French company Delair-Tech purchased the Gatewing engineering and manufacturing business of Trimble, based in Ghent, Belgium—a significant acquisition in the commercial drone industry the parties announced on October 10. They did not disclose the purchase price.

Gatewing produces the UX5, UX5HP and ZX5 small unmanned aircraft used for aerial data collection and photogrammetry applications. Delair-Tech, with headquarters in Toulouse, France, provides UAV packages based on the DT18 and DT26 small fixed-wing drones, and including data processing and analytics, for industrial inspection and asset management purposes. In October 2012, the DT18 became the first small unmanned aircraft certified by France’s DGAC civil aviation authority for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) operations.

At the time of the Gatewing acquisition, Delair-Tech and German manufacturer microdrones signed strategic agreements to supply fixed-wing and multi-rotor drones, respectively, for Trimble’s world distribution network.

“Currently, the drone market is undergoing intense consolidation, and now is the time to strategically position ourselves as leaders of tomorrow,” said Michael de Lagarde, Delair-Tech CEO. “The agreement we have reached with Trimble will enable us to reach the critical size required to better respond to the needs of large industrial groups, which are our main target.”

Trimble acquired privately-held Gatewing in April 2012 and developed the 5.5-pound UX5 flying wing from Gatewing’s X100 platform. The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company, which changed its name from Trimble Navigation earlier this month, will now focus on software for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) instead of platforms. Its distribution network sells image-processing software to the construction, agriculture, transport and energy industries.

“This transaction is part of our continuing program to tighten our corporate focus,” said Ron Bisio, Trimble Geospatial Division vice president. “Trimble chose to partner with Delair-Tech and microdrones to strengthen our UAS portfolio. Working together, Delair-Tech and microdrones will deliver industry-leading unmanned aircraft systems, while Trimble will focus on core software technology for UAS that integrates positioning, remote sensing and photogrammetry.”

Surveillance equipment specialist L-3 Wescam brought the newest member of its hugely popular MX stabilized turret series to the Helitech event in Amsterdam, marking the European debut of the system, unveiled at the AUSA (Association of the United States Army) show in October. With an 8.3-inch-diameter turret ball and 11-inch-ground-clearance plane, the MX-8 is the smallest of the family, yet has a four-axis system offering an exceptional 35-μrad stabilization. Such a level is particularly important in the smaller platforms for which the turret is primarily intended.

MX-8 is targeted at UAVs and small manned platforms. Weighing 15 pounds, the new turret offers a significant weight-saving compared to the MX-10, the previous “baby” of the L-3 Wescam line. The reduced weight will also appeal to users wishing to add a second sensor system, such as radar, to a SWaP-limited platform. MX-8 has the same interface as the larger members of the family, which range from the 10-inch MX-10 to the 25-inch MX-25. All share common integration and training. The company had prototyped an even smaller seven-inch ball, but after trials and consultation with potential customers concluded the eight-inch ball offered the optimal weight/performance tradeoff.

Four sensor systems are incorporated into the turret, including a 3- to 5-μm cooled staring array thermal imager with a field of view from 2.75 degrees to 28.9 degrees, and a color lowlight continuous zoom camera with a field of view from 1.53 degrees to 30degrees. The electro-optic set is complemented by an eye-safe laser rangefinder and 150 mW Class IIIb laser illuminator. The turret features an embedded GPS receiver and has image-blending and autotracker capabilities. An e-zoom feature allows for 2x and 4x magnification.

Although the MX-8 is engineered to meet military specifications and defense forces such as the U.S. Army are seen as key customers, the turret offers a significant reduction in cost compared with the larger systems, making it a more aattractive option for non-military operators, such as law enforcement agencies and emergency medical services. The MX series has already gained significant traction in the law enforcement market; L-3 Wescam has sold 49 MX-10s to police forces this year already.

A Jacksonville, Fla.-based drone manufacturer has been awarded a contract valued at $400,000 to supply its WATT electric tethered drone to an undisclosed U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) customer. The transaction represents the first WATT customer sale, said Drone Aviation Corp. (DAC).

A coaxial quad multi-rotor drone, the WATT electric tethered aerial platform operates at up to 400 feet for eight hours or longer, drawing power and transmitting data and telemetry through a Kevlar-armored tether connected to the ground. It carries turret-style gimbaled electro-optical/infrared payloads for day and night-time video, with an advertised vehicle detection range of six miles.

Different branches of the U.S. military are using or evaluating tethered drones. In July, CyPhy Works, a company based in Danvers, Mass., said the U.S. Army’s Rapid Equipping Force had ordered its Persistent Aerial Reconnaissance and Communications (PARC) system, based on a tethered six-rotor drone. In May, AeroVironment said the Pentagon’s Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office was evaluating its “Tether Eye” tethered quadcopter.

DAC said that it has received previous DOD contracts for its Winch Aerostat Small Platform (WASP), a mobile, tactical-sized aerostat capable of carrying a variety of payloads. The WATT contract was its first customer sale of a tethered multi-rotor drone.

“This new award from the DOD is a significant milestone for our company as we officially begin to train and support our nation’s early adopters of tethered drones,” said Jay Nussbaum, DAC chairman and CEO. “We expect this initial award to generate valuable data and deployment experience, something we intend to leverage to convert our prospect pipeline into tethered drone sales to customers in the government and commercial markets.”

Robert Young, the CEO of PrecisionHawk, a company that provides aerial data and analytics to the insurance, construction, energy and farming industries, made an interesting observation during the first meeting of the Drone Advisory Committee (DAC). The DAC is a blue-ribbon panel the FAA formed to advise it on safely introducing small unmanned aircraft systems—better known as drones—into the national airspace system; it held its inaugural gathering in Washington, D.C., in September.

“We’re really talking about the world of flying robots,” Young remarked. With the FAA expecting that millions of drones will enter the airspace in the coming years, “how do we integrate the national airspace into the flying robots?” he asked. “Have you thought about it from that perspective?”

