There is an update regarding the DRONE proposed FAA Right of Way Rule as pertains to hot air balloons. Due to our members who have written to express their concerns, the comment period has been extended until August 5th, 2022Read the update below and take a moment to respond if you have not already done so. -AAAA-

Congratulations to all of you that wrote letters to the BVLOS ARC committee on behalf of ballooning. We have established a small foothold in the process and the FAA has reopened the comment and response period in order to hear from those parts of aviation that were not considered in the original evaluation process. We have not won yet, but your voices have been heard and the response as you can see is to extend the comment period until August 5, 2022, so we have some more work to do. The BFA will request to be heard orally on July 26th during the open meeting and will hope that we are chosen and allowed to state our position. We will write a follow-up letter (shorter this time) in support of the right-of-way rules being retained as they are written and not changed. In addition, we will recommend that these BVLOS drones be equipped with see and avoid technology. We have more work to do folks, so if you did not write a letter prior to the last deadline, please, please jump on your computer, pad, or phone and let them know what you think. I would like to bury this committee in letters from our community opposing the change of rule. Please refer to the bullet point list on our website for some guidance.

  • Read the BFA Response on our website, click this link: BFA BVLOS
  • To read the notice for the public meeting, click this link: FAA NOTICE
  • To respond to the FAA, click this link: Email FAA

The BFA Board will continue conversations with appropriate contacts within the FAA in regard to this issue.

Sincerely,

Pat Cannon, BFA President