Part 108 NPRM Overview

Beyond the Buzz (episode 14) - Part 108 NPRM Overview 

August 13, 2025  

Erin Roesler: Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Beyond the Buzz, hosted here at the Hive in Grand Forks, North Dakota, in conjunction with the Northern Plains UAS Test Site. Happy to have you here. We have an exciting topic today. First and foremost, my name is Erin Roesler. I am the deputy executive director for the Northern Plains UAS Test Site, and I also oversee the Vantis program, which is the State of North Dakota’s beyond visual line of sight site infrastructure initiative. Today we are unpacking, diving into, and discussing all the details of what’s finally here: Part 108. If you’re not aware, it was just nearly a year ago that on our Beyond the Buzz webinar, we gave what I’ll call our best guess at what we thought Part 108 would be. So that was September of 2024 already. Here we are nearly a year later, and now we have the long-awaited NPRM in our hands. And I’m joined today by Matt Sloane from Skyfire AI, who I think is probably one of the only people in the last week that has literally read every single page of this NPRM thus far. So I’m really excited for the conversation today with Matt because I think we’ll be able to provide a little bit of an overview of what is in the rule, what is not, what we think the significance will be, how this will change the landscape from Part 107 to Part 108, and any other little nuggets of information that we found in reading those 700 pages. So, without further ado, let’s dive in. Matt, thanks for being here. Why don’t you really quickly introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about your background, and why you’re an equal nerd in all this and read all 700 pages right alongside me. 

Matt Sloane: Yeah. Yeah. Not really anybody’s idea of a good time, but thank you for having me first of all. Second of all, yes. So, Matt Sloan, co-founder of Skyfire AI. I have been in the drone industry for 11 years now. I was a journalist for 15 years before that, so there’s something about diving into documents that’s like in my blood. I think that may be part of it. Skyfire works primarily with public safety agencies around the country—local, state, federal—and we’ve done a lot of work with DoD as well. It really just helps people understand the rules and get programs started. We’ve obviously been hearing about Part 108 for two or three years now, and it was long, long past due time that we have some true beyond line of sight regulations. It’s funny because I work for an AI company, and so the first question I always got like last week was, why don’t you just throw it in ChatGPT and let it analyze it for you? And I was like, of course, I did that also. But there’s so much nuance in this thing that it was really important to go through it and get all the little details and stuff that you and I see in there where we’re like, “Oh, that might not be explicit, but you know, that’s going to lead to this, which is going to lead to that.” And that’s going to be really interesting or really bad or whatever the case may be. So that’s why I decided to go headlong into it. 

Erin Roesler: So, quick question. Have you thrown it into a generative AI? 

Matt Sloane: Yeah, of course. And it gave me like a page and a half summary, and I was like, yeah, that’s fine. The FAA also gave us a fact sheet too. I could have just read that, but there was a lot more to it than that. 

Erin Roesler: No, and I did the same thing after reading. I wanted to see what AI would come up with as some summary and some takeaways, and again, while not bad, probably a different take from what I would have generalized as my own summary of the events. 

Matt Sloane: Yeah, exactly. So we suffered through it for the good of it. In the last week we’ve been getting a few paper cuts running through all the different pages. 

Erin Roesler: So not everyone is as tuned in to the FAA docket as you and I. I think most people have an awareness that Part 108 is out now. But maybe for those that were not aware or just recently became aware, if you could give a 30-second explanation of what Part 108 is aiming to do, what would you say? 

Matt Sloane: Yeah, so I say that, you know, the biggest thing is BVLOS, right? It’s all about BVLOS. So the idea is that everything we’ve been doing beyond line of sight in the last couple of years has all been done by waiver or by exception to policy. This is codifying how you can do BVLOS. The really important part about that is—and the difference between the two—is that if you don’t know what the rule says, you can’t plan to follow it, right? So we’re just submitting everything to the FAA and hoping for the best. And then when we get it back, we’re like, “That’s not quite what I was hoping for.” And then we go back and forth. Now it’s like, “This is what it’s supposed to be. I know how to plan for that.” So that’s what this rule really does: it lays it out ahead of time. 

Erin Roesler: Exactly. The whole “you’ve seen it, I’ve seen it” bring-me-a-rock game is no more, right? This is setting a clear pathway for, hey, if I’m going to do these operations and I want these privileges in the NAS, I know exactly what kind of rock I need to bring to the table. And I think that is a huge step forward. I definitely agree with that. 

Okay. So BVLOS thus far today has taken a wide variety of shapes and forms. I think the preamble mentions 290-some unique operators that have achieved a BVLOS waiver and exemption, and they vary widely. And so now we have this one clear rule set. From your read, what are those main pillars that we see in Part 108? 

Matt Sloane: I think the most important thing, which sounds like it’s not that important but I think is going to make a huge difference, is that this actually puts the onus on the corporation that’s running the operation to do all the stuff rather than the individual operator. And so something we saw under Part 107, or continue to see, is individual operators have to go get individual waivers that allow for individual priorities and permissions. And this does the opposite. So, in fact, one of the most surprising things that I saw was there actually won’t be a Part 108 license. I’m not going to go take a test and get a hard card from the FAA. It’s going to put it on the companies that are operating these things, which I think is awesome because it’s really frustrating for me to go get a waiver to do something and then let 200 other people use that waiver, and ultimately it’s my name that’s on it. I’ve got a problem with that. So this way the company can do that. I think that was the biggest thing that I saw and the most exciting thing. And then the things that result from that, which are provisions there for permitted versus certificated, which is like small operation, big operation, or less complex, more complex, and then reading through that, it’s more FAA oversight for the more complex stuff and less FAA oversight for the less complex stuff. So I think they actually took a really common-sense approach to this and said, like, we understand that there’s going to be operations where there’s four or five people and they’re doing egg spraying in a small geographic area, and then there’s going to be Amazon who wants to deliver packages across the country, and those two aren’t the same thing. And so that’s really critical. 

