If you had been in Boulder City, Nevada last December 19,
you would have found Governor Brian Sandoval, a U. S. senator, U. S. Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA) officials, and representatives of a company that
manufactures the Magpie, an unmanned aircraft, all gathered to watch the first
official test flight at one of six new test facilities the FAA has established
to explore how "unmanned aircraft systems" (UASs for short) can
safely use the same airspace that is now occupied by manned aircraft. A video of the test flight shows a man
holding what looks like a large model plane. At a signal, he heaves it into the air. It flies about twenty feet and
nose-dives into the gravel, bending its nose propeller and eliciting a groan
from the crowd.
It wasn't exactly an auspicious start to a program that the
FAA has undertaken to fast-track new regulations that will accommodate the
increasing pressure on the agency to allow legal commercial use of UASs,
commonly called drones, far beyond what present regulations permit. But at least nobody was hurt, except
maybe in the pride department. As I noted in this space over a year ago, experimental
drones can be deadly—a large one went amok in South Korea in 2013 and killed an
engineer.
What we are seeing in commercial drone development is a
pattern that has played out repeatedly in one form or another whenever a
potentially profitable technology outpaces the ability of a regulatory agency
to adapt to it. True to its
generally good reputation among government agencies, the FAA is trying to catch
up to the rapid advances in commercial drone technology. But if history is any guide, we are in
for some stirring times first.
Something similar happened when advances in radio technology
during World War I led to the explosion of radio broadcasting stations in the
early 1920s. The creaky regulatory
mechanism of the time stated that the Department of Commerce, which was charged
with the task of regulating the new medium, could not deny licenses to any
qualified applicant. As a result,
the airwaves got so crowded that in some locations radios were practically
unusable. Congress eventually
acted, first by establishing the Federal Radio Commission in 1927, and then
following it with the Federal Communications Commission in 1934, under whose
ministrations we still operate today.
Fortunately, the FAA is already up and running, so the
situation is not as wild-westish as it could be. The main issue facing the agency is not lack of regulatory
authority—it has plenty of that—but the question of how to allow drones into
the air in a way that both allows innovative commercial uses and preserves the
exemplary safety record of U. S. air flights that has been achieved in recent
years. The experimental test sites
the FAA has set up (besides Nevada, there are locations in Alaska, New York,
North Dakota, Texas, and Virginia) can play a critical role in both uncovering
unknown potential problems and in finding practical solutions to them.
Just as radio benefited from wartime technology advances,
commercial drones benefit from the longer history and huge development effort
that has gone into military drones.
In addition, advances in high-density batteries, software, and
navigational aids such as GPS systems make it technically possible for drones
to travel long distances autonomously.
However, the FAA is still uncomfortable with that.
The way things stand now, there are three classifications of
drone regulations. The only one
that doesn't require the operator to obtain special permission is the hobby and
recreational class, which has applied to operators of model aircraft for
decades. If you are a researcher,
drone developer, or someone who has other good reasons to do not-for-pay work
with drones, you can apply for a "civil UAS" permit. Law enforcement agencies and other
public organizations can obtain Certificates of Waiver or Authorization to
conduct operations relating to their work. But before the likes of Jeff Bezos can start delivering
Amazon orders via drone, the rules—and maybe the technology too—will have to
change.
I'm going to go out on a limb here, but the start of a new
year is a good time for making predictions, and if the following pans out, you
heard it here first. Let it be
understood at the outset that I think the following would be a bad idea. But that doesn't mean that somebody
won't try it. In 1982, a guy with
more bravado than sense named Larry Walters tied a few dozen helium balloons to
a lawn chair and floated over Long Beach until his balloons got tangled in a
power line and he made it safely back to the ground. I don't know what the payload capability of current small
quadcopter-like drones is, but at some point, somebody will have the idea of
ganging a bunch of them together to lift the weight of a small person. This would be more of a stunt than a
practical way of transporting people, but if the machines get cheap and
powerful enough, it will happen.
Of course, the FAA would disapprove of such a thing, and
rightly so. But if we do start
seeing small packages being delivered by drones, it will happen only if the FAA
and industrial interests figure out how to have all that air traffic moving
safely and keeping out of the way of buildings, power lines, and giraffes, for
that matter. And if that
infrastructure problem is solved, and battery technology advances to the point
that you could safely build a helicopter-like backpack that was totally under
software control, maybe we could see
the day when people could literally fly to work. Unless it rains, of course.
Sources: The FAA's overall UAS website is https://www.faa.gov/uas/,
and their site stating the rules for hobby and recreational model-airplane
flying is http://www.faa.gov/uas/publications/model_aircraft_operators/. I referred to a report on the Nevada
test flight of Magpie carried by Gizmodo at http://gizmodo.com/first-drone-launches-at-faa-test-site-in-nevada-crashe-1673586255. The six FAA UAS test locations are
given at http://gizmodo.com/federal-drone-testing-is-coming-to-these-6-scenic-locat-1491708151. Business Insider was the source of the
commercial drone market estimate at http://www.businessinsider.com/the-market-for-commercial-drones-2014-2. My blog "Drones, Air Safety, and
the FAA" appeared on Nov. 4, 2013.
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