BEYOND Phase 2 Deadline Slips: Inside What the FAA Buys
The FAA pushed its BEYOND Phase 2 proposal deadline from September 10 to September 25. The focus areas read like a map of where commercial BVLOS is hardest today.
A federal drone partnership programme, doubled
On August 27, 2026, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy announced that the FAA was launching Phase 2 of its BEYOND programme, with an intent to add as many as eight more lead participants drawn from state, local, tribal and territorial governments, which would double the programme's current size. The solicitation behind that announcement has now moved its own deadline.
The deadline moved to September 25
The screening information request, number 697DCK-26-R-00423, went up on August 27 with written questions due September 3 and proposals due September 10 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern. Amendment 0001, published on September 9, extends the proposal due date to September 25, 2026 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern. The body text of the notice still shows the original September date, so anyone working from a saved copy should re-read the amendment before planning. A proposal here is not a bid for a contract. The FAA says the competitive selection will result in the award of up to eight other transaction agreements, and that the process is not an acquisition under the FAA's acquisition system.
What the agency is buying
The focus areas are unusually explicit. Four programme areas: infrastructure, scalability, safety and automation. Five operational problems top the FAA's list of obstacles: public safety work, flights in controlled airspace, remote and rural corridors with thin infrastructure, on-airport flying, and missions that cross international borders. That list reads like a description of where commercial BVLOS is hardest right now. Rural corridors with thin infrastructure are where a large share of linear assets sit. Controlled airspace is where the airspace authorisation queue bites. On-airport work is where the agency's own rules meet airport operators. The programme is also a data purchase. FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford described the point of the expansion as tackling what is still unsolved in BVLOS work, emergency response missions, on-airport flying and other demanding airspace. The agency's framing is that BEYOND exists so drones can operate under standing rules instead of waivers, and that the data from Phase 1 is already feeding the BVLOS rule. Across Phase 1, participants logged over 70,000 flights, of which more than 48,000 were BVLOS missions. Congress authorised this expansion in the 2024 FAA reauthorization law, section 920.
What a BEYOND seat is not
It is not your authorisation. A lead participant is a state, local, tribal or territorial entity, and the operating authority inside the programme runs to the participants and their teams. A commercial operator working with a selected lead may fly under that umbrella, but nothing about the programme changes the waiver, exemption, certificate or airspace authorisation your own company holds. Treat programme announcements as a signal about where the regulator is putting attention and money, not as a green light for your next job.
Why this matters to right-of-way work
If your customers include state departments of transportation, port authorities, tribal utilities or rural electric cooperatives, those are the organisations most likely to be drafting proposals this month or working with a lead that is. Pushing the deadline to September 25 gives them two extra weeks, which in practice means another round of scoping about which corridors, which airspace, and what data the lead will commit to sharing. Those conversations are worth being in. The operating areas defined under Phase 2 will generate flight and conformance data that feeds performance standards in the final BVLOS rule, and corridors characterised early tend to be the ones with a workable template when the rule lands.
The takeaway
If a BEYOND-shaped lane touches your work, use the extra two weeks. Ask three questions of the lead you are talking to: what operating area and airspace will you propose, how will flight and conformance data be shared, and who holds the authorisation for each flight. Then check that your own waivers and exemptions are current and not close to expiry, because the programme's authority does not transfer to your certificates.
Related reading
Continue the thread.
Related posts are pulled from the same primary topic as the current article.
Every Part 91 Drone Approval Now Carries a See-and-Avoid Waiver
The FAA's rewritten processing order puts a see-and-avoid waiver on every Part 91 drone approval, splits line of sight and BVLOS requests between two offices, and relaxes coordination for vertical structure inspections.
The UK Just Turned Repeat BVLOS Approvals Into a Screening Job
The CAA's fourth edition of CAP3040 adds a route for running equivalent atypical air environment operations at multiple sites under a single authorisation, with the site-by-site evidence moving to the operator.
Docks on the railway: what routine BVLOS changes for incident response
Seven fixed docks, one operations centre and a command link that has to survive at altitude. The rail deployment is a useful template for remote response work.