FAA Drone and AAM Symposium Remarks

FAA Drone and AAM Symposium
Baltimore Convention Center
Baltimore, Maryland

Thanks, Jodi (Jodi Baker, Deputy Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety, FAA) for the terrific introduction and a hearty welcome to all of you to Charm City. For those of you who have spent any time in Baltimore, you know, it really is a special place. I send greetings on behalf of Administrator Whitaker. He's sorry he wasn't able to join you but, it really is a privilege and honor for me to be here in his stead. 

I'm excited about this ninth FAA Drone and AAM symposium and I hope all of you are too. The event brings together a broad range of stakeholders to discuss safety and emerging technologies in our National Airspace System. And it promises to connect our communities like never before. This collaborative effort is essential to our collective success. 

When it comes to drones and advanced air mobility, the future is now.  We've been talking about integrating drones into the National Airspace System for more than a decade now. And at times, the pace of progress has been frustratingly slow. But today, I'm happy to say that the full-scale integration of drones is clearly within reach. We're also seeing significant progress in making AAM services to communities of all sizes and all geographic regions a reality. 

This progress is marked by an unflagging commitment to enhancing aviation safety, developing the workforce of the future, ensuring equitable access to aviation services, partnering internationally, and to environmental stewardship. 

The FAA has a long and successful history of safely introducing new technologies into the NAS. Our approach is to ensure maximum flexibility within the existing regulations to integrate drones and AAM into the NAS. We're using our proven safety first, data driven, process oriented and methodical approach to certify new aircraft and new types of operations to ensure that we remain the safest aerospace system in the world. We are evaluating infrastructure, cybersecurity, and data requirements, as well as the effects of noise and other environmental considerations to support both drone and AAM operations. 

It is always an exciting time to be in the aviation sector, but never more so than now. On the drone front, we've already seen how drones can lower the cost of delivery for retail and healthcare. Drones will also drive integrated services such as delivery applications, E-commerce platforms, and parcel carrier services, improving the quality of life for Americans and creating economic growth in communities across the country from rural to urban. 

In the Dallas Fort Worth area, for example, drones are delivering small grocery and pharmacy items in as little as 30 minutes. We'll be hearing more today's session titled “A Nexus in Texas: Delivering Commerce” about these exciting activities. 

Now, the FAA in collaboration with industry is supporting industry in developing validation standards and evaluating the maturation of UAS traffic management or UTM services in a real-world environment. 

This year, the FAA has landmark legislation in the Reauthorization Act that provides us with critical safety and advancements and sets our path for advancing innovative aviation technologies, including prioritization of rulemaking for beyond visual line of sight operations or BVLOS. 

The BVLOS aviation rulemaking committee final report is the catalyst for BVLOS operations, as well as UTM. Many of you recall the initial steps required to fly your drone within visual line of sight. With strong leadership and support from industry, we are now moving rapidly to an era that wasn't possible even just a few years ago. 

For instance, FAA is making great progress on our what we call normalizing UAS Beyond Visual Line of Sight Notice of Proposed Rulemaking or our BVLOS rulemaking. This rulemaking aims to ensure that we can normalize operations in the NAS and ensure that all operators big and small, can provide safe and efficient operations and services where traditional air traffic control services are not provided. 

The FAA's goal is to publish this rule before the end of the year or very early next year for notice and comment. The rule if finalized as proposed will provide the UAS industry with the regulatory framework it so urgently needs. We're also pairing this rule with the 2209 Rule which will address operations near critical infrastructure.  So, the two are expected to travel together both for notice and comment and publication later this year or early next year. 

As for Advanced Air Mobility, the future is equally bright. Collaboration again, is key to successfully advancing the exciting prospect of Advanced Air Mobility. Collectively, we must ensure that the new generation of electric, vertical takeoff and landing and other emerging aircraft maintain the high level of safety of today's civil aviation and that all of us are working to make that happen.

We have certification regulations in place that will allow manufacturers to achieve our safety standards in innovative ways. Work continues to finalize with operating framework with standards for pilots to operate aircraft with flying characteristics above helicopters and airplanes. We expect to have that rulemaking finalized by late October or early November. 

Please let me note some additional key milestones along the way. Nearly two years ago, President Biden assigned the Advanced Air Mobility Coordination and Leadership Act. The Act directs a whole of government AAM strategy for coordinating activities related to safety, operations, infrastructure, physical security, cybersecurity, and the government’s investment in coordination that is needed to mature the AAM ecosystem. 

The FAA is part of the AAM interagency work group that has been led by the Department of Transportation. We are collaborating with more than 15 federal agencies on an AAM national strategy. For those of you who are involved in some of the early drone integration work, I think you can appreciate that this time around, we're trying to be much better organized across the federal government. The conclusions and recommendations of that interagency workgroup are expected later this year. And you can learn more about the Interagency Working Group at the special breakout session tomorrow morning. 