Erin Roesler: Yeah, I think that was actually one of the surprising deviations from what we saw in the BVLOS ARC recommendations, where a lot of industry was expecting to see a remote pilot certificate with a BVLOS rating on the back of your card be a requirement, and it’s not. There are no new pilot requirements. But to your point, the onus on who’s qualified to perform the roles, whether that be an operation supervisor or the flight coordinator that the rule calls out, is again on the operator. So whether the operator is under operator permit or operator certificate, they have to develop those training programs. Now, it does have a specific list of minimum requirements in there. Nothing too shocking though, right? A lot of the knowledge areas and skills areas that we see applicable across operating rule sets, whether that be Part 107 or Part 91. 

Matt Sloane: No, I don’t think there was anything mind-blowingly crazy in there as far as requirements, but that’s the thing we always talk about under Part 107: the minimum thing you’ve got to do is pass this 107 test, which doesn’t teach you really anything about flying a drone or operating an airspace. It just teaches you how to read sectionals and weather and all that, which is all really important knowledge. But then after that, it’s kind of like, all right, whatever else you want to do, good for you. Now it’s like, okay, you’ve got to have a plan in place. You’ve got to have a training curriculum. It doesn’t have to be what the FAA mandates it to be, but it’s, hey, you figure that out because ultimately you’re the one who’s going to be responsible for this operation. So it’s on you to figure out how we can do this safely, which I think makes a ton of sense. It’s how it should be. 

Erin Roesler: Exactly. But operators aren’t the only other entity that’s drastically affected by Part 108. There are, in my mind, two other categories: manufacturers and this brand-new term, automated data service providers. What are your takes on those categories as well? Because we focus a lot of time on the operators and the operations and enabling those, but this is really the first time we’re seeing some of the FAA oversight on UAS manufacturers and now automated data service providers as well. 

Matt Sloane: I think it’s awesome. First of all, it does two things. It puts a lot of responsibility on the manufacturer to get the drone right and then to explain to the FAA how they got there and why they decided that this is what they needed it to be. How fast it can go is going to be determined by the operator. What the limitations are determined by the manufacturer. Service and repair schedules are determined by the manufacturer. I think that’s great because they’re the ones making it, and they’re the ones who are going to have the most vested interest in it not falling out of the sky and killing somebody, to be honest. So I think that’s really important. The ADSP thing, the automated data service providers, we’ve been talking about this for as long as I’ve been in the UAS industry. We’ve called it unmanned traffic management. We’ve called it various other things. We all have relationships with companies that do that already. I mean, you and I work very closely with Talis, and they do that really nicely. And I think standardizing that is great because when we talk to these providers that are offering bits and pieces of this already, it’s just not uniform. There’s no rule for them to follow. There’s no accountability there. It’s just like, hey, we have this product, and like, right, does it do what I need it to do? Like, I don’t know. Try it out and see. That’s not really going to fly. And no pun intended. If we’re doing 40-, 50-, 100-mile-long BVLOS flights in complicated airspace, there’s going to need to be some accountability for those data service providers to say, hey, this is what we’re going to provide you every single time. This is what you’re going to provide us every single time, and the FAA is watching. That’s really critical, I think. 

Erin Roesler: Yes. So let’s go back to the manufacturer for a little bit because I was going to pull on what kind of surprises I see in here in the overarching operational rule set that becomes part of Part 108. Not seeing an airspeed limitation, not seeing weather limitations, not seeing some of those, but instead pointing to operating up to speeds in alignment with manufacturer operating limitations, operating in weather up to manufacturer operating limitations. Again, going back to that, it puts a lot on the manufacturer, and I think it’s a great approach because I also reflect on when the BVLOS ARC, the aviation rulemaking committee, was deep in the trenches of developing its recommendations. This was a challenge for us because you’re developing a rule set for a whole host of wildly different aircraft that are performing differently for different use cases with different aircraft designs, and you’re also trying to build rules for aircraft that haven’t even been thought up yet. 

That was really hard to do, really, really hard to do. And I think this approach of, okay, we don’t know everything that’s out there. We’re not going to understand the whole design-specification aspect of things. So we’re going to let the manufacturers essentially build their case, make their justification through the airworthiness acceptance, the design, the testing standards, leveraging industry consensus standards and those design aspects that come out of those bodies. But it gives that flexibility with enough oversight to still ensure that there’s an acceptable level of risk for NAS integration. 

