Report: Big Issues Remain Before Drones Can Safely Access National Airspace 129
coondoggie writes The story sounds familiar – while the use of unmanned [aerial vehicles], sometimes illegally, is increasing, there are myriad challenges to ultimately allow them safe access to national airspace. The watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office issued a report on the integration of unmanned aerial systems, as it calls them, in US national airspace (NAS) today ahead of a congressional hearing on the topic. As it has noted in past reports, the GAO said the main issues continue to include the ability for drones to avoid other aircraft in the sky; what backup network is available and how should the system behave if it loses its communications link.
Can I buy an editor? (Score:2)
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Don't be silly, some commas are out of place but it's understandable.
The story sounds familiar â" while the use of unmanned, sometimes illegally, is increasing, there are myriad challenges to ultimately allow them safe access to national airspace. The watchdogs at the Government Accountability Office issued report on the integration of unmanned aerial systems as it calls them, in US national airspace (NAS) today ahead of a congressional hearing on the topic. As it has noted in past reports, the GAO said the main issues continue to include the ability for drones to avoid other aircraft in the sky; what backup network is available and how should the system behave if it loses its communications link.
becomes
While the use of unmanned drones, sometimes illegally, is increasing, there are several challenges to overcome before they can safely access US airspace. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued report on the integration of unmanned drones in US airspace today ahead of a congressional hearing on the topic. As the GAO noted in previously, the main issues continue to be: the ability for drones to avoid other aircraft in the sky; what backup network is available; and how should the system behave if it loses its communications link.
Simple!
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The original "editor" had it correct, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) or Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS).
And what is wrong with the word "myriad?" It means "a countless or extremely great number." I suppose one could say that it is hyperbole, but one can lean on the "extremely great number" part of the definition, or if desired, add another word to make it "seemingly myriad."
(Ok, "several" may be more readable/accurate/etc., but it is nice to read words above a 5th grade level every once in a while.)
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For safe integration with existing air traffic (Score:2, Interesting)
At the minimum, these are the requirements for somewhat safe integration into the existing airspace. Anything less is asking for big troubles for any private and commercial air traffic that shares the sky with these things:
1. Mode S Transponder
2. ADSB In & Out
3. Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS)
4. May only operate in areas with active radar coverage under IFR flight plan (some legal airplanes do not have a transponder!)
4. Operators must be in constant contact and control of the drone and must b
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Excellent suggestions.
"licensed pilots" should be a different license than what you'd need to fly a commercial jet of course... or even a Cessna ... there should be a separate category for unmanned drones.
And you didn't address what the drone should do if it loses communication with its pilot and/or loses GPS positioning.
That's one of the more unique and interesting problems.
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As for being a licensed drone pilot being a different class - agreed. Vertigo isn't likely to be a factor!
Ideally there would be 'drone recovery areas' where an autopilot would fly to automatically in the event of lost communications. There are lots of little details like this to work out. The big unanswered questions are those dealing with how to integrate safely with existing traffic. I'm not at all convinced that the FAA has a clear answer.
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if it's a commercial operation (any photo/video, BVR sensor/camera, surveillance or cargo), a commercial pilots licence. Private operation (no paid payload/cargo, leisure flights only below 300ft and line of sight - no cameras, that instantly puts it into a commercial licence), private pilots licence. Can we have a mandate for R/C transmitting equipment to be licenced as well? I'm pretty sure it was at one time anyway?
That will surely weed out most of the idiots.
Oh, and let's have mandatory penalties for an
Re:For safe integration with existing air traffic (Score:5, Insightful)
no cameras, that instantly puts it into a commercial licence
Why would a hobbyist using a GoPro to take some landscape pictures from 100' in the air be instantly considered - by you - to be a commercial operator?
Consider, say, Harry Homeowner who is using his hobby drone (say, a 4-pound DJI Phantom) to fly 50' in the air to see if his house's gutters are clogged with leaves. He's line of site, he's flying hundreds of feet below any air space used by "real" aircraft, and he's just using his little flying robot like the fun tool it is. The fact that he's got a tiny camera onboard, looking at his own roof, makes that commercial use, and reason to have the FAA fine him for not having acquired an actual commercial pilot's license? Are you even listening to yourself?
