FAA OKs first commercial drone flights over land | Hacker News Reader

FAA OKs first commercial drone flights over land

news.yahoo.com

58 pointsandrewmac44 comments

I hope that drones end up going through the same channels as traditional aviation - you get a pilot certificate with a drone rating (Drone Quadengine Land?). That would be very cool because it would get the drone operators in the same system as everyone else, ensure they know the FARs and are sufficiently skilled to be safe, and create a pathway that everyone could feel good about being legitimate. Aviation is a really complex thing, and while I wouldn't expect the complexity of a small drone license to be anywhere near even a Recreational Pilot certificate, there's at least a weekend of stuff to know here and it should result in a license.

The bar for CFIs would be different, too, and I imagine you'd end up seeing tons of little Part 141-style drone schools pop up for $100 - $300 for a Saturday or so. It would be like adding a motorcycle rating to a driver's license. I don't think it would meaningfully hinder progress.

I feel like this is important even if they're exclusively limited to class G airspace near the ground (and the reality is that in a lot of the congested areas where drones are being flown, it isn't traditional class G airspace).

Add it onto the new light sport aircraft pathways and you make it easy for people get into drones safely while also introducing them to the wider world of aviation.

I think there need to be different classes of drones. A kid who wants to film his friends at a skate park with a 1 pound AR.Drone shouldn't have to get a drone pilots license, while someone flying FPV 5 miles out probably should.

Right now you don't need a license for a 1 pound quad-copter that is flown within line of sight (for non-commercial uses).

The problem is that even for line-of-sight users, the FAA won't let you use them for commercial purposes. So, your hypothetical kid would be okay filming their friends, so long as they didn't make any money from it.

There are two issues with drones that the FAA needs to figure out: 1) commercial use and 2) autonomous (out of sight) flight. The latter is much trickier than the former. I'm all for autonomous drones having to get certified (including FPV, since those would need some kind of fail-safe). But even here, there might need to be a "hobbyist" class and a commercial class with different requirements.

The reason the FAA is so nervous about commercial operations in general is because in aviation there's nothing more dangerous than saying, "we'll be there by 2:30." It's why the rules for Part 135 (charter) operators are much stricter than for Part 91 (personal) operators, and go through the roof for Part 121 (scheduled airline) operators. The commercial aspect adds a potentially major consideration other than safety and so the FAA has a whole separate way of thinking about it. The spirit of these concerns is probably as true for drones as it is for manned aircraft, though the concrete instantiations of it will obviously be different.

Obviously we don't want drones traversing glide paths for major airports, but besides obvious stuff like that how are safety concerns for drones in any way comparable to those for aircraft that carry humans?

The most basic concern is that dron operators need to know these "dangerous" areas. The approach paths is only one of many other potentially dangerous places in the skies. There are also low-level military operation areas, low-level VFR corridors, etc. More importantly, the skies are not empty and the VFR flights are based on see-and-avoid concept. With drones, it is hard to see the drones from planes and drones can't see planes either.

Not to mention the enforcement part. All planes today have a call sign and FAA/NTSB can easily go after pilots when rules are broken. This is an important part of the overall safety architecture. FAA would need to come up with a way to enforce rules on drones pilots and operators to ensure that unsafe behavior is punished.

> * in aviation there's nothing more dangerous than saying, "we'll be there by 2:30."*

Can you elaborate on this? I don't understand.

It changes risk decisions: instead of worrying only about safety the pilots/operators start to also worry about making the schedule. In the history of aviation, it led to numerous accidents and incidents of pilots flying into bad weather, pilots flying un-airworthy aircrafts, etc. only because they've had schedule to meet.

Safety loses out when you're on a deadline.

I flew private with someone when I was a student pilot; we were on a deadline, so instead of waiting for the weather to let up, we were scud running about 300 miles back to our home airport (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scud_running). This is inadvisable; you're throwing minimum ceilings out the window, and hoping you don't run into obstacles on the ground (wind towers, cell towers, antenna guy wires).

It's not just dangerous, but illegal if you get caught. (Note: I was not PIC, and did not make the call). Do not do this.

EDIT: /u/lsh123 said it better.

