Drone News: Remote ID Delay, Mini 4 Pro Price, FAA Gives BVLOS, Pilot Sentenced, and DAA Campaigns

Welcome to your weekly news update, we have 5 stories for you this week; Remote ID Delay confirmed, Mini 4 pro pricing leaks, the FAA gives UPS and uAvionix BVLOS, TFR Violating Drone Pilot Sentenced, and the DAA announces more campaigns!

Your first story will sound familiar if you saw our video earlier this week, the FAA has announced discretionary enforcement of remote ID. The FAA has officially - See link in the description - published discretionary enforcement for Remote ID until March 16th, 2024. Compliance date if you are able is STILL Sept. 16th, 2023. Discretionary enforcement ENDS on March 16th, 2024. If you’re waiting on your module, firmware, or FRIAs, you have an extra 6 months. For everyone else, you still need to comply as of the 16th of September, 2023. We’re very glad to see the FAA has responded to our previous video and letter requesting for discretionary enforcement until March. Alright, next up we have some pricing leaks for the rumored Mini 4 Pro, coming from Europe. As reported by DroneXL, the drone only will run 799, drone with the RC 2 at 999, and the fly more combo at 1129. Pricing is currently only reported as euros, but we can expect similar pricing here as drone prices in Europe tend to be just a bit more expensive than the US. Interestingly we see the DJI RC 2 package here nearly confirming that the Mini 4 will come with O4. We haven’t seen any other leaks on when the new Mini will be released, but we speculate within the next month. In the third story this week, the FAA granted UPS Flight Forward and uAvionix BVLOS waivers. UPS will be utilizing Matternet M2 drones, which have an airworthiness certificate. uAvionix will utilize Rapace drones to test their detect and avoid technology. These two companies join Phoenix Air Unmanned in operating BVLOS to capture data for the FAA. The FAA will then use this data to create standards for routine BVLOS in the future. According to the FAA at Commercial UAV Expo, we could see a BVLOS NPRM as soon as August of 2024 with a final rule in 2025. We’ll keep you updated as we see more! Next up we have sentencing for the Bengals Game TFR violation… 25 Year Old Dailon Dabney was sentenced to a year of probation and 40 hours of community service for operating his DJI Air 2S over the Bengals VS Raiders game last year. Dabney posted the video on YouTube, resulting in massive backlash from those in the UAS industry, and went as far as to taunt the FAA that they couldn’t find him. In the video, the Air 2S is flow down into the stadium, over people and the field, and inside of a stadium TFR. The sentencing comes from the Department of Justice, not from the FAA, so it’s possible the FAA has fined Dabney in addition to the sentencing. We’ve said it once and we’ll keep saying it… Don’t be that guy. Finally, we have the Drone Advocacy Alliance who has announced three more campaigns. If you’re unfamiliar with the Drone Advocacy Alliance, the group is an alliance of companies across the UAS industry that advocate against restrictions in what drones may be used by industry and public safety. The new campaigns include opposing restrictions in federal bill appropriations, restrictions in the FAA Reauthorization act, and other market restrictions in the NDAA. If you’d like to get involved or read more about these topics, we’ll put a link in the description below! That’s all for this week, we’ll be in Buena Vista Colorado on Sunday for the Colorado UAS Roundup! We hope to see you there, we’ll see you next week! https://dronexl.co/2023/09/08/faa-ups-uavionix-bvlos/ https://dronexl.co/2023/09/11/dji-mini-4-pro-european-pricing/ https://dronexl.co/2023/09/13/drone-disruption-changes-nfl-game-rules/ https://droneadvocacyalliance.com/take-action/