Young’s suggestion that drones may flip the airspace system itself on its head was lighthearted, but the point was not lost on his colleagues. In a presentation to the committee, Earl Lawrence, director of the FAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Integration Office, said the number of new registrations filed for recreational and commercial small drones was unprecedented in the agency’s experience. Nine months after its on-line drone registry went live in December 2015, 550,748 hobbyists had registered to fly one or more drones apiece (the FAA estimates three)—more than double the nation’s 260,165 registered manned aircraft.

In the three weeks since the FAA’s new Part 107 regulation for the commercial use of drones had taken effect on August 29, 13,710 people had applied for remote-pilot certificates under the rule, and 5,080 had passed the required aeronautical knowledge test. At the rate they were being granted, the FAA expected the number of certificates will exceed its forecast of 16,000 this year, and it estimated that the commercial drone fleet will range from 33,000 to 617,000 units. The agency projects there will be upward of 1.3 million certificated drone pilots by 2020.

“It’s more than our traditional aviation profile,” Lawrence said of the drone phenomenon. “The community is much larger and more diverse. What’s really unique is the sheer volume of operations and [their] personal nature.”

Insight into the composition of the remote-pilot population might be drawn from the 5,521 commercial exemptions the FAA granted before Part 107 took effect. More than 90 percent of the entities receiving those exemptions—made possible under the Section 333 provision of FAA reauthorization legislation—were small businesses, according to an analysis by the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI). Among the applicants, 3,635 were entities with less than 10 employees; 1,046 were individuals.

Jonathan Rupprecht, an aviation attorney, author and FAA-certified flight instructor based in West Palm Beach, Fla., observed that the first wave of drone pilots includes many “61ers,” a reference to people who already hold a pilot certificate under FAA Part 61 flight-training regulations. Under Part 107, they can obtain a remote-pilot certificate by completing an online training course to achieve a small-UAS rating; non-pilots must pay $150 and pass the Unmanned Aircraft General (UAG) test at one of 696 FAA-certified testing centers.

“More than 50 percent are 61ers right now,” said Rupprecht, who compared the number of UAG tests new entrants passed with the number of licensed pilots who applied for remote-pilot certificates through the FAA’s Integrated Airman Certification and Rating Application (IACRA) web portal. “Maybe one reason for that is a lot of the people that are dying to get into the [drone] sector or have been in the sector are pilots.” They may have started operating drones for compensation under a Section 333 exemption, then come forward to earn their remote-pilot wings under Part 107, he surmised.

Rupprecht said he has advised utilities and other large companies on establishing small-drone operations, but not corporate flight departments.

“The larger companies are interested in setting up enterprise operations at a really high level, like 100-plus pilots across the United States,” he related. “I don’t know how many of them have actually reached out to their internal flight departments. Originally, how these drone operations seem to start is there is a tech guy or a tech department that is looking on the horizon for new technology at a lower cost. They tend to be much more creative, so they don’t really focus on the regulations. There are issues with, where do you put the [drone] department, is it going into the aviation department? Is it going to stay in the tech department? The infighting tends to be one big problem for integration with the bigger companies. They just don’t know what to do internally.”

That comports with what Brad Hayden, president and CEO of Albuquerque-based Robotic Skies, has observed of the emerging commercial industry. Hayden, who is also the president of Kings Avionics, a private pilot and a first-person-view drone pilot, has organized a worldwide network of 130 service centers capable of repairing and maintaining commercial drones. He is moderating a panel, “The Nuts and Bolt of Operating a Corporate UAS Operation,” here at NBAA 2016.

The commercial drone operations Hayden has observed are typically located with the IT department or some other branch of a large company. They may interact with the flight department and adopt its operating procedures, but by and large they remain separate organizations.

“It’s all over the map right now where they’re putting these operations,” Hayden said. “For the longest time, pilots who were flying a Falcon [jet] or something for an enterprise—they were afraid of risking their certificate on flying some kind of drone operation and somehow breaking a reg.”

From the opposite perspective, another department within an enterprise—for example, the division of an agricultural company responsible for sourcing a crop-spraying or aerial-imaging drone—may not know to involve the flight department in its planning. “If you look at what drones are being used for in particular right now, it’s all about collecting data,” Hayden said. “Well that’s being done out in the field. If you look at an ag company, the corporate flight department usually isn’t even involved with one of their divisions when it selects a crop sprayer or something like that. They may not have any kind of oversight into how that ag flyer is chosen.”

Ultimately, managers will bring flight departments into the process out of concern for liability, or outsource their drone requirements to qualified operators, Hayden believes. The commercial market will inevitably evolve and become more structured, but for now it remains an open frontier.

“It’s almost like every man now suddenly has access to an aircraft, which is actually what this whole phenomenon is all about right? Suddenly you can empower people in the field to use aviation to be more efficient,” said Hayden.​ 

Bill Carey is an AIN senior editor based in Washington, D.C., and the author of Enter the Drones: The FAA and UAVs in America, released by Schiffer Publishing in July.

No, this isn’t an article about rogue drones or what we have to fear from drones in the hands of novice fliers. Far from it. This is about how the FAA’s new drone rules—a real boon for commercial operations—have quite the opposite potential effect on hobbyists (particularly students) and on teachers, whom the FAA has determined are “commercial” operators in all but the most limited circumstances. The FAA has underplayed this potential impact, including posting misleading information on its UAS websites. I strongly believe in the importance of educational and hobby flying with minimum unnecessary government bureaucracy, especially in school and after-school programs where students in elementary and high school should be able to learn to build, fly and even race model aircraft without the need to comply with FAA rules meant for commercial operators. So while FAA websites continue to tout the hobby/educational and non-hobby distinction [or fun vs. work as the FAA’s chart (www.faa.gov/uas/getting_started/) puts it], the new rules do not, in fact, make that neat distinction any more. But more about the rules in a moment.

First, why should aviation employers even care about the barriers to hobby and educational flying erected by the FAA’s new rules? Well, we all know of the looming shortages in aviation personnel. Boeing’s most recent forecast doesn’t mince words: “As global economies expand and airlines take delivery of tens of thousands of new jetliners over the next 20 years, there is extraordinary demand for people to fly and maintain these airplanes.” The 2016 report predicts that “between now and 2035, the aviation industry will need to supply more than two million new aviation personnel—617,000 airline pilots, 679,000 maintenance technicians and 814,000 cabin crew.” For North America, the numbers for this period are 112,000 new pilots, 118,000 new maintenance technicians and 169,000 new cabin crew. The report specifically acknowledges the importance of educational outreach to inspire the next generation of aviation workers. 

