Are You Ready For Part 108?

Happy Monday!

Before we dive in, Tesla set October 1 for the Roadster unveil. Nine years late, but who's counting…

The teaser shows four thruster plumes. Those are the SpaceX cold-gas thrusters Musk has been promising, and he said the package could lift the car off the road. Briefly.

We'll take it.

The Aerial Economy is shifting.

Today, every commercial drone operator flies under Part 107. It's a license for the sky, with four stipulations.

The first one is key.

It requires a human to keep eyes on the aircraft at all times. Unaided. Glasses are fine. Binoculars are not. A camera feed is not.

Here's what most people get wrong. Autonomous flight is perfectly legal. A drone can fly an entire mission by itself right now, today, under Part 107.

It just can't fly beyond visual line of sight.

That is the leash. Not the software. Not the hardware. A pair of human eyes standing in a field.

Three of those four rules can be waived. You apply to the FAA for one flight, in one location, and it expires. Weight is the only one you can't waive.

Which means the ceiling on this entire industry isn't battery life or autonomy or cost.

It's a filing cabinet in Washington. The FAA knows it. Enter Part 108.

Part 108 was first proposed on August 7, 2025.

It's a new operating framework built specifically for routine beyond visual line of sight flight. BVLOS.

This isn't a waiver. It's not an exemption.

Part 108 is a parallel rulebook that sits alongside Part 107. Part 107 governs a pilot. Part 108 governs an operation.

Here's what shifts.

Two doors. A lighter permit path for simple work over open country. A full operating certificate for everything else, which requires a safety management system, a training program, maintenance records, TSA vetting, and duty and rest limits.

Weight jumps to 1,320 pounds. Tiers at 55, 110, and 1,320. For reference, a Robinson R22 helicopter weighs 1,370. These drones are toys no more... 

Risk gets measured by who's underneath you. The FAA carved the country into five population density levels. Level 1 is empty ranchland. Level 5 is downtown. The permit path stops at Level 3.

Approval covers an area, not a flight. An operational area replaces the per-flight waiver. Prove the system once, then operate inside the volume.

The organization carries the liability, not the pilot. Two new roles show up. Operations Supervisor and Flight Coordinator. Neither one is chained to a single airframe.

Manufacturers declare airworthiness. No type certificate. That's what lets hardware move at software speed.

And the fight. Below 400 feet, a properly equipped Part 108 drone would hold right of way over crewed aircraft that aren't broadcasting their position. More than half of the roughly 3,100 comments hit that one provision. The FAA reopened the docket to gather additional feedback.

Part 107 isn't going anywhere.

Fly your own drone, keep it in sight; nothing changes in your life.

Part 107 is a driver's license. Part 108 is a CDL. 

Both still exist. They're designed for different jobs.

Here's the part worth sitting with.

Part 108 removes the required human attention per flight.

Right now every flight costs you a person standing in a field. Approve an area instead, staff a supervisor, and the next flight costs about what it costs to charge your phone.

When something goes from expensive to essentially 0, people don't buy more of it. They create things that were never possible. 

Here are a few that come to mind, 

Frequency is the product. A bridge gets inspected every two years. A power line gets a helicopter twice a year at helicopter rates. Nobody offers daily intelligence, because until now nobody could. This is a budget item in America. 

A radius replaces a truck. Every business that answers a call by sending a vehicle becomes a candidate for an aerial alternative. 

Two new career paths. Operations Supervisor. Flight Coordinator. 

Approved sky starts to look like property. An operational area is a right to fly a defined volume of air. Rights like that get claimed once. This is a gold rush.

Nobody knows what will pose as a viable business. But that’s the fun part. Put on your thinking caps… 

The final rule hit the White House budget office on July 10, 2026. Review runs 90 days. Day 90 lands October 8.

Nobody knows the exact approval date. 

But we do know this… Whatever gets built, it launches from somewhere. Real dirt, real power, real permits.

That part doesn't wait on Washington, and it takes longer than Washington will.

The people who win in this new sandbox aren't the ones with the best idea. They're the ones who moved before the starting gun.

Godspeed,

Riley