Implementing and Operating UAS Programs for Transportation Agencies: From Program Development to Field Data Collection

BasePDH  |  Course No. 016  |  2 PDH

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2. Regulatory and Operational Framework

Every UAS operation an agency conducts sits inside a federal regulatory structure administered by the Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates all aircraft in the National Airspace System. Understanding that structure is the precondition for everything that follows, because it determines who may fly, where, under what authorizations, and with what crew. The two source documents approach the framework from different altitudes: the national implementation guide traces the regulatory history and the forward path, while the bridge-inspection research study addresses the operational mechanics a crew works through on a specific flight. Together they describe the framework a transportation agency operates within.

2.1 From experimental permits to a standing rule

UAS technology is not as new as its recent commercial surge suggests. The first pilotless aircraft were military: the British Aerial Target in 1917 and the United States Kettering Bug in 1918. The civil regulatory story begins in 2006, when the FAA created the Unmanned Aircraft Program Office with the goal of integrating commercial UAS use into the National Airspace System. Progress was slow under that early posture. Leading into the fall of 2016, the FAA had approved only 13 permits for commercial UAS operations.

That changed in 2016 with the creation of 14 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 107, the small unmanned aircraft systems rule. Part 107 defines a small UAS as any aircraft that weighs 55 pounds or less at takeoff, including the aircraft itself and its payload, and it establishes the requirements for registration, remote pilot certification, and the operational and safety rules that govern flights. The rule stimulated rapid growth: the FAA began issuing thousands of permits each year following its passage. As of January 2024, the FAA reported 863,728 UAS registered in the United States and 331,573 certified remote pilots. For an agency standing up a program today, the practical takeaway is that Part 107 is the default operating authority and the baseline against which every other pathway is compared.

2.2 Public aircraft operations as an alternative authority

Part 107 is not the only route available to a public agency. A second pathway, still in use by some state transportation agencies, is to operate as a Public Aircraft Operator under 49 U.S.C. Section 40102(a)(41). Under public aircraft operations, the agency itself takes on the liability to set its own operational specifications for pilots and aircraft, rather than working within the standardized Part 107 limits. There is real value in retaining the ability to operate under both frameworks: an agency can run routine work under Part 107 and reserve the public aircraft pathway for operations where it needs to define its own specifications. The choice is not academic, because it determines where operational liability sits and how much latitude the agency has to set its own pilot and aircraft standards.

2.3 Operating within the rule: waivers, airspace, and crew

On a specific mission, the regulatory framework becomes a set of concrete planning steps. The bridge-inspection research describes the minimum sequence a crew works through. During flight-operations planning, the team must request airspace approval if the operating location requires it and submit a Part 107 waiver if the planned operation falls outside the standard rule limits. Not every site triggers these steps. In one of the documented field inspections, the bridge sat more than five miles from any existing airport with no other active airspace restrictions, and the flight stayed within the pilot's line of sight, so no special FAA waivers or certificates of authorization were necessary. The lesson is that authorization burden is site-specific and is determined during planning, not assumed.

Crew composition is also governed by the rule. While a visual observer is not always required, large and long bridge inspections are circumstances where an additional observer is warranted, and when one is used the crew must follow all of the observer requirements detailed in Part 107. Communication between the pilot and the observer is critical whenever the pilot cannot continuously see the aircraft, for example when the platform moves beneath a deck or around a pier. An agency that treats the observer as an optional courtesy rather than a regulated crew role exposes itself on exactly the complex operations where the margin for error is smallest.

2.4 The beyond visual line of sight horizon

The single largest constraint on scaling UAS operations is the current requirement that flights remain within the remote pilot's visual line of sight. In March 2022, the FAA's UAS Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) Aviation Rulemaking Committee released its final report. The committee acknowledged that current regulations do not reflect the capabilities or maturity of UAS technology, and identified the line of sight restriction as one of the biggest constraints on scaling the technology and maximizing its societal and economic benefits. The FAA has been reviewing the committee's 381-page recommendations report and, as of the source's writing, anticipated publishing the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for the new BVLOS rule, designated Part 108, in 2025.