FAA Gives Green Light To Amazon For Testing Drones Outdoors
By Kamal Nayan - 20 Mar '15 01:48AM
U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has finally approved Amazon Prime Air - a conceptual drone-based delivery system being developed by Amazon.
However, the approval comes with certain strict restrictions, such as (no higher than 500 ft / 152.4 m), speed (no faster than 100 mph / ~161 km/h), and weight (no heavier than 55 lb / 25 kg) restrictions.
Other requirements included:
- Pilots must maintain
- No flights at night.
- No flights over uninvolved third parties.
- Pilot must maintain line of sight and be close enough to spot other aircraft that might be coming on a collision course with the small UAV.
A somewhat discouraging news for Amazon is that the FAA didn't shown any sign of willingness to relax its proposed line of sight (LoS) restriction or its embargo on nighttime flying.
The experimental license also requires drone operators to have "at least a private pilot's certificate."