The personnel shortages really aren’t “looming” any longer. Aviation employers across the country are already experiencing difficulties. That will continue unless dramatic steps are taken to expand the pipeline of students interested in aviation careers. 

The challenge for all of us who care about the future of aviation is how to do that educational outreach, how to get young people excited about aviation careers. For me, as for many of you, model aircraft were our first personal experiences with flying. As a young boy growing up near Logan Airport—before any fences surrounded the field—I spent many hours watching airplanes take off and land. But watching airplanes fly was not as much fun as actually making them fly. And that was what led me to building and flying model airplanes—until I was old enough to fly a real airplane myself. These early experiences with flight, I’m certain, fed my life-long fascination with aviation and fueled my desire to make aviation my career. I’m not alone here; I know so many pilots and mechanics who trace their love of aviation to their early days building and flying models. 

Access Restrictions

Fast-forward to more recent times. For decades the FAA did not regulate hobby flying at all. Flying clubs—many under the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA)—had safety guidelines meant to ensure the safe operation of model aircraft and fueled many an aviation career. In 1981, the FAA put out an advisory circular suggesting some non-mandatory safety guidelines for flying model aircraft. Then, with the Pirker case, the FAA began its march to regulating model aircraft, culminating in the new federal aviation regulations applicable to anyone who flies a model aircraft regardless of its size or weight, location of flight and purpose (hobby or commercial). Yes, the new rules eliminate the long-standing hobby/non-hobby distinction and instead carve out from the “commercial” or Part 107 rules hobbyists who can comply with all of the Part 101 requirements. Sound easy? Well, it’s not. And the consequences for students and educators are significant.

For one thing, Part 101 requires that model aircraft remain in visual line of sight. The FAA has interpreted this to prohibit use of first-person-view (FPV) devices. This interpretation means that drone racers cannot fly FPV without a Part 107 certificate and meeting the requirements of Part 107 (which for FPV flying would include a visual observer). So while this erects a significant barrier to all drone racers—and from a safety perspective it should be noted that most racing drones are extremely small and light weight and flown at very low altitudes—it’s particularly burdensome to children under the age of 16. That’s because the age limit for a Part 107 certificate is 16.To fly FPV legally, children under the age of 16 would need both a certified pilot and a visual observer on hand each and every time they fly. Sounds like a lot of government red tape to race a tiny drone.

Drone racing might not sound like a big deal, but it is a huge deal when it comes to getting kids interested in aviation. I’ve seen the excitement kids of all ages have in building and flying these drones. And the competition really fuels their interest. It’s an educator’s dream: a sport that has real math and science skills behind it, that gets kids away from their video games into the outdoors and that fosters teamwork and competition. 

Other than the prohibition on FPV flying, the Part 101 rules apply only if you fly under the safety guidelines and programming of a community-based, national aeromodelling organization. No one really knows what that means. The FAA has said that the AMA meets this definition, but no one knows if that means you have to be a member. The FAA won’t say if any other organization meets this requirement. So people who don’t belong to the AMA might not be able to fly under Part 101.

The other section that is difficult to comply with is the notification to airports and ATC within five miles of an airport. I’ve talked to several drone attorneys who tell me this section causes a lot of concern among their clients. The FAA has interpreted this notification requirement to apply to private airports, heliports and seaports, regardless of how often they’re used. Notification is no easy feat at many of these small airports.  Even some quite busy airports have no one answering the phones. So if you try to notify but fail, does that constitute notification? Or if you operate after failing to get through to anyone, are you violating Part 107 and flying without a certificate?

The point of all this is that the FAA’s new rules put many hobby fliers and most teachers in the same regulatory group as commercial operators like Amazon and Google. The requirement for getting a certificate under Part 107 might not seem like much of a barrier to entry to most commercial operators but it could well be to most students (especially those who don’t meet the age requirement) and many teachers. 

The solution I see—and one that Congress considered at one time—is a so-called micro UAS rule that would remove all this senseless red tape from the smallest drones, which have the least likelihood of any safety impact. Another alternative is an exemption for teachers and students participating in a school course or club. 

The U.S. Marine Corps desires a large, shipboard-capable unmanned aircraft system (UAS). The Navy is already pursuing the MQ-25 Stingray aerial refueling drone, which will operate from carriers. The Army wants a new tactical UAS. And the Air Force plans to acquire small drones that would fly in swarms or complement manned aircraft in a “loyal wingman” role.

Program leaders with the U.S. services described their future UAS plans on October 26 during the Unmanned Systems Defense conference in Arlington, Va. In sum, their presentations demonstrated a robust demand for new unmanned platforms to perform a variety of missions.

The Marines have prepared an initial capabilities document (ICD) for a long-range, long-endurance, shipboard-capable Group 5 UAS, the largest category of drone weighing more than 1,320 pounds. The so-called Marine Air-Ground Task Force UAS Expeditionary (MUX) aircraft would have vertical takeoff and landing capable and enter service in 2024-2026.

Candidate platform demonstrations could begin next year, said Marine Lt. Gen. J.M.“Dog” Davis, whose presentation featured drawings of aircraft concepts including the Bell V-247 Vigilant unmanned tiltrotor, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) and Northrop Grumman TERN (Tactically Exploited Reconnaissance Node) program and the Lockheed Martin/Piasecki Aircraft ARES (Aerial Reconfigurable Embedded System).

The MUX platform would follow the Marines’ new Insitu RQ-21A Blackjack, a catapult-launched Group 3 UAS that Davis revealed is “not just an ISR (intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance) platform” that has seen combat in two locations he declined to identify. The service deployed the Blackjack in Afghanistan in 2014 as an early operational capability.

In the last several weeks, the Navy has awarded Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, General Atomics and Boeing risk-reduction contracts to refine their concepts for the MQ-25A Stingray, also a Group 5 UAS. The service expects to release a request for proposals for the program later this year, said Rear Adm. Robert Girrier, Navy director of unmanned warfare systems.

