There is movement in Congress on a long-term Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization and a stopgap to keep the agency’s programs going for a few more months.
The failure of the world’s largest engineered slope a year ago at Charleston’s Yeager Airport has generated widespread speculation from the international engineering community because of the scale of construction and the numerous prizes for design the project had garnered, says Chrys Steiakakis, a geotechnical engineer at Geosysta Ltd., Attiki, Greece.
The Federal Aviation Administration has asked an outside committee to propose eased rules for commercial flights of small drones in urban areas and over people not involved in flight operations.
Bill would hike funding for airport construction grants but freeze cap on passenger facility charges. It also would spin off FAA's air traffic control operation.
As tens of thousands of recreational users of aerial drones register their devices with the Federal Aviation Administration, the agency expects to issue a final regulation “in late spring” for non-hobbyist drones, including those that construction firms use, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta says.
With the five-year highway-transit FAST Act in place, the main congressional infrastructure issue for early 2016 is a bill to reauthorize Federal Aviation Administration programs for the next several years.