You seem to be coming at this from a traditional aviation viewpoint (which is valid). I'm coming at it from a modeling viewpoint. And I think that's where a large part of the disconnect comes into play. From the traditional point of view, you'd like to bring these drones into the normal aviation regulatory framework. From the model point of view, large regulations are overkill and are severely limiting the development of this industry.

I think that there are a couple of obvious rules that could be applied to speed things along: 1) limit location and altitude of flying, 2) require hands-on control (or take over), 3) require line of sight, 4) enforce some reasonable weight restrictions (for cameras). If you could meet those four things, then I don't see why you'd need to have a commercial restriction. You might have other issues to deal with for insurance, but I don't see why the FAA should care about commercial/non-commercial with such small craft.

Now, when you get into autonomous flight and real payloads, then that's a whole other ballgame, where I think the FAA will have some real work to do. In particular though, I'd hate to see them limit the hobbyist segment too much. I think it would be a lot of fun to build a small, autonomous drone that could fly using GPS waypoints with a camera. I just don't want to have to go through 2 years of certification to be able to fly it!

You are missing important part: find a way to punish violators of these (and other) rules. This is critical for safety.

Typically, if you violate FARs, you'll lose a huge pilot's license investment (private, ifr, commercial can total in the tens of thousands of dollars).

It doesn't hurt to lose a $300-$1000 quadrotor pilot license.

Correct. The question is - how to identify the drone pilot? With planes you have N-number, transponders, FBOs, etc.

Require user registration by serial number on the drone possible? Or perhaps require commercial drones use ADS-B?

It's not clear how one can get the serial number from the drone. ADS-B might be an option not only for tracking violators but also to solve "see-and-avoid" problem too.

Registering individual airframes doesn't make much sense - it's not unusual for a single quadcopter to go through many design iterations over the course of a few months.

It might start out as a 10" wide quadcopter, until the first major crash. Instead of ordering a new arm, it can be reconfigured as a tricopter with the addition of a servo. After a while, the tricopter might become a V-Tail if the user likes the flight characteristics.

Then FPV kit might get added, or a GPS reciever. Now it's flying semi-autonomously and the user wants better quality video, so it's transplanted onto a 18" frame, fitted with a gimbal and nicer camera.

At what point does the multicopter need to change registration numbers?

A simple "You must have your name and contact info on it" rule would be more than sufficient - and in fact is already the case for 90% of the aircraft out there. I even have my contact info taped to the body of my little 4" Hubsan quadcopter; I'll probably never need it, but why throw away expensive hardware if you don't have to?

> limit location and altitude of flying

Sure - this might be a good example here because any rules the FAA will come out with in this regard will probably require you to be able to read a sectional chart unless you're really in the middle of nowhere. The DJI drones are all easily capable of altitudes that could interfere with VFR traffic and in places like the Bay Area the ceilings people are flying under are often quite low to avoid, for example, the SFO airspace. Drones are way more maneuverable than airplanes, so the realistic burden will be on the drone operators to avoid rather than the other way around.

Definitely shouldn't be a two-years-of-flight-school thing, but there probably is a written test at the DMV somewhere in here.

There already is to an extent. You can fly drones as long as they are within visible range iirc even today.

I suggest defining these acronyms. For everyone else: CFI = Certified Flight Instructor. FAR = Federal Aviation Regulation.

I haven't looked at the FAA regs yet, but what's the distinction between a drone and a model plane? A camera?

Model planes don't need all this licensing stuff, you can just build one and go out in a field and have some fun. There's even some really big, impressive, jet powered model planes. Where is the boundary drawn exactly?

Put another way, would drone pilot school be basically learning to fly a model plane/helicopter?

My understanding is that RC planes have been mostly ignored in the regulations because the community is so small. If quadrotors enable a massive explosion in hobbyist R/C flight it changes the story. The few drones flying right now aren't the issue - it's what happens now that they're on the verge of becoming so cheap and accessible. I know a lot of people with reasonably high power Phantoms that never would have considered R/C planes before.

> I know a lot of people with reasonably high power Phantoms that never would have considered R/C planes before.

Do you think it's because it's a more stable/easier to fly platform?