And for that matter, how is the safety of the situation any different if he's doing that, and then Neighbor Bob says, "Hey, Harry Homeowner! I'll give you $10 and a cold beer if you'll fly that little camera 50' to the right, and check out my chimney for me, OK?" How does Harry's acceptance of that $10 make what he's doing suddenly more dangerous? Be specific.
That will surely weed out most of the idiots
How? What mechanism do you have in mind that will stop somebody from throwing together $200 worth of parts and flying a nice little camera-carrying quadcopter anyway? The ONLY people you're looking to give trouble to are the ones who will already be informed, and operating with safety in mind. I suspect that your actual agenda is to preserve some piece of the AP market for yourself, at the expense of people willing to run a cheap little machine over a farmer's field or rooftop for pay.
But in practical terms, I'm more interested in your truly strange sense of what makes something suddenly commercial (carrying a camera? really? have you never used or even contemplated the use of a video downlink as a way to make the hobby more fun and more safe?), or why you think that people operating commercially aren't already doing so far more safely than somebody who just clicked "buy now" at Amazon because a little flying-drone-thing looks like fun to play with.
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/* What mechanism do you have in mind that will stop somebody from throwing together $200 worth of parts and flying a nice little camera-carrying quadcopter anyway? */
There isn't one. You seem to be under the impression that law is about prevention. Law merely provides a legal avenue to pursue *justice*. As many people point out: we have laws against murder and people still commit murder. You're right. The law gives us the framework to go after murderers and provide punishments that we, collectively,
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If this were true surely the US legal system would not impose ludicrous fines and prison sentences for computer-related and other non-violent crimes.
Aaron Swartz, Jammie Thomas-Rasset and Joel Tenenbaum suggest that justice is not the primary consideration in many cases. The courts seem willing to impose penalties so egregiously severe as to create a climate of fear.
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"Hey, Harry Homeowner! I'll give you $10 and a cold beer if you'll fly that little camera 50' to the right, and check out my chimney for me, OK?" How does Harry's acceptance of that $10 make what he's doing suddenly more dangerous? Be specific.
Not that I agree or disagree with you. But that you think a neighbor casually offering $10 and a beer for a one time favor is a "commercial" anything speaks volumes about the way you think.
You probably report lemonade stands to the authorities too. No business licens
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Not that I agree or disagree with you. But that you think a neighbor casually offering $10 and a beer for a one time favor is a "commercial" anything speaks volumes about the way you think.
There isn't anything to "agree or disagree" about it, it is a commercial operation at that point, it is black and white.
Now, that is the letter of the law, in reality, does anyone care? No, and I doubt even the FAA cares unless they had their feet held to the fire and were forced to make a case out of it.
The law is very clear, any exchange of consideration (it doesn't have to be money) in return for flight, with very, very limited exceptions, is a commercial operation.
Now that being said, I'd turn down the
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it is black and white.
And my neighborhood kids run lemonade stands in front of their homes without cowering in fear that they'll be shut down by health inspectors, fined for their failure to display a business license, audited for tax evasion, and arrested for exploiting child labor. "The law is very clear." All those rules technically apply.
Your right, technically the regs apply in your scenario, but its well beneath the FAAs notice, and we all know it.
The point is there are a lot of actually interesting t
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Your right, technically the regs apply in your scenario, but it SHOULD BE well beneath the FAAs notice, and we all know it.
Fixed that for you. Just because something shouldn't be important enough for the government to bother with doesn't mean they wont. It wouldn't be the first time the government spent a million dollars over a two dollar issue.
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And my neighborhood kids run lemonade stands in front of their homes without cowering in fear that they'll be shut down by health inspectors, fined for their failure to display a business license, audited for tax evasion, and arrested for exploiting child labor. "The law is very clear." All those rules technically apply.
Yes they do, and they exist for a reason.
