This rulemaking will unlock the full economic potential of drones by enabling new applications in delivery, infrastructure inspection, emergency response, and agriculture—all while maintaining public trust in safety.”
According to Reinaldo Negron, Head of UTM at Wing: “With the development of Part 146, which addresses UTM as part of a broader grouping of automated data service providers, we see the NPRM attempt to further normalize and accelerate a distributed, interoperable UTM ecosystem across the US, drawing from the implemented governance and services from the UTM Operational Evaluation that are used in commercial operations in five states on a daily basis today. From what we’ve reviewed so far, we will recommend some changes based on recent operational experience across the UTM ecosystem, but I believe increased regulatory certainty, a nationwide framework, and an open ecosystem should accelerate investment for current and new entrants.”
“Part 108 is a game changer for the entire ecosystem of services that support the drone industry, said Ryan Pleskash of ReslienX. “These services, which collectively enable a functioning UTM, are moving from the ‘good idea bucket’ to the ‘required to fly bucket’. This is especially true for higher-risk operations such as BVLOS in urban environments. This shift will unlock tremendous opportunities for both operators and the systems and services that support them to scale.”
The new proposals will certainly help many US drone operators start to scale their operations and may even be a catalyst for developing more adventurous BVLOS operations in other parts of the world.
“The FAA’s new BVLOS rules give a major boost to US commercial drone operations,” said Koen De Vos, Secretary General of the Global UTM Association (GUTMA). “Beneath the regulatory differences, there are clear points of convergence that point toward a truly global drone ecosystem. The US’s pragmatic, operation-centric approach can help accelerate U-space implementation and inspire faster progress worldwide.”
The FAA’s proposals also address the need for digital oversight and performance-based safety, which are critical for UTM implementation. Shifting from a waiver-based system to a standardized framework, the new proposals create a more consistent and predictable environment for both drone operators and UTM service providers. And the requirement to develop comprehensive methodologies for record-keeping, reporting, and inspection processes for BVLOS operations could give UTM service providers a new, vital role in capturing and managing this data.
Finally, the proposed rule defines clear operational roles and responsibilities for drone operator personnel engaged in BVLOS operations, such as Operations Supervisor and Flight Coordinator, and identifies industry standards (presumably ASTM F3442/F3442M-23) as means to exchange data for critical detect and avoid services.
So given the progress which is about to be made it almost seems churlish to start a sentence with the words, “Yes, but” given the importance, and global significance, of the proposed rules.
Yes, but, as is to be expected, many of the main difficulties around the NRPM arise in the margins, where the proposals impact existing stakeholder interests.
For the wider air traffic management community there are concerns around ensuring safe separation between drones and other aircraft, particularly in complex airspace, and the reliability of detect-and-avoid systems. The extent of the maturity of safety technologies and procedures for drone BVLOS operations may not be fully known. According to a June 2025 Office of Inspector General report on the FAA’s progress in advancing BVLOS drone operations: “the Agency has yet to approve operations on a scale large enough to fully advance BVLOS operations. Yet, while FAA needs sufficient numbers of approved flights and data to create new drone rules, the Agency also needs adequate assurances that the approved flights are safe.”
This is not, however, a view shared across the industry.
“The Rule recognizes the safety case in the ASTM standard for strategic conflict detection and cites an independent, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory validation of the safety case for strategic deconfliction (pg. 129),” said Wing’s Reinaldo Negron. “The combined independently verified research and operational data from the US UTM Implementation validate how we can safely share the airspace with other UAS. We’ve seen tremendous progress across the US UTM Implementation leveraging the ASTM F3548-21 standard and multiple service suppliers for DSS and strategic deconfliction.”
Another concern for ATC is communications between the new ADSPs, operational Flight Coordinators and ATC controllers. Are these new entrants trained and equipped to manage these communications – especially if ADSPs are drone operators – and will this increase controller workload and require new procedures?
Then there are new uncertainties over adapting flight rules to the new entrants.
“If unchanged, drones would get priority over ‘non-equipped’ manned aircraft”, according to the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA)’s Jim Moore in an article Proposed drone rule seeks right-of-way changes. “As drafted, the FAA proposal would preserve the right of way now granted to so-called “non-cooperative” manned aircraft (those not broadcasting position information) only (my italics) when they are operating to or from airports and heliports, within Class B or C airspace, or over densely populated areas,” he writes.
Other stakeholder groups with concerns include local authorities and the police who will have a role, currently uncertain, in acting on drone operators who break the rules.
“UAS flown under the BVLOS rule will be subject to Remote ID requirements, meaning that they must broadcast their location and identification in real time (law enforcement agencies can work with the FAA to correlate Remote ID information with UAS registration information),” according to an analysis of the FAA NRPM by law firm Kaplan Kirch. “However, state and local law enforcement authority to address an errant or malicious UAS remains limited. Also, while the FAA poses exclusive authority to regulate aviation safety, airspace management, and air traffic control (including UAS operations), state and local governments retain authority over land use planning, zoning, privacy, and law enforcement operations. For example, state and local governments retain authority to regulate the property that UAS may use for take-off or landing areas.”
Which also begs the interesting question – where is network remote ID in these proposals?
None of these issues are deal-breakers. And the FAA proposals are clearly a hugely significant step in moving the drone industry to the next level of commercialisation. But while most reactions to the NPRM have come so far from within the drone industry, the time is fast approaching for a fuller understanding of the details of how this new, landmark low-level airspace management system will be fully integrated into the wider National Airspace System.
