Drone Pilots September 2018

Here are some statistics on drone pilot activity in the US. I obtained all the data from publicly available sources on faa.gov. The data is current as of September 1, 2018. If this is interesting or you want more information, get in touch.

Remote Pilot Certifications

As of September 1 2018, there are at least 64,867 pilots with a part 107 UAS (drone) certificate. Following the 60% rule from last month, that gives 108,000, an increase of 8,000 in the last month.

number of part 107 certificates granted

Part 107 Waivers

As of today, there have been 2,020 waivers granted to 1,855 individuals at 1,565 companies. That represents an increase of 21 waivers since last post.

The first waiver to expire does so November of this year. Breakdown of waivers granted by type:

Regulation Type Count
107.29 Daylight operation 1850
107.41 Operation in controlled airspace 106
107.35 Operation of multiple small unmanned aircraft 37
107.31 Visual line of sight aircraft operation 22
107.51(b) Altitude 17
107.39 Operation over human beings 12
107.33(b) Visual observer 12
107.51(d) Minimum distance from clouds 10
107.51(c) Minimum visibility 10
107.33(c)(2) Visual observer 6
107.25(b) Operation from a moving vehicle or aircraft 4
107.51(a) Maximum groundspeed 1
107.39(a) Operation over human beings 1
107.33(c) Visual observer 1

The number of total waivers granted over time: number of part 107 waivers granted