Is Your Drone Compliant With The New FAA Remote ID Rule That Takes Effect September 16, 2023?
This is the third in a series of articles sharing details about the new FAA Remote Identification Rule. Starting September 16, 2023, Drone Pilots are required to comply with the FAA Remote Identification rule.
In the previous articles, I did an introduction to the new FAA Remote Identification rule and an overview of the 3 Remote ID options. To start at the beginning and the first introduction article click here. To read the overview of the 3 Remote ID options click here.
This article is for part 107 commercial drone pilots. The details below describe how to:
locate the list of FAA approved Remote Identification drones
determine if a drone is FAA Remote Identification compliant
find and print the required FAA Remote ID Declaration of Compliance (DOC) for a drone
update FAA drone registration with Remote ID serial number
Locate the List of FAA Approved Remote ID Drones
Your first step is to visit the FAA UAS Declaration of Compliance System page. Click here to open the page. On the bottom right, you will see a link to VIEW PUBLIC DOC LIST. Select this link.
Determine if a drone is FAA RID compliant
The FAA UAS Declaration of Compliance (DOC) list will open. Select filter on the left side. On the drop-down menu select RID. This will filter the list for Remote ID Declaration of Compliance. The OOP selection is for the UAS Declaration of Compliance (DOC) for flights Over Other People. I will cover this off in more detail in a separate article. For now, we will focus on Remote ID.
Once you filter for RID, you can scroll through the list of UAS DOC. This might be handy if you don’t have a specific drone in mind, and you want to see the full list of UAS that have FAA RID DOC. If you have a specific drone in mind, you can save some time searching by the make or model name of the drone that you want to locate. Please see the Find your aircraft Declaration of Compliance image below. This webpage picture shows the filter option and the search option.
Once you have located the drone that you want to view the Declaration of Compliance, select the “VIEW”option. This will pull up the DOC. You are required to carry this document with you. Print this DOC by selecting print in the right top corner. Please see the image below.
Print FAA Remote ID Declaration of Compliance (DOC)
NOTE: in Serial #: 1581F4XF000000000000 - 1581F4XFFFFFFFFFFFFF, the zeros in the first set of numbers are replaced with the unique drone serial number from your drone. Now you need to update your FAA DroneZone registration with your Remote ID Serial Number.
Update drone registration with Remote ID serial number
When you go to your Drone Zone inventory, click on the three dots next to your drone. The “EDIT” option should appear. Select “EDIT” to include the new RID DOC serial number.
Once the “Edit Device” screen opens, you will need to enter the Remote ID details. If your drone does broadcast the FAA Remote ID, select YES. You will now need to enter the Remote ID Serial Number you located on your Remote ID Declaration of Compliance. Serial #: 1581F4XF000000000000 - 1581F4XFFFFFFFFFFFFF. Be sure to change the zeroes to your drone’s serial number as I wrote above.
Once you have saved the Remote ID serial number, you will need to go back and print your Small UAS Certificate of Registration. Of course, this needs to be in your possession when flying this drone.
If you have any problems with the UAS DOC procedures, the FAA has a help email: 9-AVS-AIR-UASDOC@faa.gov.
I hope this article helps in understanding and following these rule changes. As of the date of this article being posted, we still have about 7 months for this rule to take affect for pilots. If you start planning today, it may save you some frustrations or worse down the road.
In future articles, I will highlight Remote ID Broadcast modules for drones that are not manufactured with RID built in. I will also have more information on flights Over Other People and the OOP Remote ID Declaration of Compliance. Please share any experiences or insight you discover with Remote ID.
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