Matt Sloane: Well, and I think you hit on something really important there, which is that some of these aircraft haven’t even been built or conceptualized yet. And so the last thing we want to do is create a rule for the future that we then have to change in three years because the technology changes. And let’s be honest, I mean, you and I have been doing this long enough: the technology changes like every five and a half minutes. So there’s no way that we could have conceptualized where we’d be today four or five years ago when, you know, whatever it’s been now, seven years ago when Part 107 was created. We—and that’s why we’re seeing so many waivers and exceptions to the rules—because the rules were very strict and they said you have to fly in this box. It’s under 55 pounds. It’s under 100 miles per hour. And when we start to get into, okay, well, I’ve got to fly 100 miles. If I do it in a way that’s safe and I can prove to you that it’s safe, maybe I can fly faster than 100 miles an hour, or maybe in the case of this rule now I can fly above 55 pounds. I can go up to 1320 pounds in some cases. And that’s really cool. And the FAA says, yeah, go for it. You just have to prove to us that it’s safe rather than you’re stuck in this box for the rest of time until we get to Part 109 or whatever’s next. 

Erin Roesler: Definitely. So now jumping to the automated data service providers, we’ve heard a whole host of terms over the last several years, and since you’ve read the preamble, I know you know this as well. In the preamble it talks about how we acknowledge that you’ve heard the term unmanned traffic management, you’ve heard the term unmanned service provider, and so USS, 3SP, all those are now encompassed in this new term, automated data service provider. Whether it’s UTM, USS, DAA, ground-based DAA, or SAA, those will all be under this automated data service provider, which incidentally is actually called out in Part 108 as a new rule set, Part 146. So how will Part 146 affect those entities in this airspace? 

Matt Sloane: Yeah, I mean, like you said, it’s a new rule set. So there are now standards that those people have to conform to, which I think is great. I think the ones that already exist are probably going to have some tweaking to do. Admittedly, I did not dive in as deeply on the Part 146 stuff because that’s like I didn’t have enough coffee in the world to get through that too. So I skimmed it. What’s great about that is it’s a standard. What I also really like about it is that it puts the onus on those companies to be able to prove that they can meet that standard. And then even cooler is that you can actually be your own ADSP. What I don’t love about some of the previous rules is the kingmaking that went on, which is like, okay, you can do anything you want as long as you buy it from these two people. That’s not okay, right, especially as we scale operations. And so, if you are a big enough company that you can provide that data for yourself or you can build it or you have partners that can do it, you can be your own ADSP, which I think is awesome. So now, again, that’s a whole separate set of regulations, how they’re going to police that, how they’re going to, you know, how you apply to be one. It reminds me a little bit of the LAN provider rules, where you can apply to be a LAN provider and you have to meet a certain set of criteria. And for the most part, I think that’s worked out well. And there are some that cost money and there are some that don’t cost money, and some are included with the package or whatever. So I think that’s going to be a really interesting piece. 

I also do wonder about the fact that it doesn’t specify every ADSP has to provide ABCD and D. Like, you’re going to have—I worry that we end up with a mishmash of, like, we’re each going to have to buy four different software licenses to get everything we need. So we’ll need one for radar deconfliction and airspace management, we’ll need another one for registering our flight, and all that. So I do wonder that we might be headed down that path. I think there will be some people who can do it all, and then those people will be more expensive, would be my guess. 

Erin Roesler: It’s possible, right? I think so. For myself, I look at what’s proposed in Part 146 from the Vantis perspective. We always had a challenge that Vantis was a service provider, and to get acknowledgement, or essentially the operational approvals for Vantis to have value, we had to go hand in hand with an operator to get an operational approval of some sort, whether that be an exemption or a waiver. This is the first time we really see the FAA decoupling a service provider from the operation. And they had started, you know, we started seeing the writing on the wall through the NTAP program. So this near-term approval process in which the FAA issued letters of authorization to particular service providers, and you actually see that called out in the NPRM, the different service providers that received those letters of authorization, of which Vantis happened to be one of them. But this now sets a precedent for, okay, I as a service provider have a much more viable market to provide this service. 

With a lot of rigor that’s required of my company and my entity and my services, because there’s a shared liability between an operator and a service provider. So as a service provider, I can’t just say, hey, I’m providing the service anymore. No, no, no. I have to show a particular service-level agreement with my operator. I have to have cybersecurity, data management procedures, change management, quality management, and so on and so forth. And so, organizationally, I think you’re going to see a lot of these service providers have to increase their maturity as an organization and as a service provider in order to be certificated under Part 146. The other thing I noticed too is that there are three service levels within Part 146. The first two essentially being that the services I’m providing as a service provider will help operations under Part 108, but service level three is intriguing to me because it says I, as a service provider, am providing these kinds of safety-critical services but for an additional operating rule set. So meaning this is kind of the first time the FAA might be pointing to Part 146 and saying, hey, if you want to provide this service and enable operations under Part 91 or Part 107, you still have to be certificated under Part 146, which really then from the service provider aspect opens up their market a lot larger. So I’m not just getting certificated under Part 146 to only enable Part 108 operations. I could also be getting certificated to enable Part 91 operations as well. Yeah. So, just an interesting aspect. 

Matt Sloane: No, that’s a really good point because I do—I was wondering too. I was like, okay, so, you know, I’ve been getting a lot of questions from public safety agencies about like, well, how does 108 apply to me? And I’m like, well, honestly, at the moment, not really. I mean, I think you know, you’re doing pretty well under Part 91, you’ve got some stuff going on under Part 107 potentially. Part 108 is going to take all the BVLOS stuff out of 107 and move it into Part 108. So I think we’ll end up seeing some crossover with public safety. But it did get me wondering like, okay, we’re going to go through all this rigor and all this effort to operate under Part 108, but if you’re doing visual line of sight, you just go back to old Part 107, right? Or if you’re doing public safety, you just go back to good old Part 91. I do start to wonder in the future at some point if the three of those things start to converge under one bigger umbrella. And I think having ADSPs that cross over all three, it would make a lot of sense as a pathway to do that. 