A kid with a lemonaid stand in front of their house technically is breaking several laws, but generally no one cares, even law enforcement.
A reasonable person would not expect such a "business" to be following all the health codes and have a business licence, so anyone buying lemonaid from such a stand should be aware of the risks of doing so.
What about a kid's lemonaid stand setup at the state fair in a booth? What about at a local car race or hot air balloon event
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But that you think a neighbor casually offering $10 and a beer for a one time favor is a "commercial" anything speaks volumes about the way you think.
You're responding to the wrong person. I don't think that doing the equivalent of mowing someone's lawn for $10 (like millions of teenagers do for their neighbors every day, using dangerous gas-powered machines with spinning blades, no less!) should suddenly be pushing the guy who owns a 4-pound quad copter into a position where he's subject to a $10,000 fine from the FAA for not having a commercial pilot's license that it costs thousands of dollars to obtain, not even including medical exams, hundreds of
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The parent talks about "no cameras" in a clause immediately following a comment about line of sight flying. I read his comment to thus mean that a commercial license would be required to pilot remotely via camera.
I totally agree with you that the presence of a camera recording locally for later viewing has no bearing on the license. If that was the parent's intent he's misguided .
In your gutter idea, accepting $10 to check a neighbor's roof does make the job commercial, the same way accepting $10 to mow a
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I totally agree with you that the presence of a camera recording locally for later viewing has no bearing on the license. If that was the parent's intent he's misguided .
Why should it matter if the camera's output can only be seen after the fact vs. live via downlink? The ability to frame the camera's shot in real time during the flight makes the flight more efficient, shorter, and safer. A live video downlink provides the operator with telemetry that shows the orientation, movement, battery health, GPS status, and other important information - all of which greatly improves the safety of the flight, whether it's for fun or for money. The with/without camera concept is an a
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Why would a hobbyist using a GoPro to take some landscape pictures from 100' in the air be instantly considered - by you - to be a commercial operator?
He/she wouldn't be, the OP above you doesn't know what they are talking about.
Having cameras on an aircraft means nothing... getting PAID for it is what counts...
You are welcome to put a camera on your helicopter and take pictures of your own land, or anything else you want, for your own use, without a commercial pilot certificate.
You just can't get paid by someone else to do it for them.
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You just can't get paid by someone else to do it for them.
Why? That's the issue here.
Picture two guys with their 4-pound quads, standing at the edge of a soybean field. Exactly the same equipment, exactly the same experience, exactly the same safety precautions, and about the fly the exact same route 50 feet off the ground with a GoPro looking down at the field. They'll each be in the air for under 10 minutes. One guy is doing it for fun, and the other guy, doing exactly the same thing is doing it for $100.
Which if them is doing the thing that the other is
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Picture two guys with their 4-pound quads, standing at the edge of a soybean field. Exactly the same equipment, exactly the same experience, exactly the same safety precautions, and about the fly the exact same route 50 feet off the ground with a GoPro looking down at the field. They'll each be in the air for under 10 minutes. One guy is doing it for fun, and the other guy, doing exactly the same thing is doing it for $100.
First, the thing is, that 4 pound quad might not be a drone, it might be a radio controlled aircraft, and it may not be subject to much regulation at all.
If it is flown via visual observation of the aircraft by someone with a hand held remote control, and it stays under a few hundred feet, it may not fall under FAA regulation at all.
Now, putting that aside, the question you're really asking is, "what is the difference with getting paid?"
I'll tell you... If you go out and buy your own aircraft and take pict
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First, the thing is, that 4 pound quad might not be a drone, it might be a radio controlled aircraft, and it may not be subject to much regulation at all.
Except the FAA's most recent published position on this is that ALL radio controlled flying machines are the same. They make no distinction between a hobbyist's 4-pounder and a much larger machine. This is why large organizations populated by mostly hobbyists are currently freaking out - because the FAA is gearing up to ban their events, meets, contests, etc. It's not about "drone"-ness, it's about "it flies in the air, period." Other government entities, like the Department of the Interior and all of thei
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Except the FAA's most recent published position on this is that ALL radio controlled flying machines are the same.
