FAAST Blast — Week of Mar 20, 2017 – Mar 24, 2017
Biweekly FAA Safety Briefing News Update
FAA Releases Forecast Report Predicting Continued Growth
On March 21, 2017, the FAA released its annual Aerospace Forecast Report covering fiscal years (FY) 2017-2037. The report forecasts continued growth for commercial aviation system wide. A new key section of the report examined the growth of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). The FAA projects that the hobbyist small UAS (sUAS) fleet will more than triple to 3.5 million units by 2021. The commercial, non-hobbyist UAS fleet is forecast to grow from 42,000 at the end of 2016 to about 442,000 aircraft by 2021, with an upside possibility of as many as 1.6 million UAS in use by 2021. Pilots of these UAS vehicles are expected to increase from 20,000 at the end of 2016 to a range of 10 to 20 times as many by 2021.
These forecasts reinforce the importance of safely integrating UAS operations into the National Airspace System. UAS integration is the focus of the upcoming May/June 2017 FAA Safety Briefing. Watch this space for more information. For more on the FAA Aerospace Forecast click here.
New FAASTeam Safety Video Series
A new “Let’s Take a Minute for Safety” video series of short general aviation safety messages is produced by FAA Safety Team (FAASTeam) volunteers from Southern California. It covers loss of control safety enhancement topics and use of the FAASafety.gov website.
Take a safety minute and check out the playlist on the FAA’s YouTube channel. Go to http://bit.ly/2n1te2E to watch.
What you need to know about ADS-B
The March/April 2017 issue of FAA Safety Briefing is answering your questions about ADS-B. In ADS-B 101, the FAA Surveillance and Broadcast Services Office explores what ADS-B is, and what it means to you. To get the scoop click here.
Produced by the FAA Safety Briefing editors, http://www.faa.gov/news/safety_briefing/
Address questions or comments to: SafetyBriefing@faa.gov.
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