Erin Roesler: Yeah, definitely. So I’m going to come back to public safety real quick here, but I’ll take a 30-second lecture here just to give an overarching view for those that haven’t read the 700 pages yet or maybe even haven’t read the fact sheet. Part 108 proposes first and foremost an operating rule set, right? So I can operate under Part 108 within my operation, or I could still elect to, as Matt just mentioned, operate under 107 or I could elect to operate under Part 91. Those are essentially the three operating rule sets that most UAS operate under today. So if I’m going to elect to operate under Part 108, though, I must be either permitted or certificated. And that’s from an operator perspective. So that’s where we’re focusing on. My company, my entity, must be either permitted or certificated in order to operate under Part 108. And that has some requirements. I have to meet some certain personnel requirements. I have a ton more procedures and reporting that I have to provide in my application to get a permit or certificate. And the aircraft that I leverage has to have an airworthiness acceptance that was issued under Part 108. So the manufacturer has to have also adhered to the manufacturer rule set under Part 108 in order for me to, again, achieve a permit or certificate to operate under 108. But let’s say, you know, how did we go from where we’re at today to when this is the final rule and everyone’s fully adopted it? And you said you’re already getting the questions from the public safety sector. So what does this mean for those that are doing existing BVLOS rules in particular? What will existing waiver holders have to do in order to get ready for 108, or do they have a head start, or are they good and they don’t have to worry about 108? 

Matt Sloane: In some ways, I think the short answer is I’m not sure. I think the longer answer is much more nuanced. It was funny though—just a quick anecdote—I got a text from one of the police departments that we work with, and he goes, “How much for you to do my 108 waiver?” I’m like, “Whoa, dude.” First of all, this thing just came out. It’s going to be two months before we even have a final—or before the comments even close. Then we’ve got to get a final rule. Then we’ve got an implementation period. So you’re good, man. Just hold that thought for a second. But that said, I think one thing it’s very specific about is that Part 108 will take BVLOS out of Part 107. So instead of operating under Part 107 with a waiver, you’re going to have to move over to 108. So that is potentially interesting for existing operators. I will say probably 90% of public safety agencies that are doing BVLOS today aren’t doing it under 107; they’re doing it under 91. So I don’t think it’s really going to affect too many public safety agencies right now. For those that are doing it under Part 91, it really isn’t going to affect them at all yet. But I do know that we’ve moved now from this certificate of authorization framework to this certificate of waiver framework, which is already changing the way that you can do BVLOS under Part 91 already. And so I think I’ve seen some of those changes come down the pipe. A lot of the DFR programs—not all, but most of the DFR programs that are existing in the country right now—are sticking observers on rooftops, and eventually the goal was to get rid of the observer and add something like the Casia G system, like an optical DAA or radar. Well, that’s not even an option anymore. You can’t stick a person on a roof as an observer. That’s gone from the COA to the CO. And so when everybody’s COAs expire and are up for renewal, the guy-on-the-roof option is going to be gone. So that’s already a huge change for public safety. That means now you have to either stay under 200 feet and have ADS-B, or go above 200 feet with very expensive radar and optical deconfliction systems. We’re already seeing some of those changes. I think there is no direct “this is how it’s going to change Part 91,” but I think that it’s going to happen, and I just don’t know in what ways quite yet. Is that your read on it too? I may be missing something. 

Erin Roesler: Definitely. There’s mention of the different waivers and exemptions that are out there and operating today, and in the preamble it specifically calls out that those aren’t going away. So if you are operating under a waiver or an exemption today, you will get to continue to operate under that waiver or exemption even if the Part 108 final rule came out tomorrow. At least that’s the indication. However, it does say that when those expire, the FAA is anticipating a large majority of them to transition to operating under Part 108. And so the better entities—operators, manufacturers, and service providers—that can position themselves to what they think the final rule will look like and start taking some of these small steps in the areas that you’re pretty sure will not go away between proposed rule and final rule, the better they will be positioned to be adopted into the 108 rule set when it does become final. 

So, we talked about the process, right? Where are we in the FAA rulemaking process today, and what is that timeline from proposed rule to final rule that we can all anticipate? 

Matt Sloane: Again, it’s anybody’s guess. I can tell you what I think is going to happen, and then who knows? What I do know is that when the executive order was released a couple of weeks ago, or now two months ago, it specified that the proposed rule would be published within 30 days and that the final rule would be issued at 180 days. We already missed the 30-day deadline, so we know that’s not happening. It did finally come out, obviously. So what we know we have is a 60-day comment period. I think it started like two days after the NPRM was published is when the clock started. So we have like 57 days or something left to comment. Once that closes, they will take all of those comments and decide which ones they need to incorporate into the final rule and how they incorporate them. Then we’ll issue a final rule at some point in the future. I would guess 90 to 180 days probably after the comment period closes, probably more on the 180-day side than the 90-day side. Then there’ll be some implementation period after that. So you’re smiling. I think your take is much more optimistic than mine. 

