BVLOS: The Next Big Thing -- June 10, 2020

This may be the next big thing, but I certainly missed it -- as far as I can recall, I failed to note this back in 2017. Better late than never:

Nation's first BVLOS UAS operations approved, January 6, 2017, link here:

Now it’s official. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has given the Northern Plains UAS Test Site based in Grand Forks, North Dakota, the approval to phase in the operation of large unmanned aircraft for beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) operations.

The week after U.S. Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., brought U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein to North Dakota to tour the Grand Forks Air Force Base and the Grand Sky UAS Business and Aviation Park adjacent to the base, the FAA confirmed what the senator announced during a news conference with the general.

The agency authorized the UAS test site to begin using ground-based sense-and-avoid technologies as it phases into BVLOS operations. The action outlines a path for unique testing and flight operations not widely available in the national airspace. The authorization allows for a large-platform UAS to take off from Grand Sky at the Grand Forks Air Force Base without the need for a manned chase aircraft.

The first two tenants at Grand Sky are General Atomics, which flies Predators and Reapers from its UAS Training Academy, and Northrop Grumman, which supports Global Hawk missions from the Air Force base. U.S. Customs and Border Protection also flies the General Atomics Predator B from the base about 20 miles west of Grand Forks.

Screenshot:

Re-posting:

From the Williston Herald, Beyond-Visual-Line-of-Sight network for drones -- hopefully paid for in part by Amazon -- LOL:

Some background:

• inside BVLOS, the drone industry's next game-changer, February 16, 2017; 
• worldwide, this was the #3 google hit, June 10, 2020: team selected for ND's statewide UAS BVLOS network, ERC,

Data points for the ND BVLOS rollout:

• Collins Aerospace, L3 Harris Technologies, and Thales USA
• contracted with the Northern Plains UAS Test Site
• May, 2019: the state of ND made a $28 million investment in this industry
• my hunch: Amazon is watching closely: see photograph at this Reuters story -- first US FAA-approved BVLOS drone flight completed: Fairbanks, AK;