The FAA can say anything they want, it is what they can enforce in the courts that counts.
And it isn't civil or criminal court, it is administrative court where they usually win, however they recently lost a case against a RC aircraft pilot they thought they would have won, so they have held off filing other cases until they get that cleared up.
The FAA has an old Advisory Circular (advice, not law) about the operation of RC aircraft. For a very long time that was fine because most RC hobbyists were good ab
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I would disagree with your view of their position on that one... I don't see the FAA going that far...
They've come right out and said that things like any use of hobby RC aircraft by people who are in any way compensated during their use would bring fines. They've already sent out Cease & Desist letters to one-man operations doing things like photographing farms out in the middle of nowhere - what makes you think they'll ignore businesses that sell lots of hardware and have multiple employees? If you think they put a lot of effort into the Pirker case, imagine how happy they'll be to go after people wh
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But regardless of the legislative history, the pending court decisions, and the FAA's often contradictory and foot-dragging responses to congressional requirements ... I want to hear you explain, in simple specific terms, why the same guy using the same equipment is suddenly more dangerous when doing exactly the same thing minutes later. Really.
The motivations of the two people are different, and that often produces very different outcomes.
I highly doubt that anything I type here would make a difference, you see what you want to see, and that's fine.
What I can tell you is that those rules exist for a reason, and your failure to understand the reason doesn't invalidate it. Your failure to understand it might be your existing bias... or it might be a lack of information and knowledge and experience...
But I do know from first hand experience, both
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The motivations of the two people are different, and that often produces very different outcomes.
So when those two people are the SAME person, using the same equipment to acquire the exact same images - how does that work? You're saying that regulations should be applied not because of any material difference in skill, flight, equipment, or any circumstance other than motivation? You're actually cool with prior restraint based on thought crime? Really?
I highly doubt that anything I type here would make a difference
That's your reason? You're exhausted by the burden of your doubts? That's why you can't muster the energy to cite a single example of something you say
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Why is commercial vs non-commercial even an issue? So that the FAA can make more money? To make sure there is a big barrier to entrance so that new entrepeneurs don't take business away from the big established businesses? I wonder who you work for...
Any rules should be the MINIMUM necessary to provide necessary safety. There is nothing inherantly less safe about adding a camera or... for that matter even getting paid to do so. Beyond what's necessary for safety the rule mongers should just go f themselve
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remoting via camera is viable, it's here. You don't need line of sight to do that. Merely having a camera on the aircraft would be enough in a civil court to make the assumption that the equipment can be used for flying via a desk. It's called "balance of probabilities". It's less to do with commercial vs non-commercial (hell, I'm not even making assumptions about the relative pricing of the licences, you are), and more to do with the safety issues at hand. Can you physically see the aircraft when you look
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Merely having a camera on the aircraft would be enough in a civil court to make the assumption that the equipment can be used for flying via a desk.
No it isn't. Having a camera is perfectly legal and has been for years. FPV is perfectly legal as well, as long as the pilot isn't flying by it.
You have to keep your eyes on the aircraft as the pilot for it to be legal in the US. It also has to be below 400 feet and you can't accept any money or any other form of barter for doing so.
The commercial vs non-commercial part of the rules is there to allow hobbyists to do it and prevent any incentive for massive numbers of people to just start trying to fly fo
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How dangerous can a little quad-copter be?
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if a soft fleshy seagull can take out a cockpit window or blow a turbine blade, a hard and metally drone sucked into an engine would make the landing very interesting. As in, fiery.
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Most drones I have seen are not hard and metally, they are weak brittle plastic.
If seagulls are so bad how do they deal with them?
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motors are necessarily metal.
As to the seagull problem, loud predator distractions (the insanely loud crow calls you hear around food warehouses as well), trained predator birds, and good old fashioned shootists. Not so much a problem any more.
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Historic precedent with airplanes would show this is not the case.
