FAA grants comment extension at the request of AMA

At the request of the AMA, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has granted a 60-day extension for the public comment period (Docket No. FAA-2014-0396) for FAA's Interpretation of the Special Rule for Model Aircraft established by Congress as part of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012. This 60-day extension establishes the new deadline for comments as September 23, 2014.

In the United States Department of Transportation/FAA notice due to publish in the Federal Register on July 25, 2014, the FAA noted the following:

"On July 16, 2014, the Academy of Model Aeronautics submitted a request to extend the comment period by 60 days, citing the need to "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 FAA agrees that additional time for the submission of comments would be helpful, and therefore has decided to extend the comment period until September 23, 2014. The FAA expects that the additional time for comments will allow the affected community to prepare meaningful comments which will help the FAA to determine what clarifications to the interpretation may be necessary."

Your Action is needed now!

The administrative rulemaking notice and comment process is the means by which the FAA can address these concerns and make any definitive changes to the rule. Your comments need to be detailed, meaningful, and constructive.

The AMA is asking their members and everyone who has an interest in the future of model aviation to participate in this process.

How Can I Help?

Go to http://www.modelaircraft.org/aboutama/AMAInterpretiveRuleResponse.aspx and carefully read how and where to leave effective comments.

It is very important that the community presents itself in a polite, respectful manner! The usual social media approach of replacing clicking Like is not going to help. Comments including references to the intellegence, heredity, and species of the review committee will only hurt the overall effort, as will suggestions that are anatomically impossible.

This is far too important to mess up, as this could be our last chance to affect a community-based change to the rules!