Erin Roesler: I think so. You’re right. Sixty-day comment period. So for those that are not doing that math, if you want to pull out your calendar, you have until October 6th of this year to submit a comment to the FAA regarding this rule set. The official release of the NPRM was on August 7th, so 60 days from that gives us October 6th. I also saw some of the executive orders—you mentioned 180 days. There are also some 240-day timelines mentioned. Either way, that puts it at less than one calendar year from where we’re at today to see a final rule. And if that is the timeline, that will be by far one of the most aggressive timelines I would have seen from the FAA in the rulemaking process. I will applaud them immensely if they can hold to that timeline because I also anticipate, as we saw with the Remote ID NPRM, a defined amount of comments, of which that one had the record-breaking 53,000 comments. So if this hits similarly in that kind of response in which the FAA has to read, review, react, and consider each one of those public comments, they have a lot of work cut out for them. That said, I think they’re positioning themselves well to act quickly. I don’t know if I go as quickly as you. I would give the FAA my best guess as putting it around the year mark. We might see an NPRM. That’s still, I think, being pretty optimistic, given that there are some deadlines that are posed out there, but we see how quickly those timelines come and go and those deadlines pass. 

Matt Sloane: Yeah, I don’t know why I said 90. I think that’s insane. But 180 I would—I mean, that’s my optimistic approach. But look, I think the one, well, two good things I think are that we’ve all been waiting for this for a really long time, so we’ve all been sort of preparing for it. And I think we’re all really aggressive about wanting to get this done. So we’re all going to be pushing the FAA really hard on that. I know that with the amount of meetings I was involved in with the White House where we were just pushing them to get the rule out, there’ll be 20 times that to get the final rule out. The other thing is that the president seems to want to move quickly on drones. We all saw Secretary Hegseth on the front lawn of the Pentagon talking about how we’re removing the red tape on drones. I suspect that this will be a very similar take on the commercial environment as well, too. So I’m hoping that between the president pushing and all of us pushing really hard and the big companies—the Amazons and the Googles of the world—I have high hopes that they’ll get it done. They won’t just sit on it. But whether it’s half a year or a year, time will tell. 

Erin Roesler: Exactly. And then there’s aquestion of how quickly we’ll adopt after that point. You know, I know in the end pages of the preamble talk about how they’re anticipating operators not really adopting the final rule immediately, and then it’ll be over a three-year period, and maybe longer. I’ll get to the overall takeaways from this from your perspective, but I’ll add one of mine first: this really does, if you’re looking at the lens of what I do for my Part 107 operations today versus what Part 108 will look like for my company, it’s a drastic leap. It’s a change. It can be a very drastic change in how I run my company: the personnel requirements, manufacturing requirements, the oversight I’ll have to have, the documentation, the reporting between 107 and 108. And I think that was one of my main takeaways: if an entity and an operator is looking at this through the lens of what I can do under 107 to what 108 looks like, it could be a gigantic leap. However, if we look at how traditional aviation looks—Part 135, Part 121, Part 137, those traditional aviation air carrier-type operations—this really is akin to those operations. It has a lot of traceability in procedures, policy, documentation, personnel. The onus on an operator and on a manufacturer to have the level of rigor built up in advance means that when they submit that application to the FAA, they are ready to meet the expectations of the certificate or permit or airworthiness acceptance that would be coming out under Part 108. But it is very different, right? So if I’m from a 107 lens, I’m looking at this and it’s going to be, whoa, this is overly prescriptive. But if I’m looking at this from a traditional aviation lens, you might look at this and go, okay, this is the UAS industry stepping up in a way. And because they’re stepping up, they’re going to get an immense amount of privileges as a result of that. 

Matt Sloane: Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. I think anybody who looked at 107 and thought this is how it’s going to be forever was hitting themselves, right? I mean, we all understood 107 was a huge leap forward from Part 333 exemptions, for sure. But it was really only the beginning, and I think we always knew that. And so, you know, I’ve seen a lot of mom-and-pop operations online complaining that this is too much and this is built for Google and this is built for Amazon, and it’s like, yeah, but also where did you think this was headed? I mean, I don’t mean to be rude about it, but it’s like, yeah, this is not going to affect the mom-and-pop operation that’s going out and shooting real estate videos or parking lot surveys or doing 3D mapping, you know, like this is really not meant for that. But we have to get here, right? We all talk about this. Every article I’ve ever written, every podcast I’ve ever been on, I say we really have to capitalize on the future of the drone industry. And for my part in the industry, it’s how can we put defibrillators and things like that on drones, and how can we do medical package delivery and moving blood and organs and all that kind of stuff. And then for others, it’s delivering dog food and socks and whatever else we all order from Amazon all the time. I mean, all of those things are super important, but to get there, for any of us to get there, we really have to get more serious about the rules and we have to get more serious about the way we operate. And so, like, this was inevitable. That said, I do understand that it’s going to take a long time to implement. I do understand that it’s probably going to take a significant enough financial investment on some of these companies’ fronts to be able to comply with this stuff. And I think that’s the good part about having a long ramp-up to it: you’ve got time to plan for that. The other piece that people don’t really talk about enough, and I do as a small company because we’re always fundraising, is the fundraising community was like, “Hey, we’ve been waiting for this for 10 years and it hasn’t happened. How do I know that if I put money into your company, you’re actually going to be able to scale and that the FAA is going to be there to support you?” We now have an answer to that question, right? Before it was like, “The rules are coming. Eventually we’ll be able to scale, we’ll be able to do real BVLOS.” Now we know exactly what was coming, right? And so you can actually plan for that. And so I think that’s a really important signal to the investment community. So all of us that are out raising money can go out and say, “Hey, look, now’s the time, right? The clock is ticking officially. Here’s what the rule looks like. There’s no question marks anymore. I mean, there’s a few because it’s still a proposed rule, but we have line of sight to where this is heading.” And so, you know, it’s really a signal to the investment community like it’s time to put money in. It’s time to build these things up. And last piece to that is, and all this in a move from 333 to 107, because we now know what the rules are going to look like with 108, even if we aren’t quite there yet, I think we’re going to start seeing waivers get approved based on the 108 standards in 107. So we can say, okay, hey, look, I’m going to plan for this standard. I know it’s not in place yet, but we already have precedent from you guys, the FAA, saying, “This is the way to do it safely.” So if we do it that way now, can we start to play like that? And I think the answer is going to start to be yes, more and more often as we get closer to the implementation date. 

