Drones and Local Government—a COVID Story
Here’s an interesting article from the New York Times about the use of drones to spray a sanitizing cleaning solution over seats at a spring training baseball stadium in Arizona. Such UAS spraying technology already exists in the agriculture industry and so this is a simple hack for today’s COVID-influenced world. So long as the drone pilot is licensed, the drone compliant with Remote ID rules, and flight is not over the stadium when occupied, such use complies with federal regulations. We continue to think that cities and local agencies would do well to adopt clear drone usage policies before implementing a drone program to avoid any public confusion and address in advance any public concerns. Whether and how a city or local agency could regulate such use by a private company is still very much an open question.