Between the Lines

FAA Part 107 Small UAS Recurrent Non-Part 61 Pilots Exam Went Live Today

In the United States, Commercial UAS (Unmanned Aircraft Systems aka drone) FAA Part 107 testing has changed for those requiring a recurrent exam. I have been certified as a remote UAS pilot since the FAA Part 107 Commercial UAS certification started, but was coming up on my annual 2 year renewal for the recurrent exam.The new online testing went live today including flying over people and at night ratings included so I gave it a try. I just took it,... Read more →

FAA Highlights Changes for US Recreational Drones

There are some big changes coming in the United States to people flying UAS (drones) recreationally, especially in cities and controlled airspace. I am writing this blog post from an area of class c airspace in downtown Portland Oregon. It basically levels the field for recreational and commercial part 107 UAS operators. There were times where I as a commercial operators couldn't fly in a controlled airspace without 3 months of an airspace authorization and waiver requests or more recently... Read more →

Drone IDs Required in the US February 25 2019

FAA Makes Major Drone ID Marking Change The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) posted a rule in the Federal Register requiring small drone owners to display the FAA-issued registration number on an outside surface of the aircraft. Owners and operators may no longer place or write registration numbers in an interior compartment. The rule is effective on February 25. The markings must be in place for any flight after that date. When the FAA first required registration of small drones in... Read more →

Updates to Reality Capture API on Autodesk Forge

Updates were made the reality capture API on Forge that not only dramatically improves the resulting quality and speed to produce a mesh or view point clouds, but also adds geolocation for InfraWorks. For example you can use this Forge API to generate a 3D textured mesh from photos taken buy a UAS (drone). Read More Updates to Reality Capture API “The Reality Solutions team is excited to announce the availability of our next generation Forge Reality Capture API. We’ve... Read more →

Sleepless in Seattle

I am working remote from Seattle this week for several reasons. Tuesday I had my FAA Part 107 renewal exam for commercial SUAS pilot – and passed. I did a lot of studying and practice tests. I can’t recommend RemotePilot101.com enough and first learned of them in our corporate training program and now use them for all my SUAS training and certification needs. Thursday I am speaking at Seattle Startup Week. How Technology is changing the $10 trillion construction industry... Read more →