The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is wrapping up the UAS Integration Pilot Program this month. Today they held a special event to commemorate the drone program and to announce what will come next. The new program focuses on operating drones beyond-visual-line-of-sight and will be called BEYOND, announced Secretary of Transportation, Elaine L. Chao.

Beyond the FAA UAS Integration Pilot Program – The BEYOND program

Late in 2018, the UAS Integration Pilot Program was announced. Throughout the country, a number of drone testing programs were undertaken in cooperation with states, local government, tribes, and drone manufacturers. Some of the most notable achievements during this period are the Part 135 ‘air carrier’ certifications that have been received by Wing and UPS Flight Forward that allows the companies to deliver packages by drone to end-consumers.

The UAS IPP program comes to an end this month and to commemorate the drone testing program and to announce what comes next the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has organized a special online event that you can watch on Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. The presentation included leaders from the White House Science and Technology Office, DOT and FAA, and IPP Lead Participants.

https://youtu.be/8xbgBx9vpF4

The BEYOND program

A question on the minds of many people has been, what will come next. What will come after the UAS IPP? Well, today Secretary of Transportation, Elaine L. Chao announced that the future will have to do with conducting drone operations beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BLVOS), and thus the next FAA program is suitable called, the BEYOND program.

FAA Administrator, Steve Dickson said there were three reasons behind the name for the BEYOND program:

It is beyond the UAS Integration Pilot Program
It will involve beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) drone operations
And, it will get us from the ‘crawl’ to the ‘walk’ phase using the crawl, walk, run approach to drones.

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