Governor Kevin Stitt signed Senate Bill 659 on Wednesday,\nMay 5th which creates the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Development Act of 2021.\nThe Act establishes the Oklahoma Aeronautics Commission as the clearinghouse\nfor unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in the State and designates the Commission\nas the lead agency to promote, enhance, develop, and ensure safety of UAS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Upon signing the legislation, Gov. Stitt said, \u201cBoth the\ngovernment and private sectors have started to take advantage of UAS and that\nwill continue to increase as we look to integrate this great technology into\nour state\u2019s airspace. It makes sense for the state to act positively,\ndesignating our State Aeronautics agency as the UAS \u201cclearinghouse\u201d for\nOklahoma. They will look to organize the state\u2019s UAS assets so that we can\ndetermine our best flight path forward. It is our goal to move this coalition\nof partners toward a collective strategy in order to launch the state\u2019s UAS\nindustry into being a Top 10 asset.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bill began with an interim study involving several UAS\nleaders within the state as well as experts from around the United States. The\nSenate author of the bill, Sen. Paul Rosino, District 45 stated, \u201cDuring last\nFall\u2019s interim study experts across the country detailed how their states were\ndoing, outlining the roadmap for how Oklahoma could ascend the UAS ladder to\nbecome a leader in the industry. Those experts and presentations showed that Oklahoma\nwould benefit from a single, coordinating entity in state government\nresponsible for creating a cohesive coalition of partners to bring together the\nstate\u2019s various UAS assets.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rosino contends that Oklahoma has been missing that\nenergizing force or organization that can bring the resources of the state\ntogether to ensure the state\u2019s focus on the next big UAS policy initiative,\ntest site opportunity, or federal grant program. \u201cThe Aeronautics Commission is\nprimed to be this resource to assist fellow state agencies, municipalities, law\nenforcement and first responders, educators, and others with navigating this up-and-coming\nindustry,\u201d Rosino concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
House author Rep. Kyle Hilbert, District 29 said \u201cThis\nlegislation creates an opportunity for the state to take full advantage of this\nburgeoning industry by ensuring we will be ready as UAS start to fully\nintegrate into our everyday lives. \nAeronautics has the staff-level expertise with the Federal Aviation\nAdministration (FAA) regulatory environment and can be a resource to those\nentities, government and business, that are interested in using this new\ntechnology. In drafting this legislation, we wanted Aeronautics to be the\ncoalescing force to bring all of the state\u2019s UAS entities together as this\nindustry grows and expands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Integration of UAS into the National Airspace System will be\nthe key linchpin to unlocking this great technology for the aviation and\naerospace industry moving forward. Oklahoma already has some good UAS success\nstories that are working on that integration with entities like Oklahoma State\nUniversity\u2019s Unmanned Systems Research Institute and the Choctaw Nation\u2019s IPP\nand Beyond Programs. Additionally,\nseveral UAS companies have decided to call Oklahoma home in recent years\nincluding Kratos Defense and Skydweller just to name a few. \u201cOklahoma is primed to take advantage of the\ngrowth of UAS across the country and the Commission is positioned to assist\nhowever we can,\u201d said State Director of Aeronautics Grayson Ardies, \u201cwe are\nexcited to see the State move forward in the UAS arena and want to help make\nOklahoma a major destination for UAS activity.\u201d \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Governor Kevin Stitt signed Senate Bill 659 on Wednesday, May 5th which creates the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Development Act of 2021. The Act establishes the Oklahoma Aeronautics Commission as the clearinghouse for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in the State and designates the Commission as the lead agency to promote, enhance, develop, and ensure safety of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18453,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,127],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-oklahoma","category-unmanned-systems"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Kespry-drone-1.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18452"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18452\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18454,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18452\/revisions\/18454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateaviationjournal.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}