Companies incentivized to fly as often as they can have sacrificed airplane maintenance and pilot capability so that they can increase their profit. There are reasons that there are substantial limitations that commercial companies who want to fly for profit must meet.
With drones you'll see this as carring payloads barely within its capability envelope, drones flown hazardously above crowds, drones carrying hazardous materials, pilots withou
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If I went to an event and someone was taking pictures of the crowd with a typical quad-copter / go-pro setup and it fell and hit me in the head how bad would it be! What do those things weigh, 1/8 lb? Less? How fast do they go? How much of the blow would be absorbed by the flexing of the vehicle's frame? Sorry but I just don't see that this is a big boogey man I need to be afraid of! I'd be far more concerned about getting hit by a ball at a baseball game. Should the FAA start regulating sports?
Now.. if
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Why is commercial vs non-commercial even an issue? So that the FAA can make more money?
No, it is so that people like you, who don't know what you're talking about, can come onto Slashdot and spout off about it. :)
There is the pilot's requirements, a private pilot certificate vs. a commercial pilot certificate, then there is the operation itself, it could be a Part 91 operation, or a Part 135 operation.
Each has various levels of oversight required to enhance safety, from maintenance of the aircraft to how often the pilot needs a medical exam.
As for money, the FAA doesn't charge a dime for its
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The FAA is helping protect people like you: people who went to the trouble to get your license and have now been relegated by auto-pilot tech.
If technology is a threat to a bureaucracy, the bureaucracy will ban the tech whenever and where-ever it can.
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And how much schooling do you need to be able to get that certificate? I suppose that's free right? How about all those hours of flight required to keep it? Yeah, that airplane fuel is peanuts!
All this just so I can take a few pictures with a little quad copter that is too small to hurt anyone at an event I happen to be charging admission to?
Or how about the farmer who wants to monitor his own damn fields that nobody else has any business being in? Good thing the FAA is there to protect the company he will
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And how much schooling do you need to be able to get that certificate? I suppose that's free right?
No, but that money isn't paid to the FAA, which was the original point made, that the FAA just wants money.
The FAA's job is to provide for the safety of flight and more importantly, the safely of the general public below the flight.
The point of additional training is to enhance safety. I suppose you could make the arguement that ALL pilots should meet the commercial pilot requirements, but that misses the point. Commercial pilots DO need more skill, they often have to fly when the weather is less than per
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"Second, are you talking about a small radio controlled quad copter that you fly only via visual observation, or via remote link? Not all RC aircraft are "drones", some are just RC aircraft."
Small.. definitely. I don't know many people who can afford to buy the big drones the millitary uses.
Radio controlled? Most of the time. Line of sight? The kid across the street loses sight of his quad copter all the time. When the battery gets low or it loses communication with his remote it automatically flies back
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The vast majority of the country does not have sight-seeing helicopters flying overhead. Maybe you live in one of those places and so it is normal for you? Don't regulate the whole nation by the most extreme needs of a few places! use local regulations for that.
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How about the people getting in the sight seeing helicopters? How should they judge if it is safe or not?
That is why the rules are in place, to protect those passengers who have no way, as lay people, to judge the risks.
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You are not making any sense now. I told you that most places don't have sight seeing helicopters. You responded by asking how people that are getting into helicopters that don't exist know if it is safe or not.
Most places don' t have interesting sites to see. If there are a lot of low flying sight-seeing helicopters around places like the ones you mentioned then maybe those places need extra LOCAL regulations. That isn't an good excuse to saddle the entire nation with the least common denominator sort of
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An aircraft can be equipped with any manner of cameras, sensors and antennas and still be operated as a non-commercial flight.
What is more interesting is the manner in which this equipment is added to an aircraft. Modifying an aircraft without some engineering oversight is generally a bad idea - people die from the unintended consequences of things coming lose, falling off, or by simply being a distraction in the cockpit.
Even 'experimental' aircraft must go through a well defined FAA certification program
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preachin' to the choir, I've several hundred hours under my belt building and certifying a hopper.