The Army will refine its requirement for a new tactical UAS that would operate at brigade level in the late 2020s, said Brig. Gen. Robert Marion, program executive officer for aviation. “We’re competing for funding for that. We have an ICD that is in staffing,” Marion reported. The service will emphasize reliability and maintainability, runway independence and availability of the platform in austere environments, he said.

In the meantime, the Army is re-engining the Textron Systems RQ-7B Shadow, which operates now at the brigade level. It plans to begin delivering the long-endurance General Atomics Improved Gray Eagle (IGE) to the Intelligence and Security and Special Operations commands in Fiscal Year 2018, which begins next October.

The Army will also procure a short-range micro (SRM) unmanned aircraft in FY18 that will operate at battalion and company levels with the current RQ-11B Raven and RQ-20A Puma hand-launched fixed-wing drones. “We have a validated requirement for that and we’re pursuing funding to support delivering that capability to the Army,” Marion said.

Also looking at small UAS is the Air Force, which is being influenced by the Pentagon’s “third offset strategy” to develop new technologies and concepts, as well as its own “bending the cost curve” initiative to drive down acquisition costs.

The service’s “Small UAS Flight Plan: 2016-2036,” released this spring, “is visionary at this point,” said Col. Brandon Baker, Air Force chief of remotely piloted aircraft capabilities. “But certainly we have S&T [science and technology] dollars and we have a lot of work that’s behind the scenes right now, working toward building and developing these capabilities for the future.” The service also recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Darpa to expand the scope of the latter agency’s “Gremlins” program to enable aircraft to launch volleys of low-cost, reusable UAS, he said.

Baker outlined three small UAS concepts of operation the service is contemplating: deploying a swarm of air vehicles to overwhelm an enemy’s air defenses or to “disaggregate” various sensor payloads; teaming with manned aircraft to share information in a network; and supplementing tactical aircraft such as the F-35A Lightning II with “loyal” wingmen.

The loyal wingman concept is three-fold, Baker said. “It’s a host platform with subordinate small UAS that either makes the host platform more effective (by) carrying weapons as weapons mules, additional sensors, jammers and so-forth, to make that aircraft more effective,” he explained. “The second piece is to protect the host platform. If we’re operating in a highly contested environment we may want some decoys, some jammers, to get radars to look elsewhere when the real business we’re doing with that F-35 may be in another part of the country.

“Finally, this could be a delivery mechanism. The host platform may deliver small UAS, drop them off into an independent type of mission that’s not necessarily related to the host platform.”

Aviation safety auditing company Wyvern (Booth 4632) announced a pair of contracts for its Exact drone operation audits this week. Pennsylvania-based Wyvern has partnered with Acend, a technology platform that provides pay-as-you-go insurance to drone operators. Under a separate agreement, Wyvern will conduct an Exact safety audit for drone operator Cinematic Aerospace of New York.

Wyvern will provide its Exact safety risk assessment to help Acend’s clients increase safety and reduce their insurance costs. Acend CEO Steve Rabbitt called the new partnership “a true win-win. Our customers will benefit from a discounted rate for Wyvern’s Exact safety quality and risk management program, and Wyvern’s customers, in turn, will receive preferential insurance rates in exchange for their demonstrated commitment to safety.”

Meanwhile, Cinematic Aerospace president Christian Tucci said his company pursued the Exact audit at the suggestion of its client Walt Disney. “I have always put safety first in our aerial cinematography business,” said Tucci. “Measuring our organization against industry best practices in safety, quality and risk management will only make us better as an organization.”

Wyvern CEO Art Dawley called Cinematic Aerospace “exactly the type of customer we had in mind when we developed Exact,” saying the audit “will help them further differentiate their business from their competitors.”

Insitu has donated its ScanEagle drone to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. N202SE is the first unmanned aircraft to perform an FAA-approved commercial beyond visual line of sight flight in the National Airspace System.

The aircraft made its first commercial flight off the fishing vessel Westward Wind to survey ice floes over the Chuckchi Sea off the northern Alaska coast in 2013 and later conducted track inspection for the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway between Belin and Clovis, New Mexico. The operations were in support of the FAA's Pathfinder initiative to explore the next steps in unmanned aircraft operations.

“At a time when the unmanned aviation industry is advancing faster than ever, we take great pride in the pioneering work Insitu has done to help shape this path,” said CEO Ryan Hartman. Based in Bergen, Washington, Insitu is an international company that creates and supports unmanned systems and software for industry, government, and defense.

An extended-range variant of the Predator C Avenger remotely piloted aircraft made its first flight in October, manufacturer General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) announced on November 10. The jet-powered aircraft now has 20 hours of endurance.

The maiden flight of the Avenger ER took place on October 27 at the company’s Gray Butte flight operations facility in Palmdale, Calif., GA-ASI said November 10. The manufacturer did not disclose specifics of the aircraft’s performance or the duration of the flight.

Powered by a Pratt & Whitney PW545B turbofan engine with a top-mounted engine inlet, the Predator C first flew in April 2009. Its fuselage was extended by four feet (to 44 feet) in 2012 to accommodate larger payloads and more fuel. Earlier this year, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration granted GA-ASI an experimental certificate that allows it to fly the Avenger in the National Airspace System.

GA-ASI extended the wingspan of the Avenger ER by 10 feet to 76 feet, and enlarged its fuel capacity by 2,200 pounds to 10,100 pounds compared to previous specifications. The aircraft carries up to 3,000 pounds in its internal payload bay, 500 pounds less than previously described. The modifications extend its endurance from the original 15 hours to 20 hours. Maximum speed is advertised at 400 ktas, with a maximum altitude of 50,000 feet.

“The first flight of Avenger ER is a significant achievement in the evolution of Predator C’s proven performance and multi-mission capability,” said GA-ASICEO Linden Blue. “The increased endurance and high payload capacity will deliver tremendous capability to our customers, who need persistent situational awareness and strike mission affordability.”

As with the legacy Avenger, the Avenger ER carries payloads including GA-ASI’s Lynx multi-mode radar, the MS-177 multi-spectral imaging sensor and the 2,000-pound Joint Direct Attack Munition, the manufacturer said.