Erin Roesler: Yeah, I definitely love that we finally now have line of sight to beyond line of sight. But it’s true. I guess I hadn’t even thought about that—the aspect of those that are trying to raise capital, whether you’re an operator, a manufacturer, or a service provider. It has been a challenge to prove that my strategy, whether being an operator, manufacturer, or from the service provider aspect with Vantis, has been difficult for us to prove like, hey, this is why we’re confident that the approach and the strategy we’re taking is going to work. But I will tell you, over the last six years of the Vantis initiative, there’s been a lot of companies and a lot of entities that will say, “You overengineered this. You overdesigned this.” And now I get to look squarely at Part 146 and go, no, we were supposed to be. This is yes. So, but we didn’t have that evidence up until this point. 

Matt Sloane: Right. Well, and think about type certification, right? This is a perfect example. There are some companies that went out and got their aircraft type certificated, and now that framework is completely gone. So how, I mean, in this new rule, it would be hard to go to a potential investor and say I need a million dollars to go through the type certification process, and then the next day the NPRM comes out and says, oh, you don’t need that anymore. I mean, you’re going to have to do something different. But it’s like a classic example of planning for what you think, in your educated guess and experience, might be the thing that we’re going to need maybe in five years versus this is exactly what I’m going to need. I’m not going to waste my money on anything I don’t need. So, I think that’s what’s going to be really interesting about it going forward. 

Erin Roesler: Definitely. Very much so. And then to your point, the waiver ahead of rule, we’ve heard that from the FAA thus far. Right. We saw it with 333 to, you know, 107, this outcry from the FAA to give us your use cases, give us your waiver applications so we can approve those ahead of rule because it was actually a longer time period with 107 from NPRM to final rule. And I think we’re going to see that same thing happen with 108. And so there’s an opportunity there. If you’re out there trying to position yourself to take advantage of 108, there’s going to be an opportunity in the space to get yourself in line ahead of the final rule coming out. 

Matt Sloane: Yeah, we know what the FAA expects now, right? Which we didn’t before. It was always a crystal ball. 

Erin Roesler: So, Matt, the last question before we kind of open it up for other questions from the audience: in your overall reading, because you’ve read line by line through the 700 and some pages, so the rest of us don’t have to, although I did as well, and I’m sure many of us will at some point, what’s a common misconception that you think you’ve heard already from reading what the rule says to what you’re hearing in the communities and in the UAS ecosystems? 

Matt Sloane:I think the biggest one is that this is somehow going to shut out smaller operators. I think that’s the whole reason for the permit side of the rule. My read on it, and I’m reading between the lines as much as I am reading the lines themselves, is that the permitted operations are going to be really—I don’t want to say easy—but they’re going to be a lot lower bar because they’re lower risk airspace, lower risk operations, smaller aircraft, better airspace, smaller population density. And so I think the bar is going to be a lot lower for the permit operations, which is how they designed it. And then, you know, we’re all assuming that, like, oh, Part 108 is going to be this big thing and I’ve got to go hire a hundred people and have an ADSP that’s going to cost me $100,000 a month or whatever. Yes, that will be there for the big companies, but I also think there’s going to be a toe-in-the-water approach with the permit operation that’s like, okay, here’s how I comply with this. I can do it. It’s me and one aircraft, and here’s how I comply with that. So I think that’s been the biggest thing—like, I’m going to be completely excluded from this because I don’t have the money to play. 

Erin Roesler: Exactly. And you mentioned public safety because that was one area where, whether they continue to operate under 107 for a lot of their operations or under Part 91 and through a tactical BVLOS-type capacity, the word civic interest is used, right? Which we all know is public safety. It specifically mentions firefighting, law enforcement, and all these other use cases under that civic interest umbrella, but to your point, that is specifically a permitted operation. So that is one where hopefully the bar is low enough to still enable those operations to take place, at least under the construct of 108 or, you know, alternative 107. 

Matt Sloane: Yeah. And most of those are line of sight, right? So like if you think about every mom-and-pop operation, what are they doing? They’re going out and doing real estate. They’re surveying rooftops. They’re doing, you know, topography surveys on a couple hundred acres of land. Like, all that happens under line of sight. That stays in 107. Nobody’s touching that right now. I think people just assume that all drone operations are going to have to go to 108, and that’s just not the case. 

Erin Roesler: Yeah. Okay, kind of a little nervous, but I think it’ll go well. Gonna open it up for questions from everyone else. You’ve listened to Matt and I talk about what our takeaways were from the 700-some pages. Hopefully you’ve read the FAA fact sheets, which I’m sure probably did a better job of summarizing 108 and 146 than we did, but at least you got some other nuggets of information. What questions do you all have? If you’re online, you can put it in the chat. If you’re in the room here, you’re welcome to just chime up and ask in person. And we’ll see what we can do to answer. 

