Why you should be interested in UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicle)- even if you're not a pilot...
A couple of years ago I read a story about how a group of people from my hometown of Sarnia, Ontario had made a very public demonstration in frustration with our friends to the south. It seems that the American border security had decided that it would be a good idea to mount an extremely high powered camera in a unmanned dirigible to monitor the border by the Bluewater Bridge between Port Huron and Point Edward/Sarnia. The idea was to use the camera to spot bad guys but no one mentioned what observations the camera would be making and where-the camera could just as easily look into people's windows by bored dirigible operators. It was a blatant invasion of privacy and the group of Sarnians responded by collectively mooning Port Huron from the waterfront in the general direction of the blimp's cameras to express their collective disapproval.
Fast forward a couple of years to last week where the American government has asked the FAA to fast-track a plan, released with little fanfare, yet arguably the most important piece of aeronautical and civil liberties documents of the 21st century. The document is called the " Integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems in the National Airspace System" The document seeks to provide a roadmap for integrating unmanned aircraft into North American airspace in a safe manner.
I like the FAA; it is an excellent organization and has a long history of making aviation safe for everyone, but my opinion is that it is being used as a tool by the American government to legitimize the introduction of a new era of stealthy surveillance from the air and an invasion of privacy on North American citizens. What would happen if I grabbed a video camera and parked my car outside of your house? No doubt the police would be there in short order to arrest me for invasion of privacy or worse. Everyone thinks of unmanned aerial vehicles as the big Predator drones used to kill Alkaeda leaders in Afghanistan, but new technologies are emerging which will allow flight to smaller and smaller vehicles- the FAA has been directed to "allow a government public safety agency to operate unmanned aircraft weighing 4.4 pounds or less" under certain restrictions. The bill also specifies these UAS must be flown within the line of sight of the operator, less than 400 feet above the ground, during daylight conditions, inside Class G (uncontrolled) airspace and more than five miles from any airport or other location with aviation activities. Why is it necessary to ask the FAA to make regulations around aircraft the size of model airplanes for use by public safety officials? By directing the FAA to integrate UAVs safely into the North American airspace, government officials are neatly sidestepping the more important issue of why are we allowing this in the first place without a discussion about what kind of parameters will apply to these aircraft? It seems to me that an entirely new category of aircraft should generate a conversation about, at the very least, where they can and can't fly, and for what purposes.
An aircraft carrier's deck is about four acres in size and UAV proponents claim that these aircraft will make carrier landings perfectly safe since robots are not subject to human error when gauging approaches to a heaving flight deck but many people in the Navy are legitimately concerned about safety on the small flightdeck when these aricraft are introduced to a mix of human operated planes and handlers who are all trying to work in this confined space. For the time being, the consensus appears to be that the UAV's will only operate at night when most carrier operations come to a halt. If the Navy doesn't think UAV's can be safely integrated into a busy airspace where human pilots are flying, why would it make sense to integrate them into airspace that isn't monitored as diligently as the immediate area around a warship? No one is too concerned about the likelihood of a Predator UAV crashing over Afghanistan-it's a country where if it did crash, it's unlikely anyone but the US military would ever know. It's also unlikely that a commercial 747 coming in to land in Jalalabad with a plane full of returning vacationers is going to collide with an unmanned drone because there's no air traffic to begin with-Take a look at any cellphone app that records where major commercial flyers are at any given time and see how many you can count over Afghanistan. Now take that same drone aircraft and fly it at any airport in North America and see how long it takes for a mid-air collision with a student pilot that was flying 100 feet higher than he was supposed to in the circuit. North American airspace is not as secure as everyone assumes and part of the reason is because we do not anticipate or expect aircraft within our country's borders to be acting in a hostile manner-when a student pilot stray off course or is at the wrong altitude, there is still the possibility of communicating the error to him. I once inadvertently strayed close to the Prime Minister's residence in Ottawa and was kindly reminded by air traffic control to correct my course, which naturally, I did. A UAV programmed to fly with deviant intent is not going to respond to air traffic controllers, nor will the controllers know (or be able to respond quickly enough) if the aircraft had simply strayed there inadvertently. And we're not talking about a handful of UAV's buzzing around the immediate confines of your local airport-Indigo Books, one of the largest book retailers in North America has announced that they are seriously planning on using the UAVs to remotely deliver books to customers-I see a whole new avenue of business for bicycle thieves opening up.