The legacy Avenger has accumulated more than 13,000 flight hours to date; in July GA-ASI said it had surpassed 11,000 flight hours, most of those hours within the past three years. At the Unmanned Systems Defense conference on October 26, Donald Cattell, a GA-ASI vice president, revealed that the Avenger was used to conduct a leaflet drop in Syria.

GA-ASI has also advanced a maritime version of the Avenger for the U.S. Navy’s requirement for a carrier-based unmanned aircraft. That requirement has evolved into an aerial refueling and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance platform the Navy calls the MQ-25A Stingray. Recently, the service awarded GA-ASI as well as Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman risk-reduction contracts to refine their proposals.

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA-ASI) will make available a jet-powered Predator C Avenger for humanitarian relief missions—with the delivery of aid to war refugees in Syria mentioned as a potential application. That would represent a new, public mission for the remotely piloted aircraft, which until recently has been shrouded in secrecy.

GA-ASI announced on November 14 that it will provide a company-owned Avenger dubbed “Angel One” for aid drops.Powered by a Pratt & Whitney PW545B turbofan engine, the Avenger is capable of delivering 8,500 pounds of humanitarian daily rations for 3,400 people each day. A specially designed door release mechanism enables it to make two separate drops from its internal payload bay per mission, ensuring greater delivery success than traditional pallet drops, the manufacturer said.

“This capability could ensure that urgently needed food and medical supplies reach those otherwise inaccessible, such as victims of war—as in Syria—or following natural disasters throughout the world,” according to the announcement. “Angel One can fly up to three missions of three hours each per day for as long as humanitarian relief is required.”

GA-ASI’s offer adds to a recent uptick in information about the Predator C. On November 10, the manufacturer announced the first flight of an extended-range variant—the Avenger ER—which took place on October 27 at its Gray Butte flight operations facility in Palmdale, Calif.

The U.S. Air Force ordered one Avenger as a “test asset” in 2011, and the Central Intelligence Agency is thought to use the aircraft, but little else is known about the program. GA-ASI says it has other potential customers for the Avenger/Avenger ER that it cannot disclose.

Unmanned aircraft systems manufacturer AeroVironment kicked off this year’s Drone World Expo in San Jose, California, by unveiling its new commercial Quantix drone and Decision Support System (DSS). The package includes the Quantix drone—a vertical takeoff and landing multirotor, multi-sensor system—with the company's DSS cloud-based analytics platform.

Quantix is targeting the agricultural, energy and transportation markets, and AeroVironment is offering the system to customers in versions that include hardware only, hardware plus DSS or flight services that the company can provide for customers who don’t want to operate their own drones.

“We believe this is the first practical, fully integrated solution for the commercial market,” said Wahid Nawabi, AeroVironment's president and CEO. “Customers don’t want to be experts at UAV operations and data analysis,” he added, noting that the Quantix drone is designed for long life, reliability and ease of operation. AeroVironment has manufactured tens of thousands of drones operating globally in harsh environments, he said, and has a track record of 45 years in this industry.

The Quantix drone is equipped with four rotors, two on the ends of a single wing. A central fuselage is fitted with two cameras, one an RGB color camera for photographic image capture and a multispectral sensor with normalized difference vegetation index (NVDI) capabilities. All data is stored on SD cards, which can be removed post flight for local analysis or uploaded to AeroVironment’s DSS.

Operation of Quantix is automatic. Users interface with the drone via a customized tablet computer, by drawing the flight parameters on the screen. “It’s one-touch planning,” said Quantix product line manager Tom Stone. “If you can draw a box on a screen and push a button, you can fly Quantix. You don’t have to learn how to fly it, how to land it, and it’ll take off automatically, plan the mission automatically, fly that mission automatically, come back and land, and you can take the data card and put it in this tablet and you can look at the results immediately.”

Quantix is designed to operate from small spaces, thanks to its vertical takeoff and landing capability. The drone’s four rotors pull it straight up into the air, then it transitions to horizontal flight for mapping operations. Elevons on the wing trailing edge are used to control pitch when in horizontal flight mode. Yaw is controlled by varying the speed of the rotors. Endurance is about one hour, and 45-minute flights are typical. For landing, Quantix reverts to vertical mode and touches down on rugged fixtures built into the aft fuselage and wingtips. When power drops, Quantix will automatically return to the departure spot. If power is lost completely, it can glide and land with minimal damage.

Stone explained that AeroVironment didn’t design Quantix by starting with a drone and adapting it to customers’ needs. “We started with the customer and built it backwards,” he said. “The entire system is focused on providing data that’s valuable and useful and interesting to the customer to help him run his business. It’s all about acquiring the data that helps customers make valuable business decisions, not about flying the coolest drone on the block. 

“By designing the whole system end-to-end, we were able to optimize the system to make sure that it was easy to use, highly efficient and that it provided immediate information.”

The DSS is a cloud-based, secure, open-architecture analytics toolbox accessible via the Web, according to Nazlin Kanji, AeroVironment's program director of unmanned aircraft systems. “It supports the needs of multiple customers in multiple industries. Technology changes very quickly, and [DSS] allows us to incorporate new technology quickly and make it available to our customers.”

There are three main components to DSS: a dashboard, which is user-configurable; a mobile app for quick user data analysis and image annotation; and utilities, which can be customized for the end-user, such as an analysis tool that shows where trees (danger objects) are impinging on power lines, based on a predetermined buffer zone around the power lines.

Support for Quantix will depend on the type of user. Agricultural customers will purchase the system and support from dealers and distributors, while oil and gas and transportation users will likely buy their own systems and develop their own capabilities for operations and support. Or AeroVironment can provide Quantix services to any customer.

AeroVironment is not yet releasing pricing information on Quantix, and this will depend on how the buyer chooses to use the system, either by purchasing the hardware and operating the drone or by selecting AeroVironmnet to operate Quantix. DSS analytics packages are available in various forms, either by annual subscription or smaller chunks. AeroVironment also expects that some buyers will use Quantix drones to provide mapping/sensing business services. Quantix will begin shipping in spring 2017. 