Yeah, crickets here, man. Matt, we did such a great job. I know. Nobody has any questions. All right, cool. Well, while we’re waiting for questions, if you had—well, actually, you wrote a headline on this already, but the question was going to be if you were writing an article and what would the headline be to announce Part 108? So maybe talk about that. 

Matt Sloane: The future, you know, the future of drones is here, right? And I will say too, and I always take an opportunity to congratulate the FAA when a job is well done because nobody ever does that, right? People only complain about the FAA. And I will say I think they did a really good job on this. I mean, there’s definitely going to be some people that don’t like certain parts of it, and I think there’s some stuff that needs tweaking, but for the most part, I think this did a really great job of preparing for the future and saying, okay, we’ve heard you. We understand that this is what we need to really drive this forward, and here’s a really comprehensive rule set. So give credit where credit’s due for sure. But my headline is, this is the moment we’ve all been waiting for. And now it’s time to dive in and capitalize on it. 

Erin Roesler: So we do have a couple questions. So the first one was: does civic operation, so civic interest operations in category four or five, which are for those who haven’t read it, certain categories of population density, need to apply for a Part 108 certificate, which I would assume is an operating certificate? Matt, you want to respond? 

Matt Sloane: I think I’d have to go back to my notes, but I’m almost positive that certificate—you can only do permitted operations in categories one, two, and three. But you would need the certificated operations in category four and five. But if that’s for civic operation, if you’re doing that for public safety, then there would be another option, which is Part 91 as well. 

Erin Roesler: Yes. Exactly. And so I think that’s where you definitely saw the permitted operations open up certain categories, and it’s not all-encompassing, but then there’s alternative rule sets if you didn’t want to rise to the level of rigor of certificate. What I’ll also add though, and I did love this aspect of the NPRM, is that a lot of the regulations do add, you know, “unless otherwise authorized by the administrator.” So while there is not, as it states today, a list of specific regulations that are waivable within a lot of these different regulations for permits or certificates, it gives some flexibility to the FAA to go beyond what the proposed rule set would be for a particular operating permit or operating certificate. If, again, the operator proves out the safety utility and the level of rigor and procedures that they could have and justify why they are rising to the level of safety needed for the proposed operations. 

Matt Sloane: Well, that kind of reminds me—there was a little-known aspect of the rule that caught my attention about swarming and about multi-ship operations. And what it basically said was, like, we’re not saying that multi-ship operations are possible if you meet certain standards, but we don’t know what those standards are yet. So, standby. We’re going to figure that out together. Which I thought was also cool because they’re not saying it’s not possible. They’re not saying it’s definitely possible. They’re saying it’s probably, you know, it’s—we’re going to allow it, but we’ve got to come up with those standards and let’s figure out what those are. And I think that’s the sort of future-proofness of the rule that I really like, which is, we haven’t—if we took the time to figure that out now, it would be three more years before we got this rule out. 

Erin Roesler: Yeah. And no one would be happy about that. So another question was what about Part 108 would you improve or change? 

Matt Sloane: One of the things I think is the category four and five operations. I think there’s going to be a lot of people who want to operate in category four or five that are not going to need to rise to the level of certification or certificate holder. So I think I’m starting to formulate my response to the rule, and I think that’s one of the things I want to hit on: there is probably a thread-the-needle kind of thing there where I can operate in that category four or five area but don’t need to go the full route of certification or certificate holder. So that’s one thing. 

The other one, and I struggle with this one because I understand why it’s in there, is the requirement to have onboard detect and avoid in categories four and five. I think that’s going to be really arduous and really restrictive as far as what aircraft you can use, because onboard DAA, while a good idea in some areas, is heavy and expensive. So if you’re using smaller drones, it’s going to be real tough to do that. I would prefer to see that relegated to ground-based DAA, which I think we’re all sort of playing with. So that’s another thing that I’m a little bit concerned about. 

Erin Roesler: Yeah. I definitely think there’s some room for improvement in the aspects of the DAA component because you’re right. It’s interesting that that came out given what we’ve seen happening in Dallas where they’re using kind of the strategic deconfliction as enabling those UAS operations there. But this is saying that’s not going to be good enough going forward; there needs to be detection of non-cooperative or non-broadcasting aircraft in those areas via some sort of DAA. That was an interesting aspect. 

I got one more question online and then we have one in the room here. So the next question was: do you feel as if the current language adequately covers the right-of-way challenge with the context of legacy SMS practice? So, safety management system practice. 

Matt Sloane: You would ask this question, Michelle, and this is the time during the webinar that you and I are usually on where I would go, “I don’t know, Michelle, what do you think?” So I don’t honestly have a great answer on that. I do think that there is some interesting right-of-way stuff in there. I’m not adequately qualified to answer that question, I don’t think. 

