Tag Archives: UAS

About those Disney patent applications

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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.

Three petitions filed against the FAA

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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.

Drone service to launch in South Florida

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Coral Springs-based OpenSky Drones, LLC is launching a service that would use drones for building and safety inspections, among other things.

The unmanned aircraft’s cameras can live-stream visuals needed for building inspections, as well as natural gas detection and cellular tower energy readings for utilities and government agencies.

The service will not become operational until it receives FAA approval. We are frankly unsure of whether the service really needs FAA approval, given the Pirker decision, so long as the service operates line-of-sight aircraft below 400 feet and away from airports. But, as we’ve said before, serious investors in this new field want to play nice because it’s good for business over the long term to do so.

The question is, will the FAA play nice? Approving a business like this should be a no-brainer.

h/t sUAS News

Twin Cities Law Firm Launches Drone Practice

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The Twin Cities law firm of Fafinski Mark & Johnson is launching a “drone” practice group. The law firm “said Tuesday that it has been closely monitoring the developing drone industry, and legal advisors and litigators from its aviation group will lead the new practice group.”

Expect to see more aviation law firms expand into the realm of drone law.

FAA Investigates Congressman’s Drone Wedding Video

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Whoops:

The Federal Aviation Administration indicated Wednesday that it is investigating whether a video of an upstate New York congressman’s wedding last month violated the agency’s ban on drone flights for commercial purposes.

The agency’s carefully worded statement doesn’t mention Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, a Democrat, by name, but said it was looking into “a report of an unmanned aircraft operation in Cold Spring, New York, on June 21 to determine if there was any violation of federal regulations or airspace restrictions.”

Although we hope that the photographer doesn’t get hit, on balance we find this situation to be rather amusing. The FAA is being forced by its own misguided rhetoric to investigate an event that was paid for by a member of Congress whose responsibilities include FAA oversight.

Break out the popcorn.

Amazon seeks FAA permission to test drone delivery

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Amazon’s share price is apparently up, in part on news that it has sought FAA approval to test its drone delivery system:

Amazon is asking the government to allow testing of its new delivery mechanism — small package-carrying drones that can travel at up to 50 miles per hour. The company notes in its letter that its drones can now carry loads up to 5 pounds, which it notes covers 86% of all products sold on Amazon.

There’s a lot of confusion in the article, some of which appears to be the fault of Amazon, itself. Let’s begin with this statement:

The FAA, which controls the skies above the US, has prohibited companies from testing drones — only making an exception for hobbyists

Well, not exactly. The FAA doesn’t control all of the skies above the U.S., but only that part of the skies over which it has traditionally exercised jurisdiction. As well, the “exception” for hobbyists is not tethered to the ban on testing, and the FAA has yet to enact regulations defining “hobbyists.” The comment period on the definition has yet to close.

More to the point, the NTSB judge ruled in Huerta v. Pirker that the FAA had failed to draw any meaningful distinction between someone who operates a model aircraft for pleasure and one who operates the same or similar model aircraft for profit. As far as anyone can tell at the moment, the only effective prohibition at the moment applies to aircraft that are operated beyond line of sight – i.e., by methods other than those traditionally employed by hobbyists.

This brings us to the next point:

Amazon argues that its drone testing will actually be safer than that of hobbyists, flying under 400 feet and “in a confined area over isolated Amazon private property” away from airports, government installations, and densely populated areas.

But would they be operated within line of sight? Amazon’s letter to the FAA provides additional detail regarding its proposed testing operations:

The sUAS will (i) have a maximum weight of less than 55 pounds; (ii) be rotorpowered
via a battery source; and (iii) be U.S.‐registered and display marks in accordance with 14 C.F.R. Part 45, Subpart C.5

Our sUAS R&D testing under this exemption will be conducted (i) within the visual line of sight of the operator and/or one or more observers; (ii) at less than 400 feet AGL; and (iii) within Class G airspace.

The operations will be conducted in a confined area over isolated Amazon private property located a sufficient distance away from (i) any airport, heliport, seaplane base, spaceport or other location with aviation activities; (ii) any densely populated areas; and (iii) any military or U.S. government installations or airfields.

All operations will remain within the lateral and vertical boundaries of the operating area, taking into account all factors, including wind, gross weight and glide distances, that may affect the capability of the sUAS to remain within the airspace boundary; moreover, the integrity of the operating area will be reinforced by geo‐fencing, including the ceiling height of no more than 400 feet AGL.

Given these parameters, it is tempting to suggest that Amazon could rely on the Pirker decision and not seek permission from the FAA. But of course, the last thing Amazon wants is to give the FAA an excuse to shut it down. Amazon is trying to play nice, here. The question is whether the FAA will do the right thing.

Earlier in the letter, Amazon indicates that it has thus far been forced to conduct testing either indoors or in foreign countries that already have regulations in place. The fact that Amazon has been forced to conduct its testing abroad is a shame. The FAA should promptly grant Amazon’s request.

FAA Rewrites Timeline for Integration of UAS

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Aviation Week reports that the FAA is preparing to implement a 5-year plan for the phased integration of UAS.

Responding to an auditor’s report critical of its progress toward integrating unmanned aircraft into national airspace, the FAA says it expects to complete a plan by the end of August for a phased implementation approach over five years.

