A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/761055
PHL has provided the IP addresses to VOLPE for the on ramping o f SVT to the monitors in the TRACON and it is expected that they will be IOC by the first week in December. UN MANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS (UAS) Steve Weidner (ZMP) is the NATCA Article 114 Representative for UAS. Jeff Richards (ZAU) is assisting Mr. Weidner on this project due to the workload and activity associated with it. Below is the update for the membership. Small UAS Rule/Part 107 The small UAS rule is now fully implemented. As of December 5th, authorizations are bein g granted in Class B airspace. A s a reminder, the rule we nt into effect on August 29th. Class G operations began immediately. Class D and E surface area authorizations began on October 3rd and Class C authori zations began on October 31st. All authorizations are to be requested through headquarters via the faa.gov/uas website. No approvals are to be made at the local level. The agency continues to conduct weekly telcon/webinars on Wednesdays at 1pm Eastern Time to answer questions and brief on the rule. The last of these telcons/webinars will be held on December 21st. Here is the lin k to register for these w ebinar s: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/3378736936558 080770 . Additionally, Mr. Weidner and Mr. Richards can be reach for questions on the small rule at Part107@natca.net . A headquarters workgroup is being formed that will make facility visits in the coming months to assess ho w these processes are working. The goal of the work group is to elicit feedback from the field and formulate recommendations on how this process can be improved. NATCA will be a part of this workgroup. The Future of S mall UAS Approval Proce ss The authorization process described in the above section is time consuming and labor intensive. Given the volume of requests expected, continuing to manually approve each request will not be feasible. Therefore, the Agency issued a Request For Informa tion (RFI) several weeks ago regarding the development of an automated UAS Notification and Authorization (N&A) systems. Mr. Weidner and Mr. Richards have been working with the agency to define the requirements for an approval system. The agency has rev iewed all submitted RFI s for the development of a more automated UAS N&A system. The agency will now be conducting one - on - one interviews with several of the RFI submitters begin ning the week of December 5th. The purpose of these meetings will be to deter mine the capabilities that may be available and to define a common format for data sharing. A headquarters workgroup is being formed that will make facility visits in the coming months to assess how these processes are working. The goal of the work group is to elicit feedback from the field and formulate recommendations on how the N&A process can be improved. SYR Visit On Novemb er 30th, NATCA's Executive Vice President, Trish Gilbert, visited SYR with Eastern Region RVP Dean Iacopelli, and Mr. Weidner to observe their UAS operation and tour the 174th Air National Guard (ANG) unit's UAS training squadron. Earlier this year the New York ANG began flying the MQ9 Reaper UAS from SYR, making SYR the