The Current Status of UAVs

1. UAVs are currently being used by civilians for purposes of recreation, business, photography, crop monitoring, . I have actually done research on this topic recently due to my recent acquisition of a high-end drone so I'm well aware of the requirements. These UAVs are currently regulated under two categories. There's Part 107 under the FAA, and there's the more recent announcement from congress with the Special Rule for Model Aircraft (Public Law 112-95 Section 336). The civilian UAV's are mostly regulated under the Special Rule for Model Aircraft, assuming the activities only include recreation. The UAVs used for recreation have had a conflicting past regarding registration with the FAA. According to the FAA Modernization and Reform Act (2012), it states that the FAA "may not promulgate any rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft". This means that the FAA cannot require recreational drone users to have to register their aircraft. However, the FAA in 2015 decided to require registration for all model aircraft, which included recreational use of drones. This clearly violated the Modernization and Reform Act. What occurred after this was the case of John Taylor, brought to the Washington D.C. area federal appeals court, which rightly resulted in the registration requirement for model aircraft to be removed (Laris, 2017). Even though this ruling was set in place, the FAA kept their website in a fashion that still stated that people had to register their drones, but did refund those who registered their drone and requested a refund. However, more recently in late 2017, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2018 (FAA’s Registration Requirement, 2017). This Authorization Act included a regulation, which basically overruled the John Taylor case, that made it a requirement for recreational model aircraft to be registered. Even though back in 2012 when the Modernization and Reform Act was passed and stated that the FAA was not allowed to require registration, they are now allowed to do so. As a result, I'll say this: whether I register my drone and abide by this new regulation (that was sneaked into the Authorization Act) or not is nobody elses business. The restrictions for recreational flight include line of sight visibility, notification of airport and tower when operating within 5 miles of an airport, don't fly near other aircraft, and a few others. Regarding the rules for commercial and other non-recreational operations under Part 107, they have always required registration and for one to get a Part 107 certification if they wish to fly under the regulation. There are multiple requirements, such as a 400ft AGL (unless within 400' of a structure) limitation, operation in the day time only, and for the aircraft to be tagged (which is now true for recreational aircraft, but hopefully not for long).


2. UAVs are being operated in other countries, for recreational and commercial use. For example, according to UAV Coach (2018), there are regulations regarding the use of drones in 59 countries. While I could go into the specifics for each of these countries, that'd be boring so let's assume that at least most of these countries have drone regulations because they are being put to use and not completely prohibited. I have attached a map below from Foxnomad.com (2017) of the places around the world and their policies on the use of drones. The markers in green indicated countries or states where the use of drones is allowed, or with little restriction. The yellow markers indicate a slightly harder barrier to cross to gain the permission to use a drone. The red markers indicate severely restrictive policies or prohibition of drone use. Gray markers have no information regarding the use of drones.
   
   
   
   As to commercial use, drones are being used mostly for photography, real estate, construction, and agriculture (Exploring the latest, 2017).


3. I see drones being integrated with the National Air Space (NAS) only for commercial use. Due to the current restrictions on recreational use, it is reasonable to assume that personal use would not need to be integrated. If it were integrated, that may be more traffic than our system needs, is capable of handling, and would be overly regulatory. However, since commercial use will allow for drones to fly higher, for longer, and more purposes, they are much greater of a risk to air traffic and thus will very likely be brought into the NAS. The potential logistical problems of having drones introduced into the NAS include a higher workload on the system, what operations will be required to join the NAS, and the cost to operators. Perception problems include passengers on aircraft becoming worried about the high usage of drones in airspace where they are travelling through and the potential for crashes to result from hitting a drone. In addition, these commercial drones do not have anyone on board so the public would not be comfortable with these flying over their head. 


4. Military strategy has now gone from sending actual lives into danger to sending in drones to drop a bomb or provide reconnaissance. According to Divya Joshi from Business Insider (2017), "drones are used in situations where manned flight is considered too risky or difficult. They provide troops with a 24-hour "eye in the sky", seven days a week. Each aircraft can stay aloft for up to 17 hours at a time, loitering over an area and sending back real-time imagery of activities on the ground". They are smaller so they are less likely to be shot down and drones are much cheaper than a full sized aircraft so that if one does go down, the economical loss is less. Ethically, the use of drones is unfair to traditional combat fighters, but I see most of the actions by the United States via the use of drones to be reasonable and appropriate for our own and many other country's interest, such as fighting ISIS and Al Qaeda.


5. The drone-related jobs I found that were available include being a drone pilot for photography, a payload operator, a test pilot, technician, and a teacher of students and prospective instructors in drone technology. I found these jobs from https://www.indeed.com/q-Uav-Pilot-jobs.html.

References

Atherton, K. D. (2017, May 24). Court ruling means you no longer have to register consumer drones with the FAA. Retrieved February 05, 2018, from https://www.popsci.com/court-overturns-rule-requiring-drone-registration#page-2

FAA’s Registration Requirement for UAS. (2017, November 9). Retrieved February 5, 2018, from http://amablog.modelaircraft.org/amagov/2017/11/09/faas-registration-requirement-for-uas-november-9-2017/

Joshi, D. (2017, July 13). Exploring the latest drone technology for commercial, industrial and military drone uses. Retrieved February 05, 2018, from http://www.businessinsider.com/drone-technology-uses-2017-7

Joshi, D. (2017, July 13). Exploring the latest drone technology for commercial, industrial and military drone uses. Retrieved February 05, 2018, from http://www.businessinsider.com/drone-technology-uses-2017-7

Laris, M. (2017, May 29). John Taylor fought the FAA over registering drones. And won. But now what? Retrieved February 05, 2018, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/john-taylor-fought-the-faa-over-registering-drones-and-won-but-now-what/2017/05/29/56b83bf8-416a-11e7-adba-394ee67a7582_story.html?utm_term=.4dbb35a36669

This Map Shows You The Drone Laws For Every Country In The World (Updated Regularly). (2018, January 26). Retrieved February 05, 2018, from https://foxnomad.com/2017/07/25/map-shows-drone-laws-every-country-world-updated-regularly/