$355 B Drone Freeze: 1 in 5 Planes Invisible, FAA Slams BVLOS Door

TL;DR

• FAA Proposes BVLOS Drone Framework Closing for Public Comment
• ANAC Grants DJI Matrice 3D Series Certification in Brazil
• UK’s Protector RG Mk1 Drone Fails to Reach Initial Operating Capability in 2026

🚁 FAA Seals BVLOS Comment Window as GAO Exposes $355B Drone Market’s ADS-B Blind Zone

3 100+ comments later, the FAA just slammed the door on BVLOS drone hopes—GAO says ADS-B can’t “see” 1 in 5 GA planes that drones must now dodge 🚁✈️ $355 B market waits while right-of-way fight rages. Pilots vs. parcel bots: who owns the sky below 400 ft? —Does your town want silent drones or safe skies?

The Federal Aviation Administration shut the 14-day public-comment window on its proposed “Beyond Visual Line of Sight” (BVLOS) framework at 11:59 p.m. ET, 11 Feb 2026. More than 3,100 filings later, the agency must now decide whether—and how—to let drones share the national airspace with manned traffic below 400 ft.

How Would the Rule Work?

Part 108 would make every BVLOS flight hinge on two technologies:

• A certified detect-and-avoid (DAA) system that spots traffic at ≥2 nautical miles with ≤200 ms latency
• Continuous, two-way electronic position sharing so both drone and any airplane know where the other is—even if the airplane lacks ADS-B Out

What’s at Stake?

• Safety: GAO report G-26-107648 says current ADS-B surveillance misses 100% of non-transponder aircraft, creating a lethal blind spot.
• Market: Analysts value the U.S. BVLOS logistics market at $355 B by 2026—roughly the GDP of South Africa—if rules unlock routine package, medical and inspection flights.
• Jobs: European operators already log 250,000 BVLOS deliveries; U.S. firms warn they will shift R&D abroad without a clear path.

Industry Feedback—Top Flashpoints

• Right-of-way: Over half of comments argue the draft gives drones default priority; pilots want “see-and-avoid” supremacy retained.
• Hardware vs. performance: Manufacturers push performance-based DAA specs; public-safety groups want prescriptive hardware lists.
• Timeline: Manna, Zipline and UPS want certification flights this year; GA pilots ask FAA to phase in urban corridors after 2028.

Timeline—What to Watch

• Mid-2026: Final rule expected; look for numeric DAA benchmarks and a possible second comment window on right-of-way language.
• Q4 2026: First DAA-certified platforms (likely hybrid ADS-B/e-conspicuity) enter pilot corridors over Oklahoma and Indiana test sites.
• 2027-2028: If incident rates stay below 0.05% of BVLOS ops, FAA projects 10% of all UAS activity will be BVLOS, cutting 15 GWh of truck-deliveries’ diesel use.

Bottom Line

The comment docket is closed, but the real work starts now. Whether the FAA heeds GAO’s call for hard DAA metrics will decide if American skies open to a $355 B drone economy—or stay closed to innovation that is already routine across the Atlantic.

🚁 Brazil OKs DJI Matrice 3D BVLOS Flights, Erases 30-Day Wait

Brazil just green-lit DJI Matrice 3D drones to fly BEYOND sight of pilot—cutting red-tape 80%. 8,000 extra BVLOS hrs/mo incoming 🚁💥 Yet country still has ZERO dedicated beyond-line rules. Fast-track boom or safety gamble?

On 11 Feb 2026 Brazil’s aviation regulator, ANAC, issued a single Design Authorization that lets the DJI Matrice 3D Series—and its Dock 2 base—fly beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) commercial missions anywhere in the country. The move collapses two former certification steps into one, cutting dock-integration time from 30-45 days to 5-7 days and unlocking roughly 8 000 extra BVLOS flight-hours each month across an installed base of ~10 000 DJI commercial units.

How Does the New License-Plate System Work?

Every Matrice 3D (and the upcoming 6D if fitted with an ANAC-approved anti-collision light) now carries a CAER “special airworthiness certificate” tied to a vehicle-style license plate. ANAC’s SARPAS platform ingests real-time telemetry, geofence status and mission-risk scores for each flight, providing the oversight layer Brazil still lacks in its formal BVLOS rulebook.

What Changes on the Ground?

• Deployment velocity: >80 % faster dock roll-outs
• Enterprise ROI: months shaved off infrastructure, agri-spray and logistics projects
• Regulatory asymmetry: Brazil opens the door while the U.S. FCC keeps new DJI models off its registry

Immediate Impacts

Cost: Eliminating duplicate certifications saves operators ~US$3 000 per dock.
Capacity: 8 000 h/month of new legal BVLOS capacity equates to 1.3 million km² of potential survey coverage—four times the area of Germany.
Supply chain: Mandatory ≥X cd anti-collision lights for the 6D variant will spur local accessory makers within 6-24 months.
Safety gap: Without pre-flight BVLOS checks, incident probability rises; SARPAS analytics must compensate.

