In the U.S., Flying Drones Out of Sight Is Still Out of Mind

For years, companies like Amazon have promised that they'll eventually be delivering packages using drones. One problem, at least in the United States: The Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA's) Small UAS Rule doesn't allow drones to be flown outside the visual range of the remote pilot. That pretty much puts drone deliveries on hold. The FAA is, however, exploring how to relax that requirement and has waived it for a couple of companies, one of which is PrecisionHawk, based in Raleigh, North Carolina. But it is working on a system for managing drone flights so that they could be safely conducted outside the operator's visual range.