The Federal Aviation Administration has formally launched the competitive selection process for Phase 2 of its BEYOND program, releasing a Screening Information Request (SIR 697DCK-26-R-00423) that will award up to eight Other Transaction Agreements (OTAs) to state, local, tribal and territorial (SLTT) governments to expand beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drone operations across the country. The solicitation, issued by the FAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems and Advanced Air Mobility Integration Office (AUS), effectively doubles the size of a program that has already logged tens of thousands of BVLOS flights nationwide.
Proposals are due by 3:00 p.m. ET on September 10, 2026, with written questions accepted through 1:00 p.m. ET on September 3. Interested offerors must maintain an active registration in the System for Award Management (SAM.gov) by the offer due date, and all questions and submissions go directly to Contracting Officer Kristin Frantz and Contract Specialist Jackson LeMay.
A Legal Vehicle Built for Speed, Not a Contract
Notably, the FAA has been explicit that this is not a traditional procurement. The SIR states plainly that “this competitive selection process is not a procurement or acquisition under the FAA Acquisition Management System,” and no acquisition requirements were developed for it. Instead, relying on the FAA Administrator’s authority under 49 U.S.C. §106(l) and (m), the agency will issue Other Transaction Agreements—a more flexible legal instrument than a standard contract, often used to move faster on innovative, non-commercial-off-the-shelf work. The agency reserves the right to execute additional OTAs beyond the initial eight “if resources permit.”
The program’s expansion is authorized by Section 920 of the FAA Reauthorization Act of 2024 (P.L. 118-63), which directed the FAA to grow BEYOND beyond its original eight-participant footprint.
From IPP to BEYOND: A Six-Year Runway
BEYOND did not appear out of nowhere. It traces back to the UAS Integration Pilot Program (IPP), launched by presidential memorandum in October 2017, which drew 149 applicants competing to test drone integration under real operational conditions. When IPP concluded in October 2020 as mandated by statute, the FAA rolled eight of its nine SLTT participants directly into a successor initiative: BEYOND, launched October 26, 2020, as a four-year effort designed to push past IPP’s findings and generate the operational and safety data needed to eventually normalize routine BVLOS flight.
The original BEYOND Phase 1 lead participants were the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma; the Kansas Department of Transportation; the Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority in Tennessee; the Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership (formerly the Virginia Innovation and Entrepreneurship Investment Authority); the North Carolina Department of Transportation; the North Dakota Department of Transportation; the City of Reno, Nevada; and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Over the course of Phase 1, which formally concluded in 2024, those partners together flew more than 70,000 missions, including over 48,000 beyond visual line of sight. That dataset, the FAA has said, directly informed the agency’s now-pending BVLOS rule and helped shift drone oversight away from one-off waivers and exemptions toward standardized, performance-based rules.
FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford framed Phase 2 as a continuation of that trajectory, saying it “will expand the partnerships and operations needed to address remaining challenges in beyond visual line of sight operations, public safety missions, on-airport operations and other complex airspace environments.” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy tied the expansion to broader competitiveness goals, saying the effort is meant to ensure “the next generation of aviation technology is developed, tested and built right here in the United States”.
What Phase 2 Is Actually Trying to Solve
BEYOND Phase 2 is organized around four programmatic focus areas—infrastructure, scalability, safety and automation—paired with five operational challenge areas the FAA has identified as the toughest remaining barriers to scaled BVLOS operations: public safety missions, controlled airspace, remote and rural areas with inadequate infrastructure, on-airport operations, and cross-border flights. That list signals where the agency believes the regulatory and technical gaps are widest even as commercial BVLOS activity accelerates; FAA data cited by the DOT Inspector General shows approved BVLOS operations jumped from 1,229 in 2020 to 26,870 in 2023 under the current waiver-based system.
By selecting up to eight new lead participants, the FAA is essentially doubling its live-fire laboratory for the kinds of edge cases that a nationwide rule can’t easily anticipate on paper—airport ramps, congested controlled airspace, cross-border corridors and infrastructure-poor rural terrain.
The Elephant in the Room: Part 108
The timing underscores an uncomfortable reality for the drone industry: the rule BEYOND was supposed to help build, commonly referred to as Part 108, is still not final. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking was published August 7, 2025, opening a 60-day comment period that drew nearly 3,100 submissions, more than half concerning proposed right-of-way requirements. A limited reopened comment window on right-of-way and electronic conspicuity provisions closed in February 2026. The rule finally reached the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs for final review on July 10, 2026—the last major step before publication—but OIRA reviews of significant rules can run up to 90 days, and a 43-day government shutdown has already pushed back an original February 2026 target deadline tied to a presidential executive order. Industry trackers now peg a realistic final-rule publication for late 2026 or into 2027, with phased compliance dates extending a year or more beyond that.
That means BEYOND Phase 2 participants will spend at least their first year, and possibly longer, operating under the current patchwork of Part 107 and Part 91 waivers and exemptions rather than the streamlined, scalable framework Part 108 is meant to deliver. For an industry that has spent years waiting on a durable rule for routine BVLOS flight, the new OTA competition offers real near-term opportunity for SLTT governments and their industry partners, but it also reinforces that the regulatory finish line, while closer, has not yet been crossed.