Robert Rahm |
October 2, 2026 
The FAA’s issued-waiver list put a four-day certificate on the board today, and the useful reading is how small the permission is.
Waiver 107W-2026-00688 is issued to Butsch Media. The responsible person is Andrew Butsch, at 1777 River Lakes Road North, Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. The certificate is effective October 2, 2026, through October 5, 2026, and the FAA can cancel it on notice. The operations area on the paper is Burlington, Wisconsin, in Class G / E5 airspace with a 700-foot AGL floor. The maximum altitude allowed is 600 feet AGL.
That is the whole geography. The company address is Oconomowoc. The flight box is Burlington. Nothing in the certificate makes this a Racine County rule, a weekend event rule, or a permission slip for the next remote pilot who launches off the same shoulder.
The issued list shows the waived sections as 14 CFR 107.31, 107.33(b) and (c)(2), 107.39, 107.51(b), 107.51(d), and 107.145. In plain language: visual line of sight, two visual-observer duties, operations over human beings, the 400-foot altitude limit, cloud clearance, and operations over moving vehicles. The operations-authorized block also says the holder may conduct 107.41 operations under this waiver at or below published UAS Facility Map altitudes. That sentence is not the same thing as a blank airspace authorization. If the map altitude is lower than the waiver altitude, the lower number still governs.
The special provisions put the interesting limits back in.
Altitude is not whatever the job needs. Non-shielded operations with visual observers may not exceed 600 feet AGL. The remote pilot has to be inside the operational area with a viewshed that continuously covers at least a two-statute-mile radius around the aircraft, and has to move if that viewshed breaks. Enough visual observers have to cover the same two-mile radius, on a continuous full-duplex link, hands-free for the remote pilot, with a backup. If that link fails, the operation stops.
Cloud clearance is waived on the face of the certificate and then rewritten. The paper says operations into clouds are prohibited and the aircraft must remain clear of clouds at all times. A pilot who treats 107.51(d) waived as permission to punch a layer is reading the title, not the provision.
Over people is the line that will get misquoted. Section 107.39 is waived only inside provision 14. The aircraft, including prop guards, the Remote ID module, camera, anti-collision lights, and payload, must not exceed 0.88 pounds all-up weight. Rotating-component shielding, or a system that prevents lacerations, is required. Open-air assemblies are prohibited. Sustained operations over non-participants or moving vehicles are prohibited. The waiver defines sustained as loitering, hovering, and continuous or sequential overflight. A transit is not a hover. An event that wants the drone parked over the crowd does not fit this paper.
Night is out, including civil twilight, as those terms are used in 14 CFR 1.1 and 107.29(c). Anti-collision lighting compliant with 107.29 still has to be on the aircraft and operational the whole flight. Standard Remote ID is required: the aircraft has to be on the FAA-accepted declaration of compliance list unless the Administrator authorizes otherwise in writing. ADS-B Out on 1090 or 978 MHz may not be transmitted. An ADS-B In receiver other than a phone or a third-party internet feed has to be on and monitored.
The Responsible Person has to file a NOTAM no more than 72 hours and no less than 24 hours before operating, by calling 1-877-487-6867, and has to confirm the NOTAM is out before launch. Inside three statute miles of an airport, airport management has to be notified, a radio or phone link established, and CTAF monitored. Geofencing has to hold the aircraft inside the operational volume from the waiver application. Return-to-home may not leave that volume. Launch and recovery areas have to be kept clear of anyone who is not a direct participant. Direct participants have to be visually identifiable. The certificate does not waive state law or a local ordinance, and it has to be shown on request to the FAA or to a state or municipal official enforcing local law.
A Part 107 pilot working near Burlington this weekend should treat the paper as traffic information, not as cover. You do not get to 600 feet because Butsch Media does. You do not get to cross a road full of cars because 107.145 is on someone else’s list. If a NOTAM is up for the operation, plan around it. If you are inside three miles of an airport they were required to call, you still make your own airport call for your own flight. The same-day issued list also shows an Airloom Inc. waiver, issuance date October 2, expiration October 3, against 107.51(b) only. That is a different sheet of paper. Do not merge the two.
For a contractor who sells short event or film work, the transferable piece is the shape. A four-day window. A named responsible person. A town, not a state. A weight cap that includes the guards. A ban on the thing the client usually wants, which is the drone sitting over the crowd. An operations manual that has to exist before launch, with emergency procedures and a Part 107.9 / NTSB 830 accident path written down. Percepto’s dock waiver, 107W-2026-02228, is the other current example on this desk: a long industrial BVLOS paper, not a weekend crowd paper. They are not substitutes.
The certificate expires October 5. After that, Burlington goes back to ordinary Part 107 unless a new waiver says otherwise. Read the PDF before you brief a client. The issued-list row is the index. The special provisions are the job.