We can help with two problems that
the FAA faces. First, the agency is taking entirely too long to wrap itself around this problem. Jim Williams, the FAA’s chief drone policymaker, recently predicted that comprehensive
microdrone regulations
wouldn’t be on the books until after 2020. Subsequently, he acknowledged that some operating certificates might be granted sooner, on a case-by-case basis for specific kinds of operations.
Hank Perritt Photo
Delays in making drones legal might seem like a good thing for those worried about them, but it is not. The lure of microdrone capabilities, and prices at $1,000 or less for ones that can take HD video and stream it back to the ground, already are causing freelancers and commercial entities to use them, either ignoring the FAA’s ban or rationalizing that commercial drone use is permissible under the recent Pirker decision by an administrative law judge at the NTSB. This isn’t the first time that a legal prohibition out of step with technology and marketplace realities has proven unenforceable
Hank Perritt Photo Hank Perritt Photo 38 July 2014
In the meantime, we need to add our voices to those of the thirty industry groups that recently urged the FAA administrator to speed up his regulatory initiatives and to make some pragmatic accommodations for safe commercial drone use. So far, the loudest voices in the public debate over drones are those of privacy advocates. Of course, privacy is important, but more helicopter voices need to be raised be- cause our concerns are different. The main helicopter associations do a good job of maintaining a continuing dialogue with the FAA over aspects of aviation regulations that affect the rotorcraft community. But they could use a more robust and broader participation by their constituents (us) to sharpen the focus of the discourse over drones. Flying for different industries, and daily experience with diverse mission pro- files, give us a deep understanding of the hazards that might be presented by un- controlled or poorly regulated microdrone
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