Intel has made significant investments in the drone industry with its UAV group, which develops products and software designed to promote further use of Intel technology by promoting drone development. “It’s the virtuous cycle of growth,” said Anil Nanduri, Intel vice president and general manager of the UAV Group, speaking at Drone World Expo on November 15.

So far, the company has designed its own drones used for airborne choreographed nighttime light shows; developed a drone inspection system undergoing trials on Airbus A380 fuselages; created the Intel Aero Compute Board drone system, which fits onto an electronics package the size of a playing card and runs a Linux operating system and Intel’s RealSense technology; provided technology to E-Volo for development of its manned electric, multi-rotor Volocopter; developed its own industrial drone system, the V-shaped, eight-rotor Falcon 8+, which can haul a Sony A7R full-frame, mirrorless digital camera; and created the Intel Aero ready-to-fly quadcopter that offers open-source programming opportunities for drone developers. 

One of the Intel group’s most interesting designs is the Shooting Star drone, a 280-gram device with four encased rotors that surround an LED lighting package. Last week, Intel engineers flew a record 500 Shooting Stars during a nighttime demonstration of the lighting effects available from a large group of drones programmed to deliver a stunning light show. Shooting Stars could replace fireworks, Nanduri explained, eliminating their environmental hazards and noise. “These drones are green,” he said.

The Volocopter project highlights Intel’s skills at flight control design, rotor electronics and battery charging technology. According to Nanduri, the Volocopter flight control technology meets stringent manned aircraft certification requirements for flight control reliability and safety. German authorities required proof of this before manned flight testing of the Volocopter could take place, which occurred on March 30, he added. “This is a start. To commercialize this will take a lot more work.” (E-Volo conducted unmanned high-speed flight testing earlier this month.) 

Nanduri sees many other opportunities for the technology that his team has developed, including expanding the Airbus airframe inspection testing to fly 10 drones at a time, using fleet management experience from the Shooting Star program. “This market is growing,” he concluded. “There is a huge amount of opportunity for all of us, and we’ll continue to build our technical capabilities to help [the industry]. We are building up our team to engage [on all of these opportunities].”

Drone World Expo, which serves the commercial drone industry, opened yesterday at the San Jose Convention Center in the San Francisco Bay Area. Nearly 60 exhibitors filled the crowded exhibit hall, with companies offering everything from purpose-built agricultural drones to multiple types of drones designed for industrial inspection, surveying and monitoring. 

Chip-makers Intel and Qualcomm highlighted how their technology is powering drone design. Qualcomm’s exhibit area included a small drone cage for live demos of its Snapdragon Flight single-board drone technology. Intel showed off all of its UAV group’s products, including the LED-carrying Shooting Star drones, which recently flew in a 500-drone nighttime lighting effects demonstration.

For drone operators concerned about the potential expense of an accident due to power loss or other problems, Fruity Chutes offers parachutes for drone ballistic rescue systems powered by CO₂ cartridges.

There is no shortage of business opportunities in the drone world, and exhibitor Measure is bringing the franchise model to drone operators, offering exclusive county-based franchises that include marketing and back-office support.

An interesting session held yesterday delved into issues of drone insurance, which is readily available from underwriters such as Global Aerospace and on-demand drone insurer Verifly. Drone insurance currently is limited primarily to liability for damages caused to third parties, but the industry is looking into hull coverage policies that would cover drones as well.

In addition to the exhibitors, Drone World Expo hosts a number of Tech Talks and conferences, including live drone demos in a large drone cage. Visitor traffic and exhibitor numbers were up 30 to 40 percent over last year's show, according to the organizers. Next year’s Drone World Expo will return to the San Jose Convention Center on Oct. 3 and 4, 2017.

European Union (EU) officials plan early next year to finalize regulations covering oversight of the operation of unmanned aircraft systems in civil airspace. The anticipated votes by the EU's Council of Transport Ministers and the EU Commission will follow recommendations issued on November 10 by the transport committee of the European Parliament. The committee issued amendments to the framing regulation of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to coordinate oversight of drones among member states and also require that they be registered. The European Cockpit Association (ECA) applauded the proposed changes.

The amendments to the EASA Basic Regulation the committee approved on November 10 in Brussels represent the European Parliament’s position on updating the regulation, which it will negotiate with the European Council early next year. The council represents European Union heads of state.

“EU aviation safety standards are already high,” said Marian-Jean Marinescu, a member of the European Parliament from Romania who serves on the transport committee. “Even so, the growing use of drones and threats from terrorism and cyberattacks require new rules to ensure aviation safety and security. At the same time, these rules should be performance- and risk-based; ultra-light or business aviation should not have to meet the same requirements.”

The updated regulation would introduce EU-wide requirements for drones, establishing design and operation requirements to ensure privacy and safety, the committee said. Currently, individual nations have responsibility for drones weighing less than 150 kg (330 pounds). Unmanned aircraft with a takeoff mass higher than 250 grams (8 ounces) would have to be registered—the same level the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration set for its national drone registry last December.

The European Commission would be responsible for drafting safety rules for the design and operation of drones, including situations in which additional systems are required to limit their altitude or access to sensitive sites. It would also establish procedures for registering and marking unmanned aircraft.

The commission estimates that civil drone technology could account for 10 percent of the EU aviation market within the next 10 years, or about €15 billion per year.

The ECA, which represents national pilot associations in 37 European states, said the transport committee recommendations respond to a “Joint call to safely integrate drones/UAS in Europe’s airspace,” that 16 aviation organizations signed in September. Changes proposed earlier by the European Commission were “an empty shell,” the pilots’ organization contends.

“With this vote, EU Parliamentarians demonstrate that they are serious about making EASA fit for the next decade” said ECA president Dirk Polloczek. “This is crucial, as our skies will become busier in future as ‘new entrants’ like drones are joining the airspace. We are therefore particularly satisfied with the tightened safety rules for drone operations, including the requirement of a drone pilot license for commercial operations.”

In a separate announcement on November 8, European governmental organizations said they are “stepping up efforts” to introduce drones into European airspace, and had agreed to coordinate research and development and regulation of all categories of remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS). Making the announcement were the European Commission Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport, the European Defence Agency, EASA and the Single European Sky ATM Research Joint Undertaking.

