CREST HAVEN – With an eye toward bolstering the unmanned aerial systems-related industry in Cape May County, freeholders approved, Sept. 8, an application to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for a Certificate of Waiver or Authorization to conduct public, unmanned aerial vehicle operations with purchased or leased aircraft.
Freeholder Will Morey, board economic development liaison, said the authorization, if approved, would permit the county to establish operations approved by the FAA to test unmanned aerial systems, also known as drones.
If the Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership, which has conducted initial drone tests, is busy, the authorization frees the county to conduct operations, Morey added. Any such drones would have to be specifically approved by the FAA under the authorization.
The resolution states, “Technology relating to unmanned aircraft systems is in an early and promising stage of development, particularly as it may enable the use of commercial unmanned vehicles in national air space, such development being under the regulatory auspices of the FAA, and,
“Cape May County also desired to conduct and/or participate in UAS activity, in a manner that will further UAS development and support specific county missions such as, and without limitation, emergency management, inspection of bridges and other public infrastructure, coastline surveys, aerial mapping, and precision agriculture.”
Further, it notes that such operations are permitted “so long as the FAA has granted the public entity a Certificate of Authorization and Waiver and the missions are conducted according to the terms of the COA.
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