WASHINGTON (AP) — Designers of the ambitious U.S. air traffic control system of the future neglected to take drones into account, raising questions about whether it can handle the escalating demand for the unmanned aircraft and predicted congestion in the sky.
“We didn’t understand the magnitude to which (drones) would be an oncoming tidal wave, something that must be dealt with, and quickly,” said Ed Bolton, the Federal Aviation Administration’s assistant administrator for NextGen, as the program is called.
I understand that the FAA is a government bureaucracy and all, but how could they have failed to see this coming? This is especially troubling, given the fact that it will be very difficult to “retrofit” the system:
The FAA has spent more than $5 billion on the complex program and is nearly finished installing hardware and software for several key systems. But the further it progresses, the more difficult it becomes to make changes.
The problem that regulators are just starting to realize has to do with incompatibility between large drones and the usual aircraft occupying Class A airspace. For example:
Planes at high altitudes are supposed follow designated highways in the sky to avoid collisions. A typical airliner on that highway might fly at over 500 mph, while a drone at the same altitude might fly at only 175 mph, he said. The more drones, the worse the traffic jam.
As policymakers consider drone regulation – particularly with respect to privacy and safety – the possible fields of regulation fall into five principal realms: operators, flight, purpose, property and surreptitious use. Some of these categories face practical difficulties, while others present constitutional issues. Nevertheless, these five fields offer a framework to help make sense of the legislation and regulation emerging around the use of drones.
The authors intend to visit the history of the FAA’s piecemeal approach, tomorrow.
A powerful realtor lobbying firm will be working with the FAA on developing rules governing the use of drones in aerial photography:
The National Association of Realtors announced last week it was invited to sit on a newly formed working group focused on regulating drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles, and how to integrate them into the ‘‘national airspace system.’’
They are asking pointed questions about the FAA’s ban on commercial drones:
‘‘Aerial real estate photography and videography is nothing new,’’ said Brian Saver, a principal with McWilliams Ballard in West Palm Beach who uses video taken from drone flights to market his listings. ‘‘It’s just been done from real helicopters for ages. Where was the outrage there? Drones simply make it more affordable and accessible to more realtors.’’
We’re not sure that the helicopter analogy is entirely correct, but you get the point.
Because when you get down to it:
Many say the demand for drone work, and money to be earned, outweighs the risk of getting a cease and desist order from the FAA.
‘‘From an economic standpoint, we can’t just stand by and let this business pass,’’ Paul Morris, owner of Miami Aerial, told The Palm Beach Post last month. ‘‘My bone of contention is an amateur can go fly when a professional can’t. Who is more apt to have a problem?’’
It really doesn’t make much sense. ‘Shame that regular people are noticing.
Robb Heering, a Wellington attorney who specializes in federal regulatory law and is a licensed realtor with his own firm, said the FAA’s warnings against commercial use are all bluster.
He doesn’t believe it has any authority to stop realtors from using drones.
We like the defiant attitude on display in this article.
This is getting to be a common occurrence. We see these kinds of incidents as support for the proposition, discussed here, that the FAA treat regulations of small, line of sight drones (i.e., “microdrones”) as consumer products, like cell phones.
Writing at Aviation Today, authors Henry Perritt, Jr. and Eliot O. Sprague make some interesting suggestions for a more practical, alternative approach to FAA regulations for small, line of sight drones (what they call “microdrones”): Treat them as a consumer product, like a cell phone or lawn mower.
They begin with a stunning admission from the FAA:
In May 2014, Jim Williams, head of the FAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) office, told the Small Unmanned Systems Business Expo that general regulations for microdrones would not be promulgated until after 2020. Congress, in the 2012 FAA Modernization and Reform Act, mandated that such regulations be effective no later than 2015. This much of a delay beyond the congressionally mandated deadline invites a lawsuit telling the FAA to move forward quickly.
The reason it will take so long is that the FAA assumes that it will begin with existing regulations for manned aircraft and adapt them line by line, to the peculiarities of microdrones.
Instead, the authors argue,
the agency should take advantage of the capabilities of microdrone technology to enforce certain limits on flight profiles autonomously. Such an approach would focus FAA energy on defining what limits should be built into drones commercially marketed, relieving it of detailed regulation of airmen and detailed flight rules to be enforced in the conventional way.
Taking a cue from the FCC’s regulation of cell phones, the authors suggest that the FAA require that microdrones have certain limitations and capabilities built into their hardware and software. For example:
The most basic rules to be encoded into microdrones are already agreed on. First, a height limit is necessary to keep microdrones away from the airspace in which manned craft fly most of the time. Under the proposed approach, legal microdrones must have a navigational mechanism – a combination of barometric pressure sensors and GPS navigational systems – that would not permit them to fly above 400 ft. AGL.
Second, microdrones can be flown only within line of sight. In order to keep them there, microdrones must have a built-in radius limit of, say, 1,500 ft. horizontally from the DROP.
As a further prerequisite for certification, microdrones must have a return-to-home feature that could be triggered by the DROP, and which would be automatically triggered by loss of signal. This also might be triggered by an indication that the DROP has become inattentive, kind of like the “dead man control” on railroad locomotives.
Many microdrone operators would probably not be in full agreement on these proposed limitations. We imagine, for instance, that operators would not be happy with the FAA imposing an arbitrary maximum horizontal radius to enforce line of sight. But, on balance, this seems to us like a preferable approach to insuring that both commercial operators and hobbyists are able to use off-the-shelf technology without having to go through the cumbersome process of obtaining traditional FAA certifications.