That is good news. However, the article contains this nugget of denial from the FAA regarding the timing of its plan as required by Section 332 of the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012. In response to the Inspector General’s conclusion that the FAA will miss its September 30, 2015 deadline to safely and fully integrate UAS into the national airspace, the FAA responds: “The Act requires safe – not full – integration of UAS into the NAS by September 2015.”

We suppose this depends on what the meaning of “integration” is. Section 332(a)(1) of the Act required the FAA to have a plan in place for the integration of UAS within 270 days of the Act’s date of enactment. The required contents of that plan included provisions for:

(C) a phased-in approach to the integration of civil unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace system;
(D) a timeline for the phased-in approach described under subparagraph (C)….

The plan scheduled for release at the end of August would apparently comply with those requirements in substance, but it’s coming about a year too late.

In the meantime, Section 332(a)(3) of the Act clearly states:

The plan required under paragraph (1) shall provide for the safe integration of civil unmanned aircraft systems into the national airspace system as soon as practicable, but not later than September 30, 2015.

The FAA now claims that this language requires some level of safe integration, but not complete integration, by that deadline. This might be a defensible position, given Congress’ omission of the word “all” from the sentence. But given the FAA’s history of foot-dragging, it strikes us as more of a post hoc rationale than a good-faith interpretation of Congressional intent.

Mainstream Press Starting to Notice FAA’s Epic Fail

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The Associated Press ran an article yesterday on the IG’s report, which we suppose means that the FAA’s epic fail on developing a regulatory framework for integrating UAS (drones) into the national airspace is poised to become a big story in the mainstream press:

Despite years of research, the Federal Aviation Administration hasn’t figured out what kind of technology unmanned aircraft should use to avoid crashing into other planes, or how to prevent lost links with ground control stations, Matthew Hampton, the Transportation Department’s assistant inspector general for aviation, said in a report.

The FAA also hasn’t set standards for certifying the safety of drone designs and manufacture like those that exist for manned aircraft, the report said. Nor has the agency developed standard procedures for air traffic controllers to guide drones, partly because the FAA’s air traffic control equipment wasn’t developed with unmanned aircraft in mind. There is no adequate program for training controllers how to manage drones. And criteria for training “pilots” who remotely control drones from the ground have yet to be developed.

The story includes this laughable excuse:

FAA officials, defending the agency’s record, said in a statement that the FAA “has made significant progress” toward giving drones wider access to U.S. skies “even as it dealt with disruptions” due to automatic, government-wide spending cuts and a three-week partial government shutdown.

That story might hold water if the partial government shutdown had lasted substantially longer than three weeks. Of course, no agency was given more leeway by Congress during the shutdown, and the notion that the sequester had any material impact on the FAA’s ability to develop UAS regulations over a period of years seems like plain nonsense.

Regardless of budget constraints, the FAA has wasted significant resources prosecuting small operators like Raphael Pirker while harassing countless others. It has also found the time and resources to go around lying to the public that it has effectively banned “all” commercial drone activity. These lawless actions amount to nothing more than an effort at distracting the public and the media from the FAA’s failure to do what Congress has mandated.

As we noted yesterday, President Obama needs to start firing people.

FAA Faces Significant Barriers to Safely Integrating UAS Vehicles Into the National Airspace System

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To the surprise of no one who’s been paying attention, the FAA finds itself in a pickle.

A scathing new Inspector General report suggests that the office of the FAA tasked with integrating drones into the national air space is in disarray and suggests that the agency has so many hurdles to clear before drones can be safely integrated nationwide that it believes the day drones become commonplace may never come.

Here is the Inspector General’s summary:

Significant technological, regulatory, and management barriers exist to safely integrate UAS into the NAS. First, following many years of working with industry, FAA has not reached consensus on standards for technology that would enable UAS to detect and avoid other aircraft and ensure reliable data links between ground stations and the unmanned aircraft they control. Second, FAA has not established a regulatory framework for UAS integration, such as aircraft certification requirements, standard air traffic procedures for safely managing UAS with manned aircraft, or an adequate controller training program for managing UAS. Third, FAA is not effectively collecting and analyzing UAS safety data to identify risks. This is because FAA has not developed procedures for ensuring that all UAS safety incidents are reported and tracked or a process for sharing UAS safety data with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), the largest user of UAS. Finally, FAA is not effectively managing its oversight of UAS operations. Although FAA established a UAS Integration Office, it has not clarified lines of reporting or established clear guidance for UAS regional inspectors on authorizing and overseeing UAS operations. Until FAA addresses these barriers, UAS integration will continue to move at a slow pace, and safety risks will remain.

This suggests a shocking level of disarray within the organization. The easiest part of this process, and one that should have begun years ago, would be to establish a system for collecting safety data. But the FAA hasn’t even established a regime for sharing safety data with the DoD, let alone collecting data from the private sector. Given recent “enforcement” actions, one imagines that the FAA has assigned a roomful of interns to collect safety data by monitoring news stories on the internet.

It’s like asking Johnny to hand in his essay and finding that Johnny hasn’t even begun researching his topic, let alone started writing. Perhaps Johnny can be forgiven. But a major US regulatory agency with oversight of a critical public safety function shouldn’t be cut any slack. And this is not just endangering public safety; it’s holding up billions of dollars in business investment that promises to create many high-paying jobs. It’s not like we have a surplus of economic growth flying around, these days.

POTUS needs to start firing people. But I’m not holding my breath.