Timeline Outlook

2026-Q4: 500+ docks online, 15 000 h/month, zero ANAC rule changes—reliance on SARPAS dashboards continues.
2027-2028: ANAC publishes first formal BVLOS airspace caps, driven by traffic data; CAER license-plate model becomes compliance baseline.
2029-2031: Mercosur neighbors adopt Brazil’s one-step DA template, standardizing South-American enterprise drone certification.

Closing

ANAC’s license-plate shortcut makes Brazil the world’s easiest major market for BVLOS drone services, delivering an >80 % faster path to revenue while shifting safety burden to real-time data. For operators, the equation is simple: fly now, monitor relentlessly, and prepare for tighter rules once the success metrics force ANAC to write them.

😬 £350M Protector Drone Still Grounded: 12-Month UK Spy Gap Over Baltics

40-hr drone stuck on the ground: UK’s £350 M Protector UAV misses 2025 IOC—crews & hangars still missing 😬. That’s a 12-month spy-gap over the Baltics. Lincolnshire, how much longer till your skies are actually watched?

The Royal Air Force’s next-generation surveillance drone, the Protector RG Mk1, failed to reach Initial Operating Capability on 30 January 2026. Despite flying limited test sorties from RAF Waddington, the Ministry of Defence concedes the fleet is not yet cleared for full intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. Three shortfalls—crew training, ground infrastructure and data-link integration—have pushed the true combat-ready date to late 2027 at the earliest, leaving a 12-month ISR gap over NATO’s Baltic and Arctic theatres.

How the Protector Was Supposed to Work

Derived from the MQ-9B SkyGuardian, the turboprop-powered airframe can stay aloft for more than 40 hours at altitudes up to 50,000 ft while streaming multi-spectral video and radar data to UK command networks. That endurance equals three consecutive eight-hour shifts of crewed-patrol time on a single tank of fuel, a workload multiplier the RAF planned to exploit once 30 qualified operators and two new ground-control stations were in place.

Where the Roll-Out Stalled

• Training pipeline: only 10 of the required 30 pilots and sensor operators are certified, capping monthly sorties to fewer than six.
• Infrastructure lag: one of three planned ground-control bays at Waddington is still a shell, forcing all pre-flight data loading and post-mission analysis onto a single workstation.
• Software handshake: the drone’s NATO-standard wide-band link has not yet passed end-to-end testing with the UK’s Joint ISTAR Network, so full-motion video must be manually relayed—defeating the aircraft’s real-time selling point.

What the Delay Costs Britain

• Operational coverage: the Baltic air-policing gap widens by 15,000 flight-hours in 2026, forcing the UK to lease manned ISR hours from allies at an estimated £35 million.
• Budget risk: program cost could overrun by ≥15 % of the £350 million baseline if contractor staff and infrastructure contracts stay on overtime through 2027.
• Strategic timing: adversary UAV deployments in the Arctic are accelerating; every quarter of Protector delay shifts the ISR balance toward Russian Orlan-10 sorties that now average 120 per month.

MoD Response—and the Gaps That Remain

Observed actions

• A single-source infrastructure contract is slated for award in September 2026, promising 95 % ground-station uptime once both bays are installed.
• RAF Training Command will double annual UAV course intake to 20 students this spring.

Still missing

• No funded line for accelerated software integration before Q2 2028, leaving a two-year interoperability blind spot.
• Quarterly cost-cap audits have not been approved; without them, the 15 % overrun projection remains uncontrolled.

Timeline: When Will the Protector Be Ready?

• Q4 2026: second ground station reaches 80 % install; crew count hits 20—still 10 short of IOC threshold.
• Q4 2027: revised IOC, assuming 30 certified operators and full data-link certification; first NATO-assigned Baltic mission.
• 2029: Full Operating Capability, feeding live data into the UK Joint ISTAR Network.
• 2031: export variant with AI-assisted targeting cleared for NATO partners, provided Project NYX loyal-wingman standards converge.

The Take-Away

The Protector RG Mk1 is technically sound—its 40-hour endurance and 50,000 ft ceiling meet spec—but the RAF cannot exploit those metrics until people, concrete and code catch up. Unless the MoD fast-tracks crew certification and closes the software interface by 2027, Britain will keep paying allies to fill an ISR gap it planned to cover with its own drones.

In Other News

• EU Commission Mandates 100g Drone Registration Threshold