Watching an inspection team poring over twelve hundred yards of double-lapped ripseams is nerve wracking by itself...
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Of course, once you mandate the smoke canister, parachute, etc. you have mandated that the drone will be quite large, just to carry all the mandated gear. Getting hit by a 2 oz. quadcopter, is going to hurt a lot less than getting hit by the smoke canister carrying one, even if it has a parachute.
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what fucking planet are you on?? In the UK you need a PPL and a medical pass to fly a microlight. Hell, you need a PPL to fly a fucking balloon here.
(source: PPL balloon pilot of 12 years standing).
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300 AGL? "Anything less and drones will be a threat to anyone that flies on any airplane, anywhere."
What the hell? When do planes fly at anything less than many many many times that height? Assuming that people can't fly their drones near an airport (which you failed to add to your list of requirements) why would a plane EVER be so low as to require drones to stay below 300 ft?
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I failed to address lots of specifics - specifics which need to be addressed to keep from risking lives.
Crop dusters fly around at low altitudes all over this country, as do many other GA and commercial aircraft, and they are all within their legal right to do so. A few weeks ago I encountered a couple of NASA aircraft operating around 200 AGL while taking air samples. One of those aircraft was a P3 Orion.
Few people realize what a complex task it is to integrate into the nations existing aviation infrast
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Crop dusters fly over private property. The farmer should not be playing with his drone the same day as he hires the crop duster. I really doubt NASA is flying that low over populated areas. I'm pretty sure most people would be pretty pissed to have something that close to their homes.
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Helicopters frequently fly at 300 ft. And I think a drone is more of a hazard to a helicopter than an airplane.
Also, I bet there are a lot of people who have no idea where airplanes might need to be flying low. One strange wind day, one aircraft with unusually low performance like a Cessna 150 or an old Cub, and one strange airport situation like a Class-D upwind extension and presto, you have airplanes at 300 feet where they normally are not.
Re:For safe integration with existing air traffic (Score:4, Informative)
Helicopters frequently fly at 300 ft. And I think a drone is more of a hazard to a helicopter than an airplane.
Quite true...
The thing is, most of the drones that you are likely to be flying aren't THAT much of a hazard to the helicopter...
I've knocked down some pretty large birds with my helicopter before, some of the better helicopters can chop down small trees with their blades (UH-1 is a good example).
The RC drones that are sold for $300 on eBay? Those aren't really the threat... the bigger issue is commercial drones costing thousands of dollars and able to fly for hundreds of miles. Those are real aircraft and yes, THOSE would bring down a helicopter... or a light airplane...
And yes, the issues involved in having them fly in the national airspace system are more complex than a few sentences on SlashDot will ever cover.
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Your strange wind day excuse is still limited to an area around a runway, even if it is a larger area than a layman might predict. There can certainly be laws that only apply within a certain distance of a runway. This is common in laws regarding antenna height for example. That is not a reason to restrict everyone nationwide!
As for the helicopter, I still think it would be very disruptive to have helicopters flying low wherever they feel like it. I did use to live within sight of a lifeflight landing pa
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Any pilot will tell you that birds are responsible for avoiding bird strikes 99.999% of the time.
If drones move out of the way of airplanes autonomously, then great. They don't though. Hobby drones aren't really the issue here anyway, the real issue is the larger drones.
Also, some guy goes out and buys a drone, takes it up for a flight. Does he even know that he's within 4 miles of an airport? A lot of people have no idea where the GA airports are. Some really fundamental training on air space rules wo
Re: For safe integration with existing air traffic (Score:1)
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And some guy in the middle of nowhere in Montanna should have the same regulations applied to him as someone stroling along the beach next to a major national airport why???
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Imagine a 15 car pile up on the freeway going to downtown. The newspapers and TV stations are real close, but they dispatch their drones out to get live action shots of the carnage. Now there are 8 drones maneuvering in the sky above the carnage. Sure they want to be in the 50-300 ft altitude region, "out of other aircrafts way".
Who should keep the drones from bumping into each other?
Who insures the drones are maintained well enough so they don't rain down on the more healthy victims?
