The Federal Aviation Administration extended by 60 days...

The Federal Aviation Administration extended by 60 days to Sept. 23 the comment deadline on its notice of interpretation on the rules for model aircraft, the FAA said in a notice in Friday’s Federal Register (http://1.usa.gov/1khzEam). The FAA wants to crack down on what it calls the increasing recklessness of hobbyists who fly small drones for recreational purposes, and is proposing sweeping enforcement measures that has many in the model aircraft community up in arms (CD July 22 p10). The Academy of Model Aeronautics, which has orchestrated a big comments submission campaign at the FAA, asked for the extension so it could “educate the aeromodeling community, clarify the issues, and respond to questions regarding the impact that the interpretive rule has on various aspects of the modeling activity,” the extension notice said. “The FAA agrees that additional time for the submission of comments would be helpful,” the agency said. By early Sunday, more than 29,300 comments had been filed in docket FAA-2014-0396 on the rule interpretation (http://1.usa.gov/1tr8MVl). The vast majority of comments were critical of the FAA’s effort to impose new restrictions on model aircraft. Observers say the rule interpretation on model aircraft has broad implications for the FAA’s long-awaited rulemaking on commercial operations of small drones because it hasn’t ruled out including hobbyist drones in any future rulemaking.