My uncle used to be an avid R/C plane enthusiast (even has a small R/C only airfield named after him). Built and flew decent sized aircraft for decades, even put video on quite a few. But damn if they aren't hard to fly.

I hope that it doesn't follow the same channels. I would prefer different classes of drones with lots of room for experimentation.

I can see where you're coming from, but I think your proposed system would seriously stunt drones. You assume drones have a pilot, but most of the benefits of drones will be from automated ones. Requiring a human pilot drastically increases drone cost, killing many applications in the cradle. Most delivery services (such as Amazon's proposed system) would be right-out. So would having a drone follow someone on a bike ride or run, carrying supplies or providing light at night. And forget about personal security drones recording encounters, pepper-spraying assailants, and following them until police can catch them.

Automated drones would completely change how we live our lives. In contrast, the general aviation community is small and hasn't advanced significantly since the 1950's. The popular engines and airframes are almost the same as they were a half-century ago. Heck, most private planes still run on leaded gasoline. Restricting drones to preserve private planes makes about as much sense as restricting automobiles to preserve horseback riding.

Every example you've given is, at least in my view, a reason to support the parent's proposal. You're thinking somewhat further in the future than the state of the art, too. Why not follow a regulatory path broadly similar to horses->cars->self driving cars? Let the technology catch up, and legislation can follow as appropriate. The parent makes sense today, and will open up a legal framework for piloted drones which doesn't currently exist (crop dusting, aerial photography, news broadcasting, crowd control, traffic monitoring).

Cars are regulated much less than planes, yet self-driving cars are an excellent example of technology that has been delayed due to risk-averse, slow-to-change legislation.

The problem is that while legislators and rule-makers often react quickly when restricting things, they are very loath to repeal restrictions. A work-around is to permit most things by default, then restrict in reaction to specific issues.

Two excellent examples of squandered potential are general aviation and amateur radio. Both have been encumbered by nationwide rules that quickly became outdated. (Seriously, Morse code?) I'm very worried the FAA will do the same to drones. After all, that's what they're incentivized to do. They only get fired when someone is killed by a new technology. They aren't commended when millions benefit from it.

On the other hand, the FAA could drastically accelerate drone development with one simple rule: Allow cities and states to make their own laws regarding anything less than 10kg flying under 400ft. This includes commercial use.[1]

That's it. If local governments want to experiment, let them.

1. Of course there would be the normal restrictions around airports, military bases, etc. Also, temporary restrictions for VIPs such as the president make sense.

I could see autonomous UAVs being handled separately; you're right that I'm assuming that "drones" today have pilots ultimately responsible for them, which I think is in reality true.

I wouldn't mean for a certification pathway for UAV operators to exclude autonomous operation, but it's certainly a harder problem. It will probably be similar to current aircraft certification. Small companies have long histories of building and certifying airframes, so I don't buy your argument that it would "seriously stunt" drones. A company that can raise money can go through airframe and type certification. The costs come down in proportion to airframe fabrication and fuel costs.

It's one thing to let cities set their own rules for local flights below 400 ft. What happens when a software bug sends you up to 1,000 ft? Accidentally busts Class B airspace? These are similar issues as being seen with autonomous cars and can't be easily waved away.

This is a misleading headline. It approved BP to use a drone for pipeline surveillance over land in Alaska—that's it. It's not a blanket approval for all commercial uses.

Cargo drones have interesting implications. When the requirement of a human pilot or crew/passengers of any kind at all disappears, the possible form factors increase greatly. So, just a wild first-draft brainstorm here: How about quadcopter drones that take off and rendezvous with an overhead aircraft? Perhaps they deploy a drogue chute or streamer drogue in front of the craft, which is equipped with something like the Fulton surface-to-air recovery system:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_surface-to-air_recovery_...

(Similar devices have already been used to retrieve satellites that have reentered the atmosphere.) Once the mother aircraft retrieves its assigned drones, it stores them away, climbs to 50,000 feet, orients itself, then fires rockets to put it on a suborbital trajectory. On such a trajectory, the mother aircraft could reach any point on the globe in under 2 hours.

After the mother craft has reentered, it returns to a normal aircraft flight regime, then releases the quadcopter drones to fly directly to their delivery coordinates. Voila: same day point to point (city to city) small parcel delivery anywhere in the world. (Perhaps even same morning or same afternoon.)

