Welcome to your weekly UAS news update. We have four stories for you this week. Washington state jacks up the commercial drone fees — not a good thing. We have an industry survey that shows DJI still dominates. We have the FCC that tells certification labs to tighten their screening — this is related to a story we did last week. And then finally, SiFly raises $20 million. So let’s get to it.
Washington State Jacks Up Commercial Drone Fees by 10x
Starting January 1st, 2027, commercial drone operators in Washington state are going to pay $150 a year per aircraft to register. Right now it’s $15. That’s a 10 times increase, if you’re good with math.
Here’s where it comes from. Unfortunately, Washington repealed a luxury tax on private jets before it took effect. And as a result, to make up the loss, lawmakers added a $120 excise tax on commercial drones, plus doubled the existing registration fee to $30. So millionaires that have a private jet don’t have to pay for that money, but now you do.
90% of that money is going to go to a sustainable aviation fuel account — not to the airports, not to drone programs, but to jet fuel research, basically. The drone fee got exactly one hearing that was buried inside of a bigger transportation bill, and no drone operators showed up to testify.
For comparison, Minnesota charges $25 per year, and Utah charges $5. So a DJI Mini that is flown for real estate photography in Washington will now cost the same to register as a Cessna 172. This takes effect in 2027, so if you fly commercially in Washington, start to budget today — or maybe even talk to your lawmakers.
Industry Survey Shows DJI Still Dominates at 97.1%
The Associated Builders and Contractors, which is a major construction trade group, asked its members what drones they currently fly. DJI came out on top with 97.1%. Autel took the rest, and Skydio, which was the only American brand that was on the list, got 0%.
This survey happens months after the FCC ban on new DJI models hit the market, and it shows that the ban has not really pushed contractors yet to go towards American alternatives, if they are available. It’s basically just frozen them on the hardware that they’re already on.
Almost 20% of these fleets use thermal cameras, and about the same use LiDAR as well. And as you know, both of these payload types are part of the new FCC proposal that could pull them from the shelves entirely — including existing models that have already been approved by the FCC. Now, the trade group is asking lawmakers to simplify compliance, and based on the results of the survey, it’s kind of easy to understand why.
FCC Tells Certification Labs to Tighten Their Screening
The FCC just told HOVERAir to stop selling its Versa flying camera immediately, calling it a violation of US laws. And here’s a bit of a twist — we talked about this last week, and I know some of you made comments saying that it was no longer approved by the FCC — but a certification lab had already approved that camera for sale. Now the FCC says that that approval was granted in error, and it’s now being pulled.
As a result, the FCC is sending new guidance to every certification body that it accredits. If you’re not familiar, there is a bunch of private companies that are paid by manufacturers that actually decide whether a device gets approved. And now the FCC wants them to screen harder for banned drone components — although that guidance has not really been published anywhere. No public notice, and no docket number.
So this matters because the whole system for enforcing the drone import ban is going to run through private labs. If one bad approval gets through, it takes a viral product launch like this one to catch it. And that actually raises a lot of questions about how many others have been sitting there right now that have been approved and that we don’t know about. This is obviously a developing story, and we’re going to keep you updated as we keep tracking it.
SiFly Raises $20 Million to Scale Production of the Q12
Last up, SiFly announced a $20 million Series A financing. According to the press release, the funds are going to be used to scale production and customer delivery of the SiFly Q12.
If you’re not familiar with the Q12, it currently holds the Guinness World Record for longest flight by an electric multirotor in its class at 3 hours and 11 minutes. We’ve talked about this in news update before. The aircraft carries a payload up to 10 lb and a maximum range of 90 miles on a single charge. 90 miles — that’s kind of really impressive.
The Q12 is primarily an enterprise drone and can carry payloads such as OGI sensors, cell phone locators, spectrometers, thermal cameras, LiDAR, AEDs, spotlights — anything, you name it, up to 10 lb. It’s built as an all-around enterprise aircraft. SiFly also makes the Q250, which is a heavy-lift drone with a maximum takeoff weight of 551 lb and 237 lb of payload. It’s going to be cool to see those starting to hit the hands of customers and then hear the feedback.
And the conversation continues on Postflight, where we talk about all of these stories uncensored in a premium community — the link is located in the description. Keep in mind, we’re not going to be here for the next two live Q&As on Monday, so we’ll see you in 3 weeks for that. But in the meantime, we will have news update next Friday as well. See you then.
This article is based on a video from our YouTube partner Greg Reverdiau. Watch the full weekly UAS news update on the Pilot Institute YouTube channel, and find more of Greg’s work on his DroneXL author page.