President Obama recently announced that he would like to create an additional court to rule on cases of approved assassination. This idea was born from the success of Predator attacks on foreign militants a world away from North America. The problem with targeted hits in North America is that the airspace is too busy and UAVs are not considered safe by the aviation community, and for good reason. Since the current administration clearly sees benefits of spying on people through the use of UAV's, the solution they seem to have come to, is to forego the conversation and delegate the most respected aviation authority (the FAA) to implement a plan to introduce the UAVs safely, without first discussing the the limits of their use. Sure, there's lots of examples where UAVs have been instrumental helping police agencies and the like, but that's a far cry from completely integrating them into the current airspace system. Another consideration is that a UAV would be an ideal weapon for a terrorist to use, by remotely flying explosives to their targets without raising suspicion by air traffic controllers who obviously won't be trying to contact the unmanned blip on their radar.
I used to fly my homebuilt airplane out of London, Ontario which had a ten mile, Class C control zone around the airport. Apart from some light business traffic a handful of commercial flights and a medevac operation, it was a fairly quiet airport and an excellent location for two flying schools to train new pilots since it familiarized them with talking to air traffic controllers and following many of the protocols of much larger airports. Of the roughly 430,000 take-offs and landings at airports with towers in Canada every year, London contributes around between 1500 and 2000 so it's safe to say that the controllers are probably not overwhelmed by traffic. After having moved from London a few years ago, I was surprised one beautifully clear Sunday morning when , after deciding to visit the London airport in my homebuilt, i was denied entry into the control zone because I did not have a transponder. I later learned that the transponder requirement had been added after controllers had grown frustrated trying to keep English As a Second Language student pilots from inadvertently stumbling across the flightpaths of other commercial traffic. I wonder what will happen to general aviation when remotely operated UAVs are allowed to use the same airports flown by a pilot who might be several thousand miles away and blissfully unaware of VFR traffic? If controllers won't let a pilot-operated small plane within ten miles of the airport on a Sunday morning, with no other aircraft within 100 miles, what are the chances they're going to let me come close when the control zone has remotely-flown aircraft buzzing around?
I'm not trying to be a Luddite and argue that UAVs should not be integrated into North American airspace, but there should be some very serious discussion about the ramifications to both general aviation and personal privacy in North America before the FAA creates the framework to usher them in.
That's my opinion and I welcome yours. Email me at ed.das@rogers.com
Fast forward a couple of years to last week where the American government has asked the FAA to fast-track a plan, released with little fanfare, yet arguably the most important piece of aeronautical and civil liberties documents of the 21st century. The document is called the " Integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems in the National Airspace System" The document seeks to provide a roadmap for integrating unmanned aircraft into North American airspace in a safe manner.
I like the FAA; it is an excellent organization and has a long history of making aviation safe for everyone, but my opinion is that it is being used as a tool by the American government to legitimize the introduction of a new era of stealthy surveillance from the air and an invasion of privacy on North American citizens. What would happen if I grabbed a video camera and parked my car outside of your house? No doubt the police would be there in short order to arrest me for invasion of privacy or worse. Everyone thinks of unmanned aerial vehicles as the big Predator drones used to kill Alkaeda leaders in Afghanistan, but new technologies are emerging which will allow flight to smaller and smaller vehicles- the FAA has been directed to "allow a government public safety agency to operate unmanned aircraft weighing 4.4 pounds or less" under certain restrictions. The bill also specifies these UAS must be flown within the line of sight of the operator, less than 400 feet above the ground, during daylight conditions, inside Class G (uncontrolled) airspace and more than five miles from any airport or other location with aviation activities. Why is it necessary to ask the FAA to make regulations around aircraft the size of model airplanes for use by public safety officials? By directing the FAA to integrate UAVs safely into the North American airspace, government officials are neatly sidestepping the more important issue of why are we allowing this in the first place without a discussion about what kind of parameters will apply to these aircraft? It seems to me that an entirely new category of aircraft should generate a conversation about, at the very least, where they can and can't fly, and for what purposes.
