FAA Concerns
A. SkyPan is good for business — because the visual assets it creates provide an economic accelerator effect to the commercial real estate sector. SkyPan aerial view images help speed up the local zoning, air rights, architectural/engineering, investment and marketing aspects of commercial construction, leading to hard savings in materials, legal and regulatory activities, interest payments and construction costs of new midrises to highrises. This helps create jobs, has a multiplier effect on local economic expansion and spurs urban areas to develop in a vigorous, sensible and culturally viable manner and pace.
B. SkyPan has a 34-year record of providing aerial view panoramas to residential real estate clients in major U.S. cities without a single instance of personal or property damage, without a single instance of invasion of privacy, and without a single instance of jeopardizing security or safety.
SkyPan has developed and utilized time-tested safety protocols and procedures, invested in continual research and development of flight system technology, and provided detailed pre-flight process consultation with property owners and major engineering/construction contractors. These measures and systems ensure that SkyPan, always operating with ample insurance, property owner advance clearance, and robust legal advisory fundamentals, consistently and reliably protects the interests of its business clients, surrounding property owners and the public at large. This is why SkyPan has repeat business from dozens of the nation’s leading real estate developers.
C. SkyPan operates only in privately owned air space over the private property of its clients. Never flying over people or public spaces, SkyPan always maintains straight up/straight down flights with fulltime altimeter monitoring and complete aircraft control. SkyPan never operates higher than surrounding structures and never penetrates the navigable US airspace as defined by the FAA.
SkyPan robots are repeatedly tested and were inspected by the FAA in August 2013, deemed to be one of the safest UAV operations in the USA.
D. SkyPan proactively contacted the FAA in 2005, 2008, and 2010 to explore special permitting for its commercial UAS activity, by discussing regulatory and suggested technical parameters with FAA officials in Illinois, New York and Washington, D.C. and in 2015 was awarded a “333” exemption to the FAA’s blanket ban on commercial UAS operation. SkyPan is proud to play an integral role in the development and refinement of safe, secure and economically beneficial practices in the commercial use of UAS in the real estate business sector. We believe and hope that the FAA can benefit the American public and support the competitiveness of American business enterprises and urban communities by adopting and adapting many SkyPan systems and methods.
E. SkyPan has led by example and through its membership in several trade associations has shared research and development results throughout the commercial UAS community. SkyPan has worked tirelessly to ensure safety and security measures at every stage, never been reckless or endangering the public, and has carefully evolved a suite of best practices. The result has been 30 years of economic benefit and increased local prosperity in major metropolitan areas.
F. SkyPan is well regarded as a market leader and the oldest continuing RC helicopter/drone company in North America. It has considerable ongoing trust and support from the entire architecture, construction, engineering, marketing, legal and financial segments of the commercial real estate development sector, including residential, retail, hospitality, office and institutional clients, especially in NYC. The total value of real estate assets designed, built and marketed with the help of SkyPan imagery is estimated at over $60 billion.