A publication of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association
Issue link: http://natca.uberflip.com/i/913906
Mr. Richards and Mr. Weidner will be w orking closely with the agency as these efforts progress. DRONE ADVISORY COMMITTEE (DAC) NATCA Executive Vice President, Trish Gilbert attended t he Drone Advisory Committee (DAC ) on Nov. 8th in Seattle . The DAC heard reports from the three task groups: TG 1) Governing Roles and Responsibilities, TG2) Access to Airspace, and TG3) UAS Funding. TG2 completed their recommendations and they were submitted to the FAA for consideration. The DAC refined the tasking for TG3 following their presentation and the fina l report from TG3 is expected to be presented at the spring meeting of the DAC. TG1 continues to be the most contentious as they try and find a balance between federal and local control of UAS regulations. The FAA is working on new tasking for TG1 that wi ll better align with the Presidential UAS Integration Pilot Program. EVP Gilbert is supported on the DAC by Mr. Richards who represents NATCA on the DAC Sub - committee and TG2, Mr. Weidner who represents NATCA on TG3, and NATCA's Deputy Director of Safety and Technology, Mark McKelligan. LOW ALTITUDE AUTHORIZATION AND NOTIFICATION CAPABILITY (LAANC) The LAANC tool is up and running at the following locations: CVG, ZMP, LNK, RNO, SJC, PHX, ANC/LHD, MRI , and MIA. There will be approximately a 60 - day test peri od where these facilities will provide feedback on fixes and improvements that can be made to LAANC. The intent is to deploy LAANC in facilities across the NAS throughout CY2018. The initial deployment will simply replace the manual process in which author izations are approved. The tool itself will be used solely by staff support/management during the initial phase. It is envisioned the future iterations will be incorporated into operations. As a reminder, LAANC will automate the UAS authorization for Part 107 proponents. There are still few legal issues to work through, but LAANC is expected to be able to provide notification for Part 101/Hobbyist proponents at some point in the future. The initial test version of LAANC will only include Part 107 authoriza tions. The Agency is working with several industry partners who will provide this service to the various UAS proponents. The Agency will provide UAS facility map data to the industry partners. The partners will, in turn, develop tools that will provide authorization and notification services to the proponents, on a real - time basis, based on the UAS facility map data. The authorizations and notifications will be instantly transmitted back to the facility for which the authorization/notification was made. Should you be asked for a list of the industry partners who are authorized UAS Service Suppliers for LAANC, refer those inquiries to: https://www.faa.gov/uas/programs_partners hips/uas_data_exchange/ On that page, you will a section titled, Approved LAANC UAS Service Supplies. In that section there are hyperlinks to the approved UAS Service Suppliers. There are currently two approved suppliers, but more are expected to be ad ded once they've completed the