Now the medical personn
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When the 3 lb drone gets sucked into the helicopters turbine engine, and that helicopter crashes, who pays for what?
I get your point, but it is probably an extremely low risk for a helicopter. The drone would get knocked down by the rotor-wash long before it got to the intake. A more likely example would be a fixed wing aircraft flying into a drone, but that doesn't fit the hypothetical story as well.
I don't recall what the numbers are, but there is an airspace floor, which pilots of "real" aircraft are not supposed to fly below (except for takeoff and landing, of course). Keep the drones there.
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This list is my stab at things that might be essential to keep drones and airplanes from crashing into each other by allowing safe separation and accurate position reporting. If it's ridiculous, then please come up with a better list.
Of note, I did exclude an image sensor, which all manned aircraft currently have in the form of Mark I eyeballs. Perhaps drones should include a vision system of some kind as well.
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I have no concern for greasing bureaucrats palms - my concern is for my own life and the lives of those I share the skies with - as both a passenger and a pilot.
I've invested heavily in my flight training and I take the safety of myself, my passengers, and those I share the sky with very seriously.
Drone operators will take the safety of the entire aviation system seriously as well - either by will or by enforced regulation.
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if regulation of already regulated airspace is required to maintain safety in the sky, then so be it and I am all for it - as long as I can continue to use the sky without unnecessary restriction.
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Yes, you went to your school, paid a lot of money and now you own the skies and nobody else should get to use them. What a dick!
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Lose a friend or a family member in an airplane crash and you'll be a dick too.
The point isn't to 'own' the skies - it's to share as broadly and as safely as possible.
Just because you can afford to buy or operate some new tech toy doesn't mean you automatically have the right to go barging in to a complex engineered system without training and some reasonable adherence to regulations.
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Yeah, I'm going to lose a friend or family member because some kid decided to automate his quadcopter with a raspi or an arduino. Dream on! If that ever happens WTF was the pilot doing flying so low?!?!? This sounds more like an excuse to lock others out of your playground.
Technology leadership stifled by regulation (Score:5, Insightful)
The United States is (or has been) the world leader in many areas of technology, such as computers, Internet, space exploration, and medicine. This happened in part because the government stayed out of the way, at least in the early phases of development. When it starts to clamp down too quickly, that innovation can be stifled, and move to other countries. We are seeing this happen particularly in medicine. Apparently, we aren't all that interested in being the leaders in drone development...at least, other than for purposes of war.
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While that is true, in this case some restrictions should apply.
My simple advice:
1. No drones on or within 100 m of airfields unless allowed by traffic control of that airfield.
2. No drones within 50 m of any manned aircraft.
3. Only drones that can prevent crossing those conditions by themselves can either fly outside of the field of view of the operator or without an operator.
Note: this is excluding 300 pages of encoding by lawyers.
This would not stifle innovation much. It would just push it towards drones
Which "myriad" challenges? (Score:2)
It would have been nice for the article to elaborate.
Big issues for 3rd worlders (Score:1)
The US government can't get shit done any more:
Outside of the US drones are indeed making headway way into general airspace. The GAO says Japan, Australia, United Kingdom, and Canada also allow more commercial UAS operations than the United States.
Every other country has a drone system and regulation set up and working but the US, we are behind in education, behind in Internet connectivity, behind in just about everything because this country is run by fucking morons and greedy little termites.
They only mean "navigable" airspace, correct? (Score:3)
FAA only has jurisdiction over navigable and restricted airspace. Which means that unless you are in restricted airspace, up to 500 ft is still faie game. 500ft is the limit on kites.
Re:They only mean "navigable" airspace, correct? (Score:4, Informative)
First, the term "restricted airspace" isn't really the right term.
The terms you're looking for are "controlled" and "uncontrolled" airspace.
There are some places where controlled airspace goes all the way to the surface. Take off in a helicopter and go up 50 feet and you're in controlled airspace.
Other places, mostly out west in the mountains, sometimes controlled airspace doesn't start until 10,000 feet MSL, but those are rare outside of the Rockies.
