Field notes
Every article here is built from documents you can open yourself: the FAA newsroom and docket, the eCFR, the FCC, NASA research, and nonprofit safety bodies. No third-party paraphrase, no vendor marketing.
Browse
Four running threads. Each category lives at its own URL, so you can bookmark or share the thread you care about.
Regulations
What the FAA has actually published — rules in force, proposals out for comment, and what each one means for a small operator.
2 articles →
Maintenance
Readiness, records, and the preflight discipline that keeps an aircraft airworthy. The subject our tracker software exists to serve.
2 articles →
FPV
First-person view flying: how the video link works, how it differs from a camera drone, and the rules that follow the goggles.
1 article →
STEM
Teaching flight through building. Classroom kits, safety structure, and the research behind hands-on aerospace education.
1 article →
Latest
Regulations8 min read
On 6 August 2025 the FAA and TSA published a joint notice of proposed rulemaking that would create a new 14 CFR Part 108. Here is what the agency's own summary and fact sheet say — and what they do not.
August 18, 2026
Regulations7 min read
The difference is not the aircraft and it is not the money. It is the purpose of the flight — and each path has its own certificate, its own test, and its own limits.
August 11, 2026
Maintenance7 min read
The FAA requires the remote pilot to determine the aircraft is in a condition for safe operation before every flight. That determination is only as good as the history behind it.
August 4, 2026
Maintenance6 min read
14 CFR 107.49 lists what the remote pilot must assess before every flight. Read as a checklist rather than as prose, it is a complete preflight in five parts.
July 28, 2026
FPV8 min read
They both have four motors and a camera. Almost everything else — the control mode, the video path, the failure behavior and the legal footing — is different.
July 21, 2026
STEM7 min read
The airframe is the least interesting part. A build program earns its place in a curriculum through the documentation, the safety structure and the failure analysis around it.
July 14, 2026
