genuinely asking because i feel like every few months theres another update or proposed rule and i can never tell which ones actually went into effect vs which ones are still just proposals sitting somewhere. i do some real estate and inspection work on the side and i have my part 107 but even with that i find the LAANC stuff and the waivers confusing sometimes. like last month i needed to fly in class D airspace for a job and i got auto-approval through aloft which was great but then the next week a similar request just sat there for days and i ended up having to reschedule the client

is there a decent resource yall actually use to stay current on this stuff or do you just kind of piece it together from forums and youtube and hope for the best lol

the FAA drone zone site is honestly better than it used to be but its still not great for just quickly checking whats current vs proposed. i mostly use the Aloft app and cross reference with the AOPA drone newsletter thing, they send out updates whenever somethings actually changed and its pretty concise. the LAANC inconsistency you described is real and super frustrating, ive had the exact same experience where one area auto-approves instantly and a nearly identical request somewhere else just goes nowhere. i think it has to do with which facility is managing that airspace and how staffed they are honestly

the proposed rules around BVLOS are whats got my attention lately, if those go through the way theyre written it could open up a lot for inspection work especially for people doing stuff like cell towers or pipeline monitoring. still feels pretty far off though and knowing the FAA it'll be watered down by the time it actually passes. the commercial side of this industry is moving fast but the regulatory side moves like its still 2017