Obviously, there are a lot of potential problems. Lots more organizations besides the FAA would have to get involved. The system described above doesn't take into account international customs and the spread of invasive species. There is the potential that people would try to use the system to deliver bombs. Also, suborbital craft of such capabilities are basically ICBMs. Such concerns would mean that the mother craft would have to land at an airport and the cargo drones inspected before they are sent to their destinations. It might be better to have the mother aircraft remove a cargo pack then drop the drones, which would float away on the streamer drogue, re-furl the drogue and resume powered flight back to base. This would save the weight of the drone for the suborbital flight. Then customs could proceed at the destination country mostly as usual, then the small parcels could be re-dispatched on a different set of drones, or proceed by conventional delivery. (Which, by then, could be a self driving vehicle.)

First, -1 to Yahoo for disabling zoom on mobile devices.

On drones - I have yet to see the FAA (or anyone else) address separation between manned VFR traffic and drones. VFR traffic maintains separation by "see and be seen". In other words, you look out the window for nearby traffic. Will drones have image recognition to detect nearby traffic?, I highly doubt it. Another way of separation is using the aircraft's transponder. But this won't necessarily work as not all aircraft have transponders. Many older GA aircraft do not even have an electrical system (other than the magneto spark plug system). A transponder is not required in class D, E, G airspace below 10,000 feet and 30 NM from a primary class B airport. The majority of the US is class E airspace. I'm also curious if all these drones will have a transponder (heavy given the battery usage).

The other way around is for the manned aircraft visually see a drone. Given the size of the drones, it will be very hard. Also, will drones have anti-collision lights?

Just like any new industry, safety regulations are enacted in response to incidents. I predict we'll have a few mid-air drone to airplane collisions in the 10-15 years. Once that happens we'll see better regulation.

> I predict we'll have a few mid-air drone to airplane collisions in the 10-15 years. Once that happens we'll see better regulation.

I think it depends on the drones.

Consider that the DJI Phantom 2 Vision weighs 1.2kg, and an adult male Canadian Goose weight up to 6.5kg. Barring the exception case of getting ingested into a jet engine, bird strikes don't seem to be a huge problem.

Of course, geese don't have sense enough to stay the hell away from airports - presumably, most drone operators do. Even if we assume that all drone operators will operate their drones wherever they'd like, whenever they'd like - will there likely be more drones in the air than Canada Geese?

I really think the threat to manned aircraft (while real) is extremely overstated.

I fully support drones, but this definitely is going to make life interesting for light aircraft pilots flying around already busy airspace like SoCal at relatively low altitude. Hit a 55 pound drone and you'll feel it.

This is far more restricted than that. They approved the use of drones by BP to survey their operations / pipelines in Alaska.

I think the restrictions in SoCal will be much more stringent.

How would the impact be different if its a 55 pound commercial drone vs a 55 pound RC aircraft? Other than RC aircraft are currently much more popular than drones and very long term extrapolation of graphs implies drones will eventually darken the sky much as flocks of passenger pigeons supposedly darkened the skies?

Last time I checked Court said to FAA they have zero jurisdiction over drones, so they cant approve dick.

If you guys had any other type of government I'd be so excited for you right now. I'm obsessed with RC stuff, this tech is just amazing!

However, seriously now - guys, come on... It's not going to end well for you. You must know that. I dont think I'm being what you call a 'tin-foil-hat guy'.

It's a fair assumption that massive-scale general abuse will overshadow the wonder of this technological achievement. Or maybe this has to be the straw that breaks the camel's back?

I'm guessing that if they had disapproved it you'd have written another message about excess government control designed to curtail natural freedoms.

No - I would not have posted that - you can go through my history if you like to get an idea of who I am. If they had disapproved it I would have 'mildly' curious as to why.

That's an 'Ad hominem' argument, you're making assumptions about who I am and then attacking my personality.

Anyway, good luck to you all. I hope I'm wrong about this, probably am.

Give it time, 'you all' will include yourself, and me and everyone. It's hard to understand how someone might say your prediction isn't possible or likely.

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