An aircraft carrier's deck is about four acres in size and UAV proponents claim that these aircraft will make carrier landings perfectly safe since robots are not subject to human error when gauging approaches to a heaving flight deck but many people in the Navy are legitimately concerned about safety on the small flightdeck when these aricraft are introduced to a mix of human operated planes and handlers who are all trying to work in this confined space. For the time being, the consensus appears to be that the UAV's will only operate at night when most carrier operations come to a halt. If the Navy doesn't think UAV's can be safely integrated into a busy airspace where human pilots are flying, why would it make sense to integrate them into airspace that isn't monitored as diligently as the immediate area around a warship? No one is too concerned about the likelihood of a Predator UAV crashing over Afghanistan-it's a country where if it did crash, it's unlikely anyone but the US military would ever know. It's also unlikely that a commercial 747 coming in to land in Jalalabad with a plane full of returning vacationers is going to collide with an unmanned drone because there's no air traffic to begin with-Take a look at any cellphone app that records where major commercial flyers are at any given time and see how many you can count over Afghanistan. Now take that same drone aircraft and fly it at any airport in North America and see how long it takes for a mid-air collision with a student pilot that was flying 100 feet higher than he was supposed to in the circuit. North American airspace is not as secure as everyone assumes and part of the reason is because we do not anticipate or expect aircraft within our country's borders to be acting in a hostile manner-when a student pilot stray off course or is at the wrong altitude, there is still the possibility of communicating the error to him. I once inadvertently strayed close to the Prime Minister's residence in Ottawa and was kindly reminded by air traffic control to correct my course, which naturally, I did. A UAV programmed to fly with deviant intent is not going to respond to air traffic controllers, nor will the controllers know (or be able to respond quickly enough) if the aircraft had simply strayed there inadvertently. And we're not talking about a handful of UAV's buzzing around the immediate confines of your local airport-Indigo Books, one of the largest book retailers in North America has announced that they are seriously planning on using the UAVs to remotely deliver books to customers-I see a whole new avenue of business for bicycle thieves opening up.
President Obama recently announced that he would like to create an additional court to rule on cases of approved assassination. This idea was born from the success of Predator attacks on foreign militants a world away from North America. The problem with targeted hits in North America is that the airspace is too busy and UAVs are not considered safe by the aviation community, and for good reason. Since the current administration clearly sees benefits of spying on people through the use of UAV's, the solution they seem to have come to, is to forego the conversation and delegate the most respected aviation authority (the FAA) to implement a plan to introduce the UAVs safely, without first discussing the the limits of their use. Sure, there's lots of examples where UAVs have been instrumental helping police agencies and the like, but that's a far cry from completely integrating them into the current airspace system. Another consideration is that a UAV would be an ideal weapon for a terrorist to use, by remotely flying explosives to their targets without raising suspicion by air traffic controllers who obviously won't be trying to contact the unmanned blip on their radar.
I used to fly my homebuilt airplane out of London, Ontario which had a ten mile, Class C control zone around the airport. Apart from some light business traffic a handful of commercial flights and a medevac operation, it was a fairly quiet airport and an excellent location for two flying schools to train new pilots since it familiarized them with talking to air traffic controllers and following many of the protocols of much larger airports. Of the roughly 430,000 take-offs and landings at airports with towers in Canada every year, London contributes around between 1500 and 2000 so it's safe to say that the controllers are probably not overwhelmed by traffic. After having moved from London a few years ago, I was surprised one beautifully clear Sunday morning when , after deciding to visit the London airport in my homebuilt, i was denied entry into the control zone because I did not have a transponder. I later learned that the transponder requirement had been added after controllers had grown frustrated trying to keep English As a Second Language student pilots from inadvertently stumbling across the flightpaths of other commercial traffic. I wonder what will happen to general aviation when remotely operated UAVs are allowed to use the same airports flown by a pilot who might be several thousand miles away and blissfully unaware of VFR traffic? If controllers won't let a pilot-operated small plane within ten miles of the airport on a Sunday morning, with no other aircraft within 100 miles, what are the chances they're going to let me come close when the control zone has remotely-flown aircraft buzzing around?
I'm not trying to be a Luddite and argue that UAVs should not be integrated into North American airspace, but there should be some very serious discussion about the ramifications to both general aviation and personal privacy in North America before the FAA creates the framework to usher them in.
That's my opinion and I welcome yours. Email me at ed.das@rogers.com