Overall air traffic management (ATM) requirements for introducing drones will be incorporated in the next update of the European ATM Master Plan, scheduled for release next year.

New arrivals to the world of commercial drones may trace its start to the August 2016 effective date of the FAA’s Part 107 regulation for commercial small unmanned aircraft systems or perhaps to the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012, which expedited their entry into the national airspace system. The industry’s old salts know, however, that Part 107 has a history dating back a decade or more to the early 2000s.

Even the FAA, in a preamble to Part 107, stated that its effort to introduce drones into the airspace began in 2008—the year that acting FAA Administrator Robert Sturgell signed an order to create a small Unmanned Aircraft Systems aviation rulemaking committee. But former agency executives I interviewed for my book, Enter the Drones: The FAA and UAVs in America (Schiffer, July 2016), remember it differently; they say there were multiple attempts to draft a regulation dating to around 2003. A variety of factors—indifferent leadership, bureaucracy, interagency differences, outside pressure, the inherent complexity of the regulation—delayed its release for more than a decade.

Explaining the outwardly inexplicable lateness of the “small UAS rule” speaks to my mission in writing the book—to describe the emergence of drones as a civil and commercial phenomenon in the United States. Until Enter the Drones, much of the popular literature on unmanned aircraft focused on their military legacy, their deployment in foreign conflicts, the ethics of using them to perform targeted killings. Below the radar and missed by the often overheated mainstream media coverage, the FAA had been authorizing drone flights by other federal agencies and public universities since the early 1990s. Major aerospace manufacturers developed pilotless aircraft that served for climate research, wildlife monitoring and other peaceable purposes, demonstrating their utility beyond war zones. Then, only in the past few years, came the quadcopter and other multi-rotor drones, dramatically changing the industry’s trajectory.

As an aviation trade press reporter who covers both military and commercial aviation, I was positioned to witness the evolution of drones in both realms (which are still inextricable when it comes to unmanned aircraft). Much of the book I wrote during the fast-moving events of 2014, when the FAA granted the first exemptions to operate drones commercially to six Hollywood-affiliated aerial video companies, and established that a drone is an aircraft through its enforcement action against Raphael Pirker.

With the rapid advance of the commercial drone industry, fueled by the long-awaited release of Part 107, it all seems like old news now. Many, although not all, people who played important roles in the industry’s ascent have either retired or moved on to other jobs and other pursuits. But there is a compelling history to the emergence of drones that deserves telling, something I’ve endeavored to do with Enter the Drones.

This post originally appeared in sUAS News, www.suasnews.com.

The Aircraft Electronics Association is stressing the importance of maintenance and inspections of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), pointing to a recent study finding that mechanical failures have caused the majority of UAS accidents and incidents. Conducted by Australian researchers, the study, Exploring Civil Drone Accidents and Incidents to Help Prevent Potential Air Disasters, analyzed 152 accidents and incidents that occurred between 2006 and 2015.

It found that equipment problems accounted for 64 percent of the UAS accidents and incidents. “In contrast to commercial air transportation, [UAS] events have a significantly different distribution…It was shown that technology issues, not human factors, are the key contributor in [those] events,” the study noted.

AEA said the study underscores why avionics shops are positioned to serve the growing UAS market. “Drone operators want to avoid accidents even more than regulators [do], and they must reach this goal without detailed regulatory requirements,” said Brad Hayden, president and CEO of AEA member Robotic Skies. The U.S.FAA Part 107 currently does not require periodic UAS inspections and maintenance, and the agency points to the manufacturer as the primary source of maintenance guidance, Hayden noted.

How UASs are maintained is only part of the equation, he said, adding that who performs the maintenance is also important. Hayden noted guidance that encourages using certified maintenance providers, which includes many AEA members.

General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GA‑ASI) said it completed the first flight of a Predator B variant built to NATO airworthiness requirements on November 17. The manufacturer is readying the Type Certifiable Predator B (TCPB) for delivery to the UK Royal Air Force in 2018.

GA-ASI initiated the effort to modify its Predator B remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) as an internally funded development program in 2012. The maiden flight took place at its Gray Butte Flight Operations Facility near Palmdale, Calif., the manufacturer announced more than a week later on November 28.

By building the Predator B to safety and certification requirements that are comparable to those for manned aircraft, the TCPB will be capable of flying more freely in civilian unrestricted airspace and between countries. The UK Royal Air Force is the launch customer of the “certifiable” variant; on November 16, the U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency notified Congress that the UK has requested a foreign military sale of 16 of the variants, with an option for 10 more, to replace its current fleet of MQ-9 Reapers.

The TCPB has a 79-foot wingspan—13 feet longer than the standard Reaper—and has greater endurance and payload capability.

“The first flight of our Certifiable Predator B aircraft is a major milestone in our progression toward delivering an RPA that meets all NATO airworthiness requirements,” said CEO Linden Blue. “The TCPB is the first RPA system of its kind to be compliant with an international type-certification standard, and can therefore be more easily integrated into civil airspace operations around the world.”

The TCPB complies with NATO’s STANAG 4671 “UAV Systems Airworthiness Requirements” standard, a document released in 2007 that established airworthiness requirements for military fixed-wing unmanned aircraft with a maximum takeoff weight of up to 20,000 kg (44,092 pounds). The standard does not dictate a “sense and avoid” solution, describing that as “primarily an operational issue,” but would treat any such system as installed equipment subject to its requirements.

The TCPB also complies with certification requirements for unmanned aircraft contained in UK Defence Standard (DEFSTAN) 00-970, which uses STANAG 4671 for guidance.

GA-ASI will build three company-owned aircraft, plus two airframes intended for full-scale fatigue and static testing. The manufacturer said qualification testing for type certification of the TCPB will continue over the next two years. It expects to begin delivering the aircraft to the RAF in late 2018.

The TCPB“will be offered in several configurations, including an unweaponized maritime patrol variant to support open-ocean and littoral surface surveillance for border patrol, coast guard and disaster relief missions,” GA-ASI said.

