• 27 Jun 2025 03:59 AM
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Washington Report, July/August 2025

Published in the July/August 2025 issue of Vertiflite magazine 

White House Calls for BVLOS Drone Flights

On June 6, US President Donald Trump signed two executive orders calling on the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to propose regulations that would integrate uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) and electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft into US airspace.

The first executive order, titled “Unleashing American Drone Dominance,” directs the FAA to publish draft rules within 30 days to enable “routine beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) operations for UAS for commercial and public safety purposes.” Trump ordered investment in technologies and workforce related to UAS, including autonomy, artificial intelligence and secure communications.

Clear regulatory pathways for UAS would replace the existing process of companies applying to the FAA for individual approval waivers for BVLOS flights. The order calls for the FAA to publish final rules by Feb. 1, 2026.

The draft BVLOS rules (aka Part 108) were originally expected in 2023 — following recommendations from the March 2022 final report of the UAS BVLOS Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) — but were stalled during the previous presidential administration. The FAA will likely use the recommendations as the basis for Part 108, but there were several important points of contention that could significantly endanger helicopters and their passengers.

The ARC report repeatedly states that the airspace below 500 ft (150 m) above ground level (AGL) is relatively empty — failing to recognize that hundreds of thousands of helicopter flights are made annually in that airspace. Specifically, the ARC recommendation (using the abbreviation “UA” for uncrewed aircraft”) states, “The UA would be required to detect and avoid only those crewed aircraft that are broadcasting ADS-B out [Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast] or TABS [Traffic Awareness Beacon System]. Unequipped crewed aircraft would be required to yield the right of way to UA traffic.”

For many missions, helicopters fly exclusively in Class G airspace — not controlled by air traffic control services — and thus are not required to be equipped with ADS-B transponders. Thus, the ARC recommended that helicopters would have to detect and avoid UAS, giving them right of way. But missing a small, hard-to-detect UAS — perhaps approaching from the rear or side — would have deadly consequences for helicopter operators and those on board in the event of a collision. According to a study coauthored by Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, the FAA received nearly 2,600 pilot reports of sightings and near-misses of UAS in 2021, before any BVLOS flights were allowed.

In a 2022 statement, the Helicopter Association International (now Vertical Aviation International) expressed deep concerns about the BVLOS ARC recommendations, stating, “Altering the right-of-way hierarchy is not, and never should be, a mitigation for an unmanned system’s inability to detect other aircraft in the airspace.” The statement concluded, “We are grateful to have been part of the ARC’s efforts but are ultimately unable to support the recommendations of the report, as they will greatly increase risk to current airspace operators.”

The executive order directs the FAA to “establish the eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP) as an extension of the BEYOND program to accelerate the deployment of safe and lawful eVTOL operations in the United States.” At least five eIPP projects are to be selected.

The second executive order Trump signed, titled “Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty,” would complement the expansion of UAS flights by seeking new and expanded rules to secure critical infrastructure and US airspace against the unlawful use of drones and uncrewed aircraft. The order calls for the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to assist state, local and tribal governments with grants to pay for “equipment or services for the detection, tracking, or identification of drones.”

In the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024, Congress had mandated the FAA to release the draft Part 108 rule on BVLOS by September 2024. Rulemaking has been a challenge in recent years at the FAA, Vertiflite understands, in part because the agency has a limited workforce to publish rules or to enact a long backlog of congressional mandates. This was the case even before the Trump administration’s new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) began downsizing the federal workforce through layoffs or buyouts.

Meanwhile, the Senate finally held the first hearing on Trump’s nominee for FAA administrator, Republic Airways CEO Bryan Bedford, on June 11.

Budget Slashes Vertical Flight Research

Proposed cuts to the fiscal 2026 federal budget would trim or halt funding for a range of projects that benefit rotorcraft, eVTOL and other types of advanced air mobility (AAM) aircraft, and sustainable propulsion technologies.

