Alliance Engineering + Planning, LLC becomes one of the first surveying and/or engineering firms in the United States to successfully receive FAA approval for BVLOS flight operations.
Alliance Engineering + Planning, LLC, a LJA company, routinely conducts LiDAR aerial missions, mainly for the purposes of creating topographical surveys for its surveying and engineering divisions. To adhere to FAA Part 107 regulations, keeping a UAS in Visual Line of Sight (VLOS) at all times, has been a constant challenge to follow, even in environments of rural, undeveloped tracts of land. Alliance began to proactively address these real-world scenarios with the decision to pursue a Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) waiver from the FAA. With an approved BVLOS waiver, this would allow its UAS Division to conduct (predominately) LiDAR missions, even when a BVLOS environment is determined to exist at a project location.
In the UAS world, the most coveted and most difficult waiver not only to draft, but also to gain an eventual approval, is a BVLOS waiver. The problem with the BVLOS submission, review and (hopeful) approval process, as it relates to the survey and engineering world, is timing. When Alliance receives an approval by a client to fly aerial LiDAR, the lead time for a flight is generally non-existent; the flight needs to be completed as soon as possible. Contrast that with the typical BVLOS application process of several months to draft and then several months for the FAA to review the application; the timing doesn’t work with these two environments.
Alliance’s UAS Division developed a long-range gameplan that involved (hopefully) obtaining multiple approved BVLOS waivers, with each new waiver application building upon the previous approval. The final result of these BVLOS waivers, would be two-fold:
1. Legal Flight Operations: to “legally” fly per FAA regulations, at almost any location across the United States where VLOS is unachievable, and –
2. Timing: to eliminate the amount of time drafting the BVLOS application and then the review time of the FAA; allowing Alliance to immediately fly a project upon approval.
On September 14, 2022, Alliance Engineering + Planning, LLC became one of the first surveying and/or engineering firms in the United States to successfully receive FAA approval for BVLOS flight operations. This approval was immediately followed by the drafting of a second BVLOS application, which was submitted in December 2022.
Aerial LiDAR is quickly becoming more widely accepted in the surveying and engineering world for creating survey-grade topographical surveys. Alliance’s current BVLOS achievement and anticipated future additional approved BVLOS waivers, means they can conduct aerial LiDAR operations legally and without any delays on projects where VLOS is unattainable.
LJA is an employee-owned, full-service consulting engineering firm. With 27 offices across Texas and Florida, LJA offers 750 experienced civil, transportation, midstream, rail, and coastal engineers, plus hydrologists, environmental specialists, planners, landscape architects, construction managers, GIS designers, and surveyors.
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