Re: (Score:2)
I dug through the actual legislation (FAA charter) and that's what I found. I urge you to do the same. While controlled and uncontrolled ate the vernacular, the statutes that govern the FAA jurisdiction use "navigable". Therefore when speaking of legal matters and the FAA legal authority, we must use the same terms to prevent confusion.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think the GP is nitpicking the use of "navigable" but the use of "restricted". See the below link, restricted airspace means an area where general aviation is not allowed to enter (ex flying over the white house is permanent restricted airspace).
Yep, that is it... "restricted airspace" generally won't allow you in it for any reason whatsoever, such as over the White House.
The airspace around LAX is not restricted, it is controlled airspace, Class B to be specific.
Within a few miles of the airport, that controlled airspace goes all the way to the ground. You can't fly an aircraft at 100ft there without talking to ATC.
Re: (Score:2)
When dealing with the law, it is rarely as simple as a one sentence post on Slashdot will ever provide.
http://www.faa.gov/air_traffic... [faa.gov]
There are two categories of airspace... regulatory and non-regulatory...
Within those, are 4 types:
Controlled
Uncontrolled
Special Use
Other
---------------
This is why there is pilot training and pilot certification, and why commercial pilots need more training than private pilots who only fly for fun.
It is more complex than the average layman probably suspects it is.
Whee! (Score:1)
Just wait till everyone gets flying cars!
Denmark (Score:1)
In Denmark, they traffic regulating orginization is disussing these issues with the comercial parties. I am still missing the resume of the latest meeting.
Anti-collision is discussed, ADS-B was suggested, but everybody was afraid it would flood the frequency. So maybe something ADS-B like ? And policies about what drone will give way to which. Most ideas hinted, that GPS would be used to determine and broadcast position.
This still needs to be something for which planes can get receivers as well, and possibl
Sentry Drones to V (Score:1)
What seems to be missing from the comments... (Score:3)
What people seem to be missing in all of the comments above is that Amazon and Google are investigating not just using unmanned arial vehicles, but they are also investigating using computer-controlled unmanned arial vehicles: that is, arial vehicles that are not flown with a human operator. So questions about "line of sight" or the nature of the license a human operator holds ignores the whole point of their research.
Beyond this, in order for a company like Amazon to make drone deliveries profitable, we're not talking about a handful of these devices. We're talking about a whole swarm of them making tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of trips a day in a congested area like Los Angeles, in and around the congested class B airspace of LAX, around the congested class C airspace around Burbank, Ontario and John Wayne, by helicopter traffic carrying police, news reporters and tourists, by student pilot traffic out in the San Fernando Valley.
(If a UPS driver makes 100 deliveries a day, as an article I recently read suggested, and assuming an out and back from a warehouse in El Monte takes on average an hour--half an hour each way--and assuming drone deliveries are handled during the same 10 hour window UPS driver operate--this implies it would take around 10 drones to replace that one driver, each making 10 deliveries a day. Multiply this by (as a guesstimate) 1,000 drivers in the Los Angeles area, and you're talking about 10,000 automated pilotless drones swarming the LA skies.)
Sense And Avoid development banned by CAA (Score:2)
I've been working on an active/passive "sense and avoid" SAA technology for about 18 months and it is showing great promise.
Despite being a little larger than a deck of cards and weighing under 200g, the sense element can now accurately detect and track objects within a 1.5Km radius and the tracking system interpolates the trajectories of other craft to detect potential collision with the craft to which the system is fitted.
The goal is to produce a system that can be sold for hundreds (rather than thousands
Re: (Score:2)
The whole deal with CAA restricting your work is BS. You are free to fly what you like just by flying out of a farmers field more than 4km from a airfield. Does your system even compare to ADS-B? Small Linux computers can easily be used to receive ADS-B, and I expect they will be built into Quads and other hooby size aircraft soon. This way they will be able to avoid traffic long before it gets within 1.5km.
I am confident that CAA understand the issues. They have just released draft legislation which you ob