U.S. lags as commercial drones take off around globe

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A small, four-rotor drone hovered over
Washington Nationals players for a few days during spring training in
Florida last month, taking publicity photos impossible for a human
photographer to capture. But no one got the Federal Aviation
Administration’s permission first.
"No, we didn’t get it cleared,
but we don’t get our pop flies cleared either and those go higher than
this thing did," a team official said when contacted by The Associated
Press. The drone flights ceased the next day. The official wasn’t
authorized to speak publicly and asked not to be named.
The agency
bars commercial use of drones no matter how seemingly benign. The lone
exception is an oil company that has been granted permission to fly
drones over the Arctic Ocean, and it took an act of Congress to win that
concession.
FAA officials say rules to address the special safety
challenges associated with unmanned aircraft need to be in place before
they can share the sky with manned aircraft. The agency has worked on
those regulations for the past decade and is still months and possibly
years away from issuing final rules for small drones, which are defined
as those weighing less than 55 pounds. Rules for larger drones are even
further off.
But tempting technology and an eager marketplace are
outrunning the aviation agency’s best intentions. Photographers, real
estate agents, moviemakers and others are hurrying to embrace the
technology. Drones have been used to photograph the two apartment
buildings that collapsed in New York City this past week and a car crash
in Connecticut. The AP, in fact, is one of several news organizations
studying the possible use of drones.
Unless FAA officials receive a
complaint or chance upon a news story that mentions drone flights, they
have little ability to find out about violations. The ban was further
undercut this month when a federal judge dismissed the only fine the FAA
has imposed on a commercial drone operator. The judge said the agency
can’t enforce regulations that don’t exist.
The FAA, which contends it controls access to the national air space, has appealed.
The
use of commercial drones, most of them small, is starting to spread to
countries where authorities have decided the aircraft presents little
threat if operators follow a few safety rules.
The drone industry
and some members of Congress are worried the United States will be one
of the last countries, rather than one of the first, to gain the
economic benefits of the technology.
"We don’t have the luxury of
waiting another 20 years," said Paul McDuffee, vice president of
drone-maker Insitu of Bingen, Wash., a subsidiary of Boeing. "This
industry is exploding. It’s getting to the point where it may end up
happening with or without the FAA’s blessing."
In Japan, the
Yamaha Motor Company’s RMAX helicopter drones have been spraying crops
for 20 years. The radio-controlled drones weighing 140 pounds are
cheaper than hiring a plane and are able to more precisely apply
fertilizers and pesticides. They fly closer to the ground and their
backwash enables the spray to reach the underside of leaves.
The helicopters went into use five years ago in South Korea and last year in Australia.
Television
networks use drones to cover cricket matches in Australia. Zookal, a
Sydney company that rents textbooks to college students, plans to begin
delivering books via drones later this year. The United Arab Emirates
has a project underway to see whether government documents like driver’s
licenses, identity cards and permits can be delivered using small
drones.
In the United Kingdom, energy companies use drones to
check the undersides of oil platforms for corrosion and repairs, and
real estate agents use them to shoot videos of pricey properties. In a
publicity stunt last June, a Domino’s Pizza franchise in the U.K. posted
a YouTube video of a "DomiCopter" drone flying over fields, trees and
homes to deliver two pizzas.
But when Lakemaid Beer tried to use a
drone to deliver six-packs to ice fishermen on a frozen lake in
Minnesota, the FAA grounded the brewskis.
Andreas Raptopoulous,
CEO of Matternet in Menlo Park, Calif., predicts that in the near term,
there will be more extensive use of drones in impoverished countries
than in wealthier nations such as the U.S.
He sees a market for
drones to deliver medicines and other critical, small packaged goods to
the 1 billion people around the globe who don’t have year-round access
to roads.
Later this year, Matternet plans to start selling to
government and aid organizations a package that includes a drone and two
landing pads. On the return trip, the drones can carry blood samples
bound for labs and other packages.
Germany’s express delivery
company Deutsche Post DHL is testing a "Paketkopter" drone that could be
used to deliver small, urgently needed goods in hard-to-reach places.
Facebook is in talks to buy Titan Aerospace, a maker of solar-powered
drone-like satellites, to step up its efforts to provide Internet access
to remote parts of the world.
There is also a strong business
case for urban drones that can replace truck deliveries of single
packages. "If you look at the economic footprint and CO2 emissions,"
Raptopoulous said, the drone "beats the truck hands down."
Worldwide
sales of military and civilian drones will reach an estimated $89
billion over the next decade, according to the Teal Group, an aerospace
research company in Fairfax, Va. The FAA estimates as many as 7,500
small commercial drones will be in use within five years once the
necessary regulations are in place.
Jim Williams, head of the
FAA’s drone office, said writing rules for the U.S. is more complex than
other nations. The U.S. has far more air traffic than anywhere else and
a greater variety of aircraft, from hot air balloons and old-fashioned
barnstormers to the most sophisticated airliners and military and
business jets. At low altitudes, the concern is a small drone could
collide with a helicopter or small plane flown by a recreational pilot.
"It’s
a different culture in the U.S. and Canada," Williams said in an
interview. "People believe they have the right to just jump in their
airplane and fly just like they do their car. … We can’t set up a
system that puts any of those folks at risk."
Yet the FAA permits
hobbyists to fly model aircraft that have so improved in technology that
they’re little different from small drones. The FAA has issued
voluntary guidelines for hobbyists, including staying away from
airports, flying no higher than 400 feet and staying within the line of
sight of the operator.
"You could go off to the hobby shop, buy a
little remote control helicopter and fly it to your heart’s content,"
McDuffee said. "But if you hung a digital camera on that, took pictures
of your neighbor’s roof and sold those pictures to him or her, now you
are in business and you’re flying" an unmanned aircraft system.
Sean
Cassidy, senior vice president at the Air Line Pilots Association, said
he worries that commercial drone users will be less willing than
hobbyists to abide by restrictions because of economic pressures.
Drones
are "becoming so prevalent and affordable that something has to be done
to make sure they’re not being used in a reckless manner," he, said.
"Even a fairly small (drone), if the person flying this thing is unaware
of their surroundings … there could be very dire consequences."
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