American drone pilots have until September 2 to tell the FCC what pulling LiDAR and thermal imaging off the market would do to their work. That is 17 days. The window covers Public Notice DA 26-758, which proposes to strip import and marketing clearance from foreign-made drones the agency already approved.

I have followed this docket since the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau and the Office of Engineering and Technology opened it on July 21. For more than two weeks it moved among lawyers and trade groups. That changed on August 7, when DJI pointed its own customers at the proceeding, and again on August 11, when Rick at Drone Valley put it in front of a consumer hobbyist audience that had largely not registered it existed.

His call to action is the right one. Two details in the video are worth fixing before anyone files.

The FCC Names Seven Capability Categories, Not Four

The notice defines military-grade across seven categories: aircraft weighing 55 pounds (25 kilograms) or more, aerosol dispensers, thermal imaging sensors, LiDAR sensing, docking stations, aircraft built to carry a defense article, and swarming systems. The Drone Valley video names four of them.

The three that go unmentioned matter as much as the four that do. Docking stations sweep in the DJI Dock line that police departments run for drone-as-first-responder programs. The 55-pound threshold is the dividing line in Part 107, so anything heavier is covered by definition. And the swarming category explicitly names multi-drone light shows, which puts American entertainment operators who bought Chinese show fleets inside a national security definition. We covered the full scope when the notice landed on July 21.

The other correction is the date. Rick tells viewers comments close September 3. The Federal Register published the notice on August 3, which sets the 30-day clock to September 2. One day is not much unless you file on the last one.

LiDAR Puts Four Consumer DJI Drones Inside The Definition

Category four covers any drone that integrates LiDAR sensing. That reaches the Air 3S, Mini 5 Pro, Avata 360 and Neo 2. Each carries a short-range forward-facing sensor built for low-light obstacle avoidance, a different job from the survey mapping the FCC cites in its justification.

The Air 3S was the first DJI drone to carry forward-facing LiDAR when it launched in October 2024, with a nighttime measuring range of 1.6 to 82 feet (0.5 to 25 meters) across a 60-degree field of view. The Neo 2 weighs 151 grams, and DJI publishes its LiDAR range as 1 to 26 feet (0.3 to 8 meters). In the FCC’s own reasoning, LiDAR earns its place on the list because it enables three-dimensional terrain mapping, foliage penetration and navigation in GPS-denied environments.

Two of those four drones never reached American shelves through official channels. DJI’s September 2025 Mini 5 Pro announcement carried fine print noting it was not available in the US, and the Neo 2 launched globally without a US release. The Avata 360 cleared FCC authorization on November 19, 2025, weeks before the December 22 Covered List addition, which is what places it in the previously authorized category this proposal targets.

The Same Announcement Extended Protection For American Drone Makers

July 21 ran in two directions at once. The FCC extended its Blue UAS and Buy American exemptions from January 1, 2027 to January 1, 2028 and removed the expiration date on Conditional Approvals, then proposed the ban on foreign hardware in the same announcement.

The agency’s own fact sheet headline pairs the extension for trusted drones with the request for comment on banning foreign ones. Domestic manufacturers got a year of runway and permanent status for approved products. Foreign hardware got a proposed 180-day wind-down. Both halves are defensible on their own terms. Announced together, they read as industrial policy wearing a security badge.

The FCC’s Economic Case Rests On Domestic Fundraising

To argue the ban would not hurt, the notice points at capital already raised by American drone companies. Its footnotes name Zipline, BRINC, Skydio, Anduril, Neros, Red Cat and Unusual Machines. The agency adds that billions more are committed to domestic production.

Unusual Machines is the one worth pausing on. Donald Trump Jr. joined its advisory board in November 2024 and holds a stake that securities filings put at 331,580 shares. The stock roughly doubled on the day of the announcement. DroneXL published the full documented timeline this morning, and the pattern there is a matter of public record rather than speculation. Rick makes a version of the same argument, calling the original ban something “based on nothing but protectionism.” Some of the corporate structure in his telling is off, and the underlying point survives it.

Filing A Comment Takes Minutes Through The FCC’s System

Comments go to PS Docket No. 26-189 through the FCC’s Electronic Comment Filing System at fcc.gov/ecfs. Enter the proceeding number, select the docket when it appears, describe how you actually use the equipment, and attach anything that documents replacement costs or inventory already sitting inside the country.

The Drone Advocacy Alliance action page walks through both the quick-comment route and the attachment route. Disclosure: DroneXL has been a Drone Advocacy Alliance partner since June 2024, and the Alliance receives sponsorship from DJI. DJI is separately directing its own customers there and calls the proposal “a total reversal from the FCC’s previous position.” We reported on that campaign on August 8.

DroneXL’s Take

The strongest argument against this proposal is sitting inside the FCC’s own document.

In the economic section, the agency tentatively concludes the ban will not bite because recreational consumers are “unlikely to fly military-grade UAS.” Earlier in the same notice, it wrote a definition that makes a 151-gram palm-launched selfie drone military-grade because it carries a short-range obstacle sensor. The Commission never reconciles the two. It asserts recreational fliers sit outside the category while writing a category that reaches into their hands, and no part of the cost analysis grapples with what happens when they do not sit outside it. That is not a rhetorical gotcha. It is a specific gap a filed comment can put on the record, and the FCC has to weigh the record in front of it.

Give the agency this much: it did not invent the threat finding. An executive-branch interagency body including the Department of War determined that foreign-produced drones pose unacceptable risk, and the Commission is under direction to give that determination particular weight. The FCC is not freelancing.

What it is doing is choosing the widest available reading of that mandate. Nothing in the security determination required defining obstacle avoidance as a weapons capability. That choice belongs to the FCC, and my read is that the definition got written backward, starting from the hardware it wanted to reach.

Watch September 2, then watch the Ninth Circuit, where DJI’s opposition brief put $1.56 billion on the table in April. If the court narrows the Covered List designation this proposal stands on, the seven categories lose their foundation. If it does not, the proposed 180-day clock starts running and the comment record is the only thing that shaped the outcome.

File something. Fifteen minutes now beats a decade of complaining that nobody asked.

Sources: FCC Public Notice DA 26-758, Federal Register 91 FR 48870, FCC Fact Sheet: FCC Takes Action to Secure the Drone Supply Chain, DJI Viewpoints, Drone Valley

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.