The Obama administration announced what it billed as a “significant milestone” towards the commercial exploitation of drones in US airspace on Thursday in which six movie and TV production companies will be allowed to film with unmanned aircraft in defined closed areas.



Hollywood studios and TV producers have long been pleading for the right to use drones, which are seen as opening up vast new vistas for dramatic filming at relatively cheap cost. But they have until now been thwarted by tight restrictions from the Federal Aviation Administration against any commercial use of the unmanned aircraft.

Anthony Foxx, the transportation secretary, said the move to allow the six companies to begin regular filming by drone was “a significant milestone in broadening commercial UAS [unmanned aerial systems] use while ensuring we maintain our world-class safety record in all forms of flight. These companies are blazing a trail that others are already following.”

The FAA’s restrictions has so far prevented film-makers from utilising the technology within the US, forcing many productions to go abroad. Films such as Harry Potter, Transformers and The Smurfs all include drone-captured sequences but they were all shot in other countries with looser regulations.

“This will bring a lot of business back home to the United States,” said Chris Dodd, the former US senator who is now CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America which helped secure the exemptions. “It will create a climate where more production is done at home and allow us to develop cutting-edge technology to make pictures even more imaginative than in the past.”

Under the new authorisation, the production companies will not have to meet the usual plethora of flight rules and regulations to which passenger aircraft are subject in the national airspace system. However, they will be subject to stringent safety guidelines.

These include: flying at no higher than 400 feet; restricting the flight zone to “sterile areas” of closed studios that are not open to the public; operating the drones only through pilots who have obtained private pilot certificates; keeping the drones always within an operator’s line of sight; reporting any accidents to the FAA; and foregoing any flying at night.

The desire of photographers to capture images from the air is driving an explosion in take-up of drones, both by major companies and private individuals. The FAA is struggling to contain the level of public interest, that has seen drones flying through fireworks displays, above weddings and over NFL games.

The six companies are: Astraeus Aerial, Aerial MOB, LLC, HeliVideo Productions, LLC, Pictorvision Inc, RC Pro Productions Consulting, LLC dba Vortex Aerial, and Snaproll Media, LLC. A seventh, Flying-Cam, Inc, has also applied for an exemption but has not yet satisfied the FAA.