We've taken a number of additional steps forward over the past year or so. We've issued version 2.0 of the Urban Air Mobility concept of operations, an updated blueprint that offers a framework of operations and anticipated levels of maturity. Last summer, right around the time of this this convening, we proposed a comprehensive rule for training and certifying AAM pilots, which we know as the powered lift proposed SFAR. As I mentioned earlier, we're working to finalize this rule later this fall. This rule is going to be pivotal to providing certainty to pilots and the industry on what the requirements and expectations are to operate these aircraft so that they can take those into consideration as they work to certify their aircraft.  We also expect to provide a type certificate for the first AAM aircraft before the end of 2025. 

To further pave the way, we released an implementation plan detailing the steps that the FAA and others will need to take to safely integrate Advanced Air Mobility in the near term. And we put together a cross functional FAA team which we call Innovate 2028 which aims to establish an operational AAM ecosystem at one or more key sites in the NAS by 2028. This will also support companies striving to begin initial AAM operations before 2028. 

We are creating the foundation to enable this capability through innovation teams, which we call ITeams. I encourage you to attend the session later this afternoon about “Flight: the FAA's Process for Understanding, Planning, and Enabling Operations at Specific Sites.” 

The FAA is also working to integrate AAM operations into the NAS beyond 2028 at scale. We are researching AAM concepts and considering possible further rulemaking for scheduled and on demand operations that may have a remote pilot or operate autonomously in certain conditions. 

In all our work, whether it's drone and AAM integration or other new entrance into the airspace we will continue to engage representatives from federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial government stakeholders, partners from foreign authorities and other industries, and the greater aviation community. You will notice that many sessions include these stakeholders, and we look forward to continuing to interact with them. Always. Please join our team later today for the session on “State, Local, Tribal, Governmental Challenges and Opportunities.” And tomorrow, consider attending the session titled "Won't you be my neighbor? Community Engagement for New Entrants". All of these efforts will evolve as technologies mature, as we better understand the operational characteristics of these new aircraft, and as we establish flexible standards and rules that assure safety. 

While the US wants to remain a global leader in all things aviation, we also want and need to continue to engage and be strong partners with other countries. Our country ushered in the jet age, and we will do the same for drone and AAM in the world's most complex airspace. But we need and welcome the support of our global partners. These partnerships are essential to enhancing aviation safety, realizing the global economic benefits of these technologies, and taking advantage of these technologies to better serve communities around the nation. 

Our continued engagement with international partners, which I've witnessed firsthand in meetings with Asian aviation authorities, and European aviation authorities earlier this year, and of course, our engagement with other countries and international organizations, remains the key to our success. Our collaborative international venues such as the Amsterdam Drone Week, the Singapore Air Show in the Dubai Air Show helped to advance mutual understanding, relationships, and dialogue, and identify viable solutions, all of which are critical to realizing a new paradigm in aviation. 

While I was in Europe, I had the chance to highlight FAA's work to form a new ICAO AAM study group led by a talented member of the UK Civil Aviation Authority. This group is identifying the many facets of these new aviation technologies that the relevant ICAO technical panels must address to ultimately develop standards and recommended practices for AAM in the future.

We also continue to engage regularly with the heads of aviation regulatory authorities of Australia, Canada, United Kingdom and New Zealand as part of the National Aviation Authority network. This network’s goal is to promote cooperation on an array of emerging aviation challenges. To hear more about FAA's global engagements, I hope that you will attend tomorrow's lunch plenary session.  It will focus on global collaboration in drone and Advanced Air Mobility innovation. We look forward to continuing international collaboration on future technologies and operational implementation to unlock the benefits of innovation.

In addition to all this, the FAA continues to take its environmental and sustainability obligations seriously. We will also be a global leader when it comes to sustainability. While there are numerous environmental and energy benefits to drones and AAM, we also need to evaluate potential adverse impacts under the National Environmental Policy Act. We can do this in a smart, efficient, and effective way. And the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 directs us to do just that. It requires the FAA to examine and integrate programmatic level approaches to the requirements of NEPA for aviation projects. Even prior to Congress's passage of the reauthorization, the FAA began to examine and implement programmatic approaches to NEPA compliance for drone related actions. Just earlier this month, we completed a programmatic NEPA review for drone package delivery in North Carolina, in collaboration with the North Carolina Department of Transportation. 

I'll close with this thought. Like many of you, I have been keenly watching the action from the Paris Olympics and cheering on our inspiring American athletes. Seeing these Olympics reminded me that back in 1984, for those of you who watched those Olympics in LA, at the opening ceremonies, they began with the man flying with a jet pack from the roof of the Coliseum to the track below. Yes, this showcased the genius of American inventiveness. Yet jet packs were and still are an expensive novelty, not a common means of air transport. 

In another four years, we will hold another Olympics in Los Angeles. I hope that in these games rather than being a promising concept, drones will be in widespread use, as well electric taxis to transport athletes, officials and spectators safely from venue to venue. This is the future that we are proud to help create. I can't wait to see what more we can do together. I thank you so much for your kind attention today and for the for all that you are all doing to bring this exciting future to fruition. I hope you enjoy the rest of your conference. Thanks so much for your time.