Phoenix Air Unmanned Granted Nationwide Waiver for BVLOS Powerline Inspections

by DRONELIFE Staff Writer Ian M. Crosby

The Federal Aviation Administration has granted Phoenix Air Unmanned, LLC (PAU) a broad area waiver authorizing beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) flights for conducting utility powerline inspections. This authorization applies throughout the United States, and builds upon thousands of miles of flight experience with BVLOS transmission line inspection.

“PAU is thrilled to now offer scalable BVLOS UAS inspection services to utilities nationwide. Our past performance and commitment to aviation safety has led to this complex authorization,” said PAU Managing Director, William Lovett. “We have flown over 13,000 miles of inspections for Xcel Energy under FAA BVLOS waivers and can now scale the same services to all utilities across the United States.”

The authorization allows PAU to conduct operations beyond the visual line of sight of the remote pilot in command and visual observers, and to fly over both people and moving vehicles. The waiver is reliant upon a safety case incorporating electronic airspace surveillance, an explicit operating area, and performance criteria guaranteeing operational safety.

“Many issued BVLOS waivers require visual observers throughout the route of flight – adding cost and complexity. This authorization lists electronic airspace surveillance as an alternative risk mitigation. To build the operation we selected key partners with a track record of reliability and aviation experience”, said PAU Director of Operations William Wheeler. “For electronic airspace surveillance PAU relies on IRIS Terminal, developed by Kongsberg Geospatial. IRIS Terminal provides our UAS operators with real-time BVLOS airspace visibility, by showing ownship tracks and cooperative and non-cooperative aircraft tracks all on the same pane of glass, located inside our mobile monitoring stations.”

“The Freefly Systems Alta X is the aerial platform of choice, with adaptable payload mounting to include Phase One cameras or LiDAR. We have over 10,000 miles of transmission line inspection experience with the Alta X and the system’s reliability goes a long way in proving the safety case to our regulators,” Wheeler continued.

The company’s flight crews pilot the Freefly Alta X over the centerline of the transmission line, maneuvering between structures to capture datasets such as high-resolution inspection imagery. In June 2021, one of PAU’s flight teams gathered 134.4 miles of transmission line inspection imagery in the span of a single day, carried out under an identical BVLOS waiver. This cements the scalability of BVLOS transmission line inspections utilizing UAS.

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Ian attended Dominican University of California, where he received a BA in English in 2019. With a lifelong passion for writing and storytelling and a keen interest in technology, he is now contributing to DroneLife as a staff writer.