Claiming that “substantial progress” is being made toward flying an unmanned, vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL), tailsitter aircraft from a naval ship, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) recently directed Northrop Grumman to build a second test vehicle. The contractor also announced that the so-called “Tern” program is gaining momentum.

Under a third phase of the Tern program, Northrop Grumman will build two full-scale flying-wing aircraft featuring twin, contra-rotating, nose-mounted propellers. If the Navy eventually adopts it, the VTOL aircraft would provide “organic, persistent, long-range reconnaissance, targeting and strike support” from small-deck ships such as frigates and destroyers. The name Tern was previously used as an acronym for Tactically Exploited Reconnaissance Node.

Darpa and the Office of Naval Research signed a memorandum of agreement in 2014 to share responsibility for the development and testing of a Tern demonstrator system. The Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory is also supporting the program. Earlier plans called for flight tests as early as next year, but Darpa now expects that flight testing at sea will take place in late 2018.

The agency awarded Northrop Grumman an “other transaction agreement” to build a Tern demonstrator in December 2015. In a press release on November 28, the contractor said it recently surpassed two key program milestones. In mid-October, Northrop Grumman completed a critical design review (CDR) of the Tern’s GE Aviation turboshaft engine—a model that it declined to identify. According to Darpa, “This type of engine was chosen because it is mature and powers multiple helicopter platforms currently in use.” A CDR of the Tern’s vehicle management system followed; this provided approval of the hardware and software enabling the aircraft to launch and land vertically and transition to horizontal flight.

On November 17, Darpa said it will fund a second test vehicle. “Darpa has been thinking about building a second Tern test vehicle for well over a year,” said Dan Patt, the agency’s Tern program manager. “Adding the second technology demonstrator enhances the robustness of the flight demonstration program and enables military partners to work with us on maturation, including testing different payloads and experimenting with different approaches to operational usage.”

Since work on Tern’s third phase started earlier this year, the program has finished fabricating major airframe components, and plans call for completing assembly early next year, Darpa said. “Numerous modifications” of the GE engine have been tested. A software integration test station opened this summer to support software development; it uses high-fidelity simulation tools to test aircraft control software in all phases of flight.

Wind tunnel testing of a one-fifth scale model of the aircraft is about to begin at the NASA Ames’ National Full-Scale Aerodynamics Complex at Moffett Field, Calif., Darpa said.

The current program schedule calls for integrated propulsion system testing to begin “in the first part of 2017,” followed by ground-based testing in early 2018 and at-sea flight tests later that year. “We’re making substantial progress toward our scheduled flight tests, with much of the hardware already fabricated and software development and integration in full swing,” said Darpa Tactical Technology Office director Brad Tousley.

Sensor supplier FLIR Systems is now a drone manufacturer after acquiring a company that makes the miniature helicopter host of its coin-sized Lepton infrared sensor. The Norwegian company—Prox Dynamics—scored a breakthrough in 2012 when it sold the 18-gram (0.6 ounce) PD-100 Black Hornet to the British Army; it says 15 nations now use the tiny surveillance drone.

FLIR announced on November 30 that it has acquired Prox Dynamics, based in Hvalstad, Norway, for $134 million. It said it will invest in improving the range, cost and performance of the PD-100 “personal reconnaissance system,” which consists of a pocket-sized base station containing two Black Hornets, a display and a hand controller, weighing 1.3 kilograms (2.8 pounds) in total. Prox Dynamics will become the FLIR Unmanned Aerial Systems line of business.

“This acquisition adds a unique unmanned aerial systems capability to our portfolio,” said Andy Teich, FLIR president and CEO. “The Prox Dynamics team has created a highly differentiated solution, incorporating our Lepton sensor, for advanced intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance that fits well with our vision for growth for our Surveillance segment.”

The battery-powered Black Hornet live streams video and “snapshot” images to its operator via a proprietary two-way radio link. Its advertised range is 1.6 km (1 mile) with endurance of 25 minutes. Prox Dynamics introduced a “night” version of the drone fitted with an infrared sensor in 2015; according to FLIR, it uses the dime-sized Lepton longwave infrared imager, consisting of a lens fabricated in wafer form and an uncooled microbolometer focal plane array to sense radiation.

“It is very sophisticated, but it is also very intuitive and simple for the operator,” said Arne Skjaerpe, a former brigadier general with the Norwegian army who represented Prox Dynamics at the Xponential unmanned systems conference in New Orleans earlier this year. The company has produced 4,000 individual Black Hornet helicopters, he said.

Prox Dynamics has an office in Alexandria, Virginia, and has sold some PD-100 systems to the U.S. Marine Corps for test and evaluation and also provided the system for demonstration at the U.S. Army’s Expeditionary Warrior Experiment at Fort Benning, Georgia, according to Skjaerpe. In addition to military applications, the company promotes the system for law enforcement and search-and-rescue missions.

The FAA did not confirm that the recipients of some 5,500 exemptions it issued for the commercial use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) understood or followed the conditions of those approvals, the Department of Transportation inspector general found in an audit report released this month. Fines for improper drone operations have been limited, the IG said, in part because the FAA has emphasized education over enforcement of the rules.

Released on December 1, the IG report focused on commercial exemptions the FAA granted under Section 333 of the FAA Modernization Act of 2012—before the agency released its Part 107 regulation for commercial drones weighing less than 55 pounds in June. That rule became effective on August 29.

After the small UAS regulation became effective, Section 333 exemption holders had the option of continuing to fly under the conditions of their exemption or of reapplying under Part 107, which is “generally more permissive,” the IG said. The exemption process still applies to applicants seeking to fly drones weighing more than 55 pounds, the office noted.

As of December 2, the FAA had processed 22,048 applications for remote pilot certificates to fly drones for business purposes under Part 107, the agency said in response to an AIN inquiry. It also reported that 571,192 people had registered through an online site to operate one or more small drones for recreation.

When Congress granted the FAA authority to issue exemptions in the 2012 legislation, the agency “initially adopted a conservative, time-sensitive approach to reviewing applications that took as long as 215 days,” the IG said. But as the number of applications proliferated, the FAA expedited its approval process using contractor support. It issued the first Section