Skip to main content

Hold the drone: FAA appeals court ruling on commercial use

hold drone faa appeals court ruling commercial use drones
Image used with permission by copyright holder

Wait just one minute: we may not see drones from Facebook and Amazon quite as quickly as we expected. After a US judge decided that drones were legal in the skies of the nation on Thursday, the Federal Aviation Administration has hit back with an appeal based on the grounds of public safety.

Using drones for commercial purposes has effectively been outlawed since 2007, when an FAA policy notice banned organizations from flying the unmanned robotic airships without a license (which is very difficult to get). This week’s ruling determined that the 2007 notice was not legally binding, and companies and individuals were free to get their drone projects off the ground.

Now the FAA has appealed the latest ruling, so the decision will ultimately be made by the US Court of Appeals in Washington DC. It’s a complicated process to follow, but we’ll try and do our best to keep you up to date, should you be planning a drone-based enterprise of your own.

“The FAA is appealing the decision of an NTSB Administrative Law Judge to the full National Transportation Safety Board, which has the effect of staying the decision until the Board rules,” stated the FAA. “The agency is concerned that this decision could impact the safe operation of the national airspace system and the safety of people and property on the ground.”

As we reported in November, the FAA is busy working on guidelines for the use of commercial drones, guidelines which are expected to be published by the end of 2014. Commercial use of the aircraft is then scheduled to be permitted sometime in 2015. Until then, the majority of money-making drone projects will have to stay on hold.

Editors' Recommendations

David Nield
Dave is a freelance journalist from Manchester in the north-west of England. He's been writing about technology since the…
Uber Eats is close to delivering your dinner using a drone
uber eats redesigned app lets you track your order with cute graphics

Along with announcing Uber Cash Monday, Uber shared a few more details about its plans to bring drone delivery to Uber Eats.
Uber unveiled the design for the drones at the Forbes 30 under 30 summit. The drones will have rotating wings with six rotors and will be able to take off and land vertically, Techcrunch reports.
While you might think the drones would be used for long-distance travel, instead they’ll likely be used for more local deliveries, at least for the time being. The drones are expected to have a maximum travel time of eight minutes, including takeoff and landing, and will have a range of 18 miles. For round-trip deliveries, the drones will likely travel 12 miles.
In previous conversations about the project, Uber has suggested that it doesn’t plan to use the drones for an entire restaurant to door delivery and instead plans to use the drones for more of a "last mile” approach. For instance, a restaurant might load up several drones for a delivery area and then those drones will all be launched from a central location to their final stops.
In another scenario, the drones will be deployed from restaurants to parked Uber vehicles that will then be responsible for delivering the food that final mile to its destination.
In July, Uber was conducting tests of the delivery drone in San Diego. Those tests were done from a McDonald’s in the area and were done using an Air Robot AR200 octocopter with a custom-built box for holding the food.
In July, Uber talked about building its own drones for food delivery and said that they could eventually reach speeds of 70mph. It had hoped to have its commercial service set up by this summer, which clearly didn’t pan out.
Earlier this month Wing launched the first drone delivery in the United States. Wing, which is owned by Google, is delivering over-the-counter medication, snacks, and gifts to people in Christiansburg, Virginia. It is working in partnership with Walgreens, FedEx Express and Virginia-based retailer Sugar Magnolia on the project.
In the case of Wing, customers have to opt into receiving deliveries via drone should they want to try the technology out.

Read more
Portland burglar allegedly used a drone to aid in after-hours food cart robbery
army use lasers power drones drone getty images

Drones can be used for all manner of applications, from snapping breathtaking photos to racing to inspecting aging infrastructure to … robbing food trucks? While hopefully not the start of a new high-tech crime spree straight out of an episode of Black Mirror, the owners of a pair of food carts in Portland, Oregon recently had their property burglarized by a thief who used a drone to help carry out the alleged crime.

The drone was reportedly employed as a surveillance tool in the robbery of two Piedmont Station food carts, Hapa Howie’s and PDX Dönerländ. The foot cart burglary took place on Tuesday. Hapa Howie’s owner told news station KOIN that, after her cart was burglarized, she checked security footage over the incident. It showed a drone hovering nearby -- including close to the locks -- prior to the suspected thief appearing and going through her cart. The thief stole business checks, tablets, loose change, and more.

Read more
UPS gets FAA clearance to roll out a fleet of delivery drones
ups gets faa clearance for drone delivery program uav

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) gave UPS the go-ahead to create a fleet of drones to deliver packages with very few limitations on Tuesday, the first time it's given such broad permission to a delivery company.

The move essentially will allow UPS to create its own drone airline. The company's UPS Flight Forward program now has full FAA Part 135 Standard certification to operate a fleet of drones beyond an operators’ line of sight and the ability to fly drones at night. The company's  Matternet drones will at first be used for the delivery of medical products and specimens. 

Read more