Grounded drones: civilian market for unmanned aircraft struggles to take flight.

• Author: Wagner, Breanne
• Position: UNMANNED AVIATION

As the demand for unmanned aerial vehicles in Iraq and continues to increase, government agencies and contractors are clamoring to use aerial drones for domestic missions in U.S. national airspace.

But the proliferation of remotely operated aircraft in carefully regulated civilian airspace is cause for concern to the Federal Aviation Administration, the government arm that is responsible for regulating civil aviation.

FAA policies currently prevent most unmanned aircraft from flying in national airspace because the agency hasn't developed thorough procedures for approving them. More flight data that ensures drones are safe is needed before rules can be written, the agency says.

"The FAA hasn't yet published rules or policy on the certification of unmanned air systems," says Alison Duquette, FAA spokeswoman. "The FAA's main concern about operations in civil airspace is safety. It is critical that these vehicles don't come too close to aircraft carrying people or compromise the safety of anyone on the ground," an agency document says. If an unmanned aircraft crashes into another airplane or injures people on the ground, the FAA will bear a heavy weight. Last year, the first drone that was flown by U.S. Customs and Border Protection crashed in the Arizona desert. Although no one was injured, the incident illustrates safety concerns.

The FAA has only issued 13 permits for civilian aerial drones, Duquette says. General Atomics was the first to receive a certificate in August 2005 for its Altair system. These approvals are called experimental licenses, which allow for research and development and crew training, according to an FAA document.

Every aircraft that flies in national airspace must have an experimental permit or a certificate of authorization (COA), Duquette says.

The agency uses the experimental certification process for manned aircraft when evaluating an unmanned aircraft request, she adds. Since the approval process is still in flux, each unmanned systems company must run a safety system analysis and submit the results to the FAA, in addition to standard requirements for the experimental certificate.

Before UAV flight regulations can be written, the agency needs to evaluate the systems in flight and ensure safety precautions are in place. "We do need a significant amount of data to develop regulations ... we need to be able to put the proper bounds around the challenge we are faced with," Duquette explains.

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