Commercial Drones Are Completely Legal, a Federal Judge Ruled

This is huge. A federal judge dismissed the FAA’s case against Raphael Pirker, in which the FAA accused Pirker of violating a law banning commercial unmanned aircraft flights. 

The judge, who is with the National Transportation Safety Board, wrote, “It is concluded that, as Complainant: has not issued an enforceable FAR regulatory rule governing model aircraft operation; has historically exempted model aircraft from the statutory FAR definitions of aircraft by relegating model aircraft operations to voluntary compliance with the guidance expressed in AC 91-57, Respondent’s model, aircraft operation was not subject to FAR regulation, and enforcement.”

Read the entire decisional order, if you’re interested in more.

Also, read this response from the Drone Journalism Lab at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s College of Journalism and Mass Communications.