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Report: Big Issues Remain Before Drones Can Safely Access National Airspace
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.
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 be licensed pilots
5. altitude & airspace restrictions ( right of way: licensed drone rotorcraft fixed-wing airship )
Otherwise, they can keep below 300 AGL and in line of sight with their operators.
Anything less and drones will be a threat to anyone that flies on any airplane, anywhere.
"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells
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.
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.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
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.
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!
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.
"Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race." - H. G. Wells
"unmanned drones" doesn't make sense. A drone is an unmanned aerial vehicule (UAV) by definition, hence an unmanned drone is a pleonasm.
Achille Talon
Hop!
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). Controlled airspace is the airspace around an airport which according to the FAA Advisory Circular is when a model aircraft operator must notify the control tower (note the circular does not say you cannot fly there, just that you must work with the control tower).
Interestingly the FPV article in wikipedia appears to be wrong, which scares me slightly as some people take that for bible. That article states you must be under 400 ft when in controlled airspace. However when I read the FAA Advisory Circular it appears to state you must always operate under 400 ft, in addition you must contact the tower when 3 miles from an airport (as in controlled airspace). But I could be misunderstanding something.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
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.)