Welcome to your weekly UAS news update, we have 4 stories for you this week: New bill to ban DJI for all users, Philly Drone Life goes back to court, WingtraOne gets LiDAR, and Air Aware gets FRIA locations!
00:00 Introduction 00:19 New Bill to Ban DJI Drones for ALL Users 02:06 Philly Drone Life back in Court 03:57 WingtraOne gets LiDAR 04:40 Air Aware Gets FRIA Locations
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First up this week is a new bill from the US House Of Representatives called the “Countering CCP Drones Act” or H.R. 2864. The bill would revoke all FCC authorizations for existing and future DJI drones. For those who don’t know, the FCC issues approvals for anything that transmits radio frequencies. The revocation of DJI’s approvals would mean no drones could transmit radio frequencies. This would affect ALL users of DJI drones, including those who fly for recreation or fly for non-critical infrastructure. Please reach out to your representative and let them know this is unacceptable and will destroy the UAS industry. We’ll keep you updated if we see any developments on this.
Second up this week is trouble for Philly Drone Life, a YouTuber known for being fined by the FAA for flying dangerously. A complaint filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania states the YouTuber, Michael DiCiurcio, has been “warned, counseled, and educated” 3 times by the FAA. The complaint goes on to state that DiCiurcio continues to knowingly violate regulations and lists 26 incident flights between December 29th, 2019 and August 4th, 2020 and the violations for each flight. The complaint assigns a value of $1,501 per violation of each Federal Aviation Regulation, totaling $182,004 in fines. Violations included acting as an airman without an airman certificate, careless and reckless operations, operating without a strobe light at night, operating beyond visual line of sight, operating over a human beings, and operating within controlled airspace without airspace approval. The court seeks the total fine amount along with a permanent injunction on operating drones not in full compliance with Part 107 or 44809. This would mean that if DiCiurcio were to violate Part 107 or 44809, a warrant could be issued for his arrest. We’ll keep you updated if we see any more about this case.
Third this week is Wingtra, who has released a LiDAR unit for the WingtraOne Gen II. This unit has a vertical accuracy of 3cm from 200’ and the capability to map up to 890 acres in a single flight, this is a game changer for those mapping and LiDAR firms who do large areas. The LiDAR payload comes in at about $6000 according to the head of sales at Wingtra. Pretty cool new payload, I wonder if Jared will be getting one…
Last up this week is Air Aware! You guys asked, and we heard your requests! We were able to get FRIA Maps added into the app so you can see where to fly with your older drones or your foamy without RID! We’re excited to continue to add features to Air Aware, so be sure to leave a comment if you have some suggestions!
