US to allow drones on low, daytime flights

Washington

THE first commercial drones in the US will have to stay lower than 500 feet (152.4m) and within sight of an operator, and fly during daytime only, federal regulators say.

An economic analysis to justify opening the nation's skies to small commercial unmanned aircraft, obtained by Bloomberg News, provides the first glimpse of how the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) plans to integrate robotic and remote-controlled aircraft into the civilian aviation system. The content of the document was verified by a person familiar with the regulatory process.

It shows that the agency initially will not permit the kind of delivery flights by drone envisioned by Amazon Inc chief executive officer Jeff Bezos. The company is designin…