Where is my flying car?

Where is my flying car?

Share this post

Where is my flying car?
Where is my flying car?
Visual Line Of Sight For Increased Property Values & Passive Income

Visual Line Of Sight For Increased Property Values & Passive Income

Helping Operators Fly

Jonathan Dockrell's avatar
Jonathan Dockrell
Nov 06, 2023
∙ Paid
11

Share this post

Where is my flying car?
Where is my flying car?
Visual Line Of Sight For Increased Property Values & Passive Income
1
Share

Thank you to everyone for reading. For intel or to discuss how you can support our work in opening up low-altitude airspace you can find me at SkyTrade and email me at jonathan@sky.trade


Those who control low-altitude airspace and who regulate flying vehicles in that airspace are not the same.

Court rejects drone operators' claims of federal field preemption of Texas drone no-fly zones. “Federal law expressly contemplates concurrent non-federal regulation of drones” - NPPA v. McCraw

Where is my flying car? is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Beyond Visual Line Of Sight

Operating drones Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) entails flying them beyond the direct line of sight of the pilot. With BVLOS you can have 1 pilot for every ~30 drones, whose throughput can be ~10 deliveries per hour.

For the drone industry to scale BVLOS is one of the ingredients that’s needed. Without it, the economics of many commercial operations don’t add up. The Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) in the US are making sure they are moving in the right direction and allowing more and more operators to be granted the right to fly BVLOS. Ensuring safety is of paramount importance and requires specific measures.

Detect and Avoid (DAA) Capability: Implementing technology that enables the drone to detect and evade other airborne objects, similar to how a pilot in a manned aircraft operates.

Operational Mitigation: This term encompasses strategies and actions aimed at minimizing the risk of drone collisions with other aircraft. Airspace segregation, for instance, can designate drone-exclusive areas in the sky where other aircraft are absent, serving as an effective approach. This gives a level of safety but stops competition and reduces the scalability, so for testing purposes is useful but not for commercial operations.

U.K

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the UK's aviation regulatory body, currently prioritizes airspace segregation over-relying on historical traffic data for safety, especially in BVLOS operations lacking a technical DAA capability.

Europe

Europe divides drone flights into three categories: open, specific and certified. BVLOS operations are only possible in the specific or certified category. There is an option to obtain a light UAS operator certificate (LUC), which allows the drone operator to start a new BVLOS operation without requiring prior authorization for each operation. The LUC is an organisational approval certificate. Drone operators ask their National Aviation Authority of registration to have their organisation assessed to demonstrate that they are capable of assessing the risk of an operation themselves.

United States

The FAA’s long-term goal is to safely integrate drones into the airspace rather than

Keep reading with a 7-day free trial

Subscribe to Where is my flying car? to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.

Already a paid subscriber? Sign in
© 2025 Jonathan Dockrell
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start writingGet the app
Substack is the home for great culture

Share