Delivery by Drone

Federal administrative law judge Patrick Geraghty ruled that if he accepted the FAA’s argument for regulating drones, “a flight in the air of a paper airplane or a toy balsa wood glider could subject the operator” to FAA penalties. The ruling applies to flights below 400 feet.

Geraghty was ruling in the case of a photographer who was fined $10,000 for “reckless flying” after using a drone to shoot a promotional video for the University of Virginia in 2011.

Bloomberg reported that FAA rules on drones weighing less than 55 pounds are still due sometime soon. The rules have been delayed more than three years.

But now that there are apparently no rules, Berry said, “the next step for us is more testing. We still want to be good citizens. We have to do some more testing on it and develop it into a more seamless and available product.”

The testing will prove out the drone delivery concept in terms of payload and range, Berry said. He said he didn’t know when drone delivery might be available to the general public.

“Our anticipation is that it’s still going to take a little while in order to become a commercially viable product,” Berry said. “Long term we expect this to be something very viable, but the only way we can get there is by doing the tests.”

Berry Flowers has locations in downtown Detroit, northwest Detroit and Commerce Township in the northwest suburbs. Berry said the testing would take place “in the Commerce area.”

Berry said, “the FAA didn’t call us up this time to let us know” about the court ruling.

The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) is the national aviation authority of the United States. An agency of the United States Department of Transportation, it has authority to regulate and oversee all aspects of American civil aviation.

FAA officials say rules to address the special safety challenges associated with unmanned aircraft need to be in place before they can share the sky with manned aircraft. 

The agency has worked on those regulations for the past decade and is still months and possibly years away from issuing final rules for small drones, which are defined as those weighing less than 55 pounds. Rules for larger drones are even further off.

But tempting technology and an eager marketplace are outrunning the aviation agency’s best intentions.