Forbes has a wide-ranging article on the FAA’s hold-up on drone regulations, and what it means for commercial innovation. It’s already familiar territory for those of us who follow the issue, but this passage regarding the FAA’s explanation jumped out at us:
So what’s the hold up? A spokesperson for the regulator told Fortune that the agency has made “significant progress toward that goal, even as it dealt with disruptions due to sequestration and a three-week government shutdown.” Then there are technical issues to work through: the spokesperson said, the agency is developing a mechanism through which manned and unmanned aircrafts can communicate to avoid collisions.
“This is an exciting new technology,” the FAA said in statement. “People want to see what it can do—and what they can do with it. Detect and Avoid and Command and Control are two key integration-related research areas that must be addressed before routine beyond-line-of sight operations will be authorized to fly.”
(emphasis added).
By emphasizing beyond-line-of sight operations, the FAA seems to tacitly admit that it has no answer for why it is holding up regulations for line-of-sight (LOS) operations. All that the agency has managed to do thus far is pick a fight over how narrowly it can define LOS. Meanwhile, it goes around playing whack-a-mole with operators who pose no real threat to public safety.
As one interviewee comments, the FAA needs to change to a risk-based approach. Give some leeway for the development of low-altitude operations that can be safely managed without posing a risk to air traffic while, at the same time, technology is being developed for the full integration of beyond-LOS vehicles. The delay is killing potential job growth and investment.
Many drone advocates fear that the ongoing delay will make the U.S a laggard, behind countries like Canada, which issues flying permits in couple of weeks. In 2013, Canada’s airspace regulator issued 945 drone permits—a significant increase compared to 345 issued in 2012. Here in the U.S. the FAA has issued 700-750 authorizations since 2006.
Getting your ass kicked by Canada is never a good sign, but that’s an embarrassing statistic.
In a letter Tuesday (download PDF), AUVSI president and CEO Michael Toscano urged the U.S. Department of Transportation to grant Amazon an exemption that would allow the online giant to conduct immediate outdoor tests of its commercial drones.
AUVSI points out that allowing Amazon to test will help spur job growth in an industry that promises to employ tens of thousands, at the very least.
The report also contains some interesting details regarding Amazon’s efforts:
According to Amazon, it is currently testing a range of capabilities including agility, flight duration and sense-and-avoid sensors on its eighth and ninth-generation aerial vehicles. All of the tests are being carried out in indoor facilities or at overseas locations and involve battery-driven, rotor-powered, unmanned aerial vehicles weighing less than 55 pounds.
As we have previously noted, it is unfortunate that Amazon is currently being forced to conduct its outdoor tests overseas. We should be developing this knowledge base here, in the U.S.
Gregory McNeal has written an in-depth article on Forbes discussing the relationship between Disney’s patent applications and the need for the FAA to enact regulations that encourage, not stifle, innovation. The article is informative and well worth reading in full, but I’ll just excerpt a couple of points:
If Disney tried to use drones today, the FAA would immediately order them to cease their operations. That’s because the FAA believes that the commercial use of drones is unlawful (barring some limited exceptions) until such time as the agency promulgates new regulations.
Yes, the FAA’s rules are absurd for a number of reasons, not least of which is that Disney operates on vast areas of private land. Granted, the Disneyland property is surrounded on all sides by the city of Anaheim, but Disney World covers some 47 square miles. Shouldn’t such a large private property owner – especially one that regularly launches fireworks hundreds of feet into the air – be allowed to innovate within certain parameters? Say, below a certain altitude?
Even if the FAA promulgates new regulations, it is not clear that they will allow Disney’s flights. That’s because many believe that the FAA is planning to issue regulations that privilege certain types of drones and drone manufacturers — specifically those drones that have been previously used by the military or that are produced by major aerospace companies.
Government bureaucracies tend to model their rules based on what they know. And what the FAA knows about drones really doesn’t go much beyond what the public knows – i.e., drones that are used for military and intel purposes. Nothing scares the bejesus out of a bureaucrat more than the thought of something he doesn’t understand or, worse, something he can’t control. And private sector innovation threatens to force the FAA to accept the inherent risk in allowing such innovation to flourish.
There is also the problem, as McNeal mentions, of regulatory capture. Big government agencies tend to be part of a revolving door between those who regulate and those who are regulated. Many former bureaucrats become lobbyists for industries they once regulated. Many former leaders of regulated industries become heads of bureaucracies that they once answered to. The results in a feedback loop of money and industry cronyism, as each knows that the health of the other can affect his or her future career.
Seen from this point of view, an innovator like Disney must seem like an interloper, or a misfit. People who have been going through the revolving door just don’t know what to make of it.
Finally, McNeal notes Disney’s safety-consciousness. As someone who once worked at a Disney theme park (I was a monorail driver at Disney World – I won’t mention how long ago), I can personally vouch for how obsessed Disney is with safety. Disney’s corporate culture, how it values its public image, and of course its underwriters, all place excruciating pressures on Disney’s design and operations personnel to give Disney guests an experience that is both memorable and safe.
Disney is an ideal laboratory for the very sort of innovation that the FAA should be encouraging. Let’s hope that the FAA does the right thing.
News is circulating about three petitions that were filed today against the FAA challenging its special rule interpretation of “model aircraft” under the FAA Modernization Re-Authorization and Reform Act of 2012. The petitions are available for viewing here, at Motherboard. I haven’t checked the rules on this, but I take it that merits briefs will be filed in the coming months.
Major kudos to Peter Sachs, founder of the blogs, Drone Pilots Association and Drone Law Journal. Peter is a true gentleman and a great advocate who has done yeoman’s work on this issue.