Erin Roesler: Well, I thought the FAA did a great job explaining in the preamble, and I would encourage everyone to read that explanation because I’m probably not going to do it justice off the top of my head here. They didn’t deviate from the approach that they’ve taken historically on right-of-way rules, that being based on maneuverability, equipage, and the vicinity of particular types of operations, like near airports or aircraft in distress or things like that. So they kept those elements and that philosophy intact as they applied this new rule set or proposed change to 91.113, which would give UAS the right of way below 400 feet in certain classes of airspace, as well as ground-risk environments and lower population densities, and the right of way over manned aircraft that are not broadcasting their location. It also opens the aperture to manned aircraft that are not just the traditional ADS-B means that we’ve seen thus far, but also adds in the buzzword electronic conspicuity. I think that’s a really great step forward. And in that same justification, it said, look, yes, the FAA is doing this because we’re finding a way to permit a new entrant into this particular subsector of airspace. However, the data to really show that ADS-B electronic conspicuity increases the safety of the NAS regardless of a new entrant is what we should focus on. I think that is right in line with SMS. Since the ADS-B 2020 mandate, and which was a little bit later on, we’ve seen the equipage of ADS-B really take place, and that has increased the safety of the NAS without talking about UAS. So let’s acknowledge that. Let’s acknowledge that ADS-B and electronic conspicuity helps keep our skies safer. It just so happens it also will help embrace a new entrant into the national airspace. 

Matt Sloane: Well, and hasn’t there been some talk recently, some legislation, proposed legislation about mandating ADS-B across the board? 

Erin Roesler: It’s always been talked about, and I definitely get the challenges with that, which is why I do really like the approach that they took with electronic conspicuity. If I’m a pilot and I have a couple aircraft that I own, maybe there’s some nice vintage aircraft, an old Tripacer or something like that that barely has an electrical system, I will also argue putting on ADS-B when I can just swap out a nav light is pretty easy these days. However, let’s say I don’t have the financial means to do so. Electronic conspicuity introduces an element that makes that a lot easier. It can be a battery-powered unit that I can take from aircraft to aircraft. So if I own two or three aircraft, I don’t have to equip each one of them with ADS-B. I can have this other means that I can take from aircraft to aircraft and still be compliant with the rule set. So I am still increasing my own safety. I’m helping protect my life as I’m on board that aircraft, and I get the added benefit that I still retain the right of way when I’m at lower altitudes. 

Matt Sloane: Makes sense. We got the well-done thumbs up. I love it.  

Erin Roesler: Good, I just want to quickly acknowledge Scott River. I can see that you have your hand up. We don’t have the audio engaged for our online audience. So if you want to please put your comment into the chat, we’ll be able to address it there. But we did have one question in the room here as well. 

Unknown: So, coming from an operational standpoint, what is the applicability of these 44 807 Charlie waivers now? Will operators still need to go this route? Is it going to be like a Section 333 exemption back from the early 107 days? And with that, will there be a need for the NTAs again?  

Erin Roesler: Previous REOTH was Section Charlie within that, which is why it got dubbed the Charlie waiver. Now it’s within the same section, but it changes across a couple different spots within there. However, what the Charlie waiver is first and foremost, it is a rule set that only applies to UAS test sites. So this right now is seven, but could be up to two more, so nine, if the FAA does select two more UAS test sites. They’re the only ones that get this privilege today. But it is a blanket waiver of sorts for test sites and operators that are operating in conjunction with a test site that gives them a lot of privileges to alleviate the burden of airworthiness and pilot requirements, and it’s aircraft agnostic up to 1,320 pounds. That’s not coincidental; that was intentional to help the test sites help entities, whether they be operators, manufacturers, or service providers, come into alignment with Part 108. So Charlie waivers, short answer, are not going away. I think if people are trying to strategically position themselves to be in alignment with Part 108, you should be going to your test sites now because you’ll be able to do a lot of the data collection, testing, validation, and design modification work ahead of 108, which will then equip you with what you need to submit into your application, whether that application be for an operating permit or certificate, whether that be for airworthiness acceptance, or whether that be for an automated data service provider certificate under Part 146. So it’s actually a very unique advantage that the test sites have to get ready for. 

Matt sloane: I’m glad you answered that because I had no idea.  

Erin Roesler: Yep, it’s a best-kept secret. And if I have anything to say, it’s call your local test site or call us—we’re here to help. And that’s exactly what these Charlie waiver privileges do: they give a lot of flexibility. So if you’re looking at the requirements of 108 and you’re saying, wow, how am I ever going to go from my 107 operations to 108, there’s the in-between ground, and the test sites are there to help you out. We’re not geographically confined. The Charlie waivers, all of our test sites can apply these anywhere in the contiguous U.S. So we can help enable these operations, help you do the data collection, help you test out, help you prove out the design modification testing environments so that way 108, when it is final rule—hopefully it’s only 180 days, but if it’s closer to that year mark—you’ll be ready to go, and that way the next set of rules will be right in your pocket ready to go. 

Matt Sloane: Love it. That’s why we come up to North Dakota. 

Erin Roesler: Exactly. Or anywhere. We’re not limited to North Dakota right. 

Matt Sloane: Right. Right. Anywhere. 

Erin Roesler: Okay. Well, we’re just at the end of our hour here, so I want to wrap up. If anyone does have additional questions, please feel free to engage with us online through any of our social media, through our website. I’m sure the same goes to Matt as well, as Matt is going to be continuing to read and review these 700-some pages. Thank you, Matt, for joining me today. This has been a fun topic. I’m sure we’ll be discussing this a lot over the next 57-odd days before the comment period and then even more so as we’re waiting for the final rule. Once again, thank you everyone for joining us on Beyond the Buzz. My name is Erin Roesler here with the Northern Plains UAS Test Site. We host these monthly so please feel free to tune in next month for our next topic. And as always, if you have questions, we’re here to help. So we’re in this together. Thank you everyone. 

Matt Sloane: Thanks everyone. Thanks Erin.