email. We'll respond quickly . If we don't know the a nswer, we'll work to help find it for
you as soon as possible .
Director of Communications
Doug Church : dchurch@natcadc.org ; 301 - 346 - 8245
Associate Director of Communications, Art & Design
Laura Roose: lroose@natcadc.org ; 202 - 220 - 9814
Communications Specialist
Sarah Zilonis : szilonis@natcadc.org ; 202 - 266 - 9844.
Multimedia Specialist
Chris Ray : cray@natcadc.org ; 202 - 266 - 9875
WEEKLY UPDATE FROM FAA ATO COO TERI BRISTOL
Meeting the UAS Challenge
Hi everyone. This week, the FAA and the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems
International co - sponsored the 2017 UAS Symposium in Reston, Va. Mor e than 650
people attended from sectors such as aviation, technology , and academia, to learn
about and share the latest on the integration of UAS into the National Airspace System.
There is a whole lot of anticipation about what the FAA is doing on this su bject.
I participated in an FAA executive panel with Peggy Gilligan, Jim Eck , and Winsome
Lenfert, moderated by Administrator Huerta. We discussed how our organizations are
prioritizing and coordinating key aspects of integration such as research, concept
development, the regulatory framework, air space, airports, and technology.
I stressed that the ATO's challenge is to ensure that as we integrate drones, the NAS
remains safe, efficient, and able to meet the needs of traditional airspace users. Many
folk s don't know how complex the system is, or that we handle about 50,000 flights,
serve more than 2 million passengers, manage both civilian and military traffic, and
control traffic over 31 million square miles of airspace each and every day.
A key point made by everyone on the panel was that stakeholders — including
government, industry , and labor — must work together. We've seen how instrumental
collaboration has been with NextGen implementation and with aviation safety. We're
taking the same approach with U AS, particularly through the FAA's Drone Advisory
Committee, or DAC, which helps us look at drone use from every angle and prioritize our
integration efforts.
Since the FAA's Small UAS Rule went into effect in August 2016, the ATO has been
manually proce ssing requests to operate drones in controlled airspace. Approving these
requests means ensuring that proposed operations don't pose a hazard to manned
aircraft or impact airspace or airport operations. Thus far, we've approved more than
2,900 authorizatio n requests.