On May 22, the House of Representatives passed its version of the Trump administration’s budget cuts, titled “One Big Beautiful Bill” with a narrow vote of 215 to 214, sending it for a review and vote in the Senate. Republicans hold a majority, with 53 of the 100 seats, and would require party unity to pass the bill, adjudicate any differences in a conference committee and send a final version to Trump’s desk.

The Trump administration budget seeks new and accelerated cuts to Army aviation, including the retirement of all Boeing AH-64D Apaches and the end of the GE Aerospace T901 Improved Turbine Engine Program to reengine newer helicopters (see “Army Transformation Initiative,” Vertiflite, Jul/Aug, 2025).

End of NASA RVLT

The Republican budget would also slash a quarter of NASA’s funding from $24.9B to $18.8B and lay off a third of its workforce. This includes a $346M reduction in the NASA Aeronautics Research Mission — from $935M to $588.7M — a 37% cut. These cuts would impact the NASA Advanced Air Vehicles Program (AAVP), which includes the Revolutionary Vertical Lift Technology (RVLT) project — and all research related to rotorcraft and eVTOL technologies — and the Hybrid Thermally Efficient Core (HyTEC) project with GE Aerospace to demonstrate a hybrid-electric engine. It would also end funding for NASA’s Electrified Powertrain Flight Demonstration (EPFD) project to develop and fly two separate hybrid-electric testbed aircraft with magniX and GE.

The details of the NASA impacts were published in the “FY 2026 Budget Technical Supplement” on June 9. They include completely eliminating the RVLT and HyTEC projects, canceling most of the work, and folding the remaining efforts into the new Subsonic Vehicle Technologies and Tools (SVTT) project. Although the government doesn’t publish funding at the project level, AAVP is reduced from $259.6M in 2025 to $133.4M, a cut of nearly 50%. It’s understood, however, that the funding for efforts currently under RVLT are being reduced by as much as 80%, from more than $30M in fiscal 2025.

The Supplement states:

AAVP will refocus on the priority challenge of providing the burgeoning US Advanced Air Mobility market with revolutionary engineering methods and validated computational tools to understand and address noise and performance and improve new vehicle designs. It will do so by descoping its vertical lift portfolio by reducing research on electric vehicles including ride handling, ride quality, crashworthiness, support for extra-planetary vehicles, DoD partnerships, and university collaborations and centers of excellence.

Finally, the Supplement contained plans to reduce the overall headcount of NASA from 17,391 by 31% to 11,943 civil service full-time equivalents (FTEs). The vast majority of the RVLT engineers and scientists are located at NASA’s Ames and Langley Research Centers. These FTEs for both centers are to be reduced by approximately 40%. More specifically, there are approximately 200 individuals working part time or full time on RVLT efforts, totaling about 100 FTEs.

On May 31, Trump added to the uncertainty at NASA by withdrawing his nominee for NASA administrator Jared Isaacman, a payment service entrepreneur and founder of Draken International military aircraft contractor who has flown on commercial space missions. A full-time NASA administrator would be responsible for implementing any reorganization at the agency.

Chilling Effect on Hydrogen, Electric Power

Pushback against the Republican budget includes a petition signed by more than 275 companies and organizations urging the Senate to maintain the Internal Revenue Code’s Section 45V hydrogen tax credit, which benefits US development of hydrogen power and aviation fuel. Signatories of the letter ranged from the American Petroleum Institute to Electric Hydrogen.

The tax credit enables hydrogen projects to access up to $3/kg of hydrogen produced until 2033. That credit would expire at the end of 2025 if Congress passed the proposed budget. The joint letter published on June 5 by the Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Energy Association (FCHEA) states that ending the tax credit “will drive tens of billions of dollars in planned private sector investments out of the United States and into other countries.”

The letter echoes ongoing fears in the aviation and science sectors that federal cuts and government layoffs could lead skilled engineers to leave the US and enable Europe or China to gain a technological lead in AAM, propulsion and sustainable energy.