By Cliff Montgomery – Feb. 16th, 2012
The federal government’s deployment of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) within U.S. airspace is greater than normally recognized and is all but sure to increase in the future, according to recently released documents.
By 2010, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) already had approved hundreds of “certificates of authorization” (COAs) for drone deployment within the U.S.
“Right now, today as we sit here, we have 251 certificates of authorization for unmanned aircraft, 140 of them are DOD [Department Of Defense] related,” said the FAA’s Hank Krakowski at a September 2010 Senate hearing. A public record of the hearing was quietly released late last year.
“We have not rejected or denied any DOD COAs in 2010, and we keep moving forward,” continued Krakowski.
But “while UASs offer a promising new technology,” declared Krakowski, “the limited safety and operational data available to date does not yet support expedited or full integration into the NAS [National Airspace System].”
“Because current available data is insufficient to allow unfettered integration of UASs into the NAS,” where public planes travel every day, “the FAA must continue to move forward deliberately and cautiously, in accordance with our safety mandate,” said Krakowski at the Senate hearing.
“As we attempt to integrate these aircraft into the NAS,” continued Krakowski, “we will continue to look at any risks that UASs pose to the traveling public.”
The FAA also will assess “the risk to persons or property on the ground,” according to Krakowski.
The Army last month released a new directive intended to oversee the increasing deployment of drones in American airspace. The directive covers both training missions and “domestic operations.”
“The Army’s unmanned aircraft systems represent emerging technology that requires access to the National Airspace System,” scribbled Army Secretary John McHugh in a memorandum dated January 13th.
The Army memo clearly refers to a revised UAS operations policy which now supports an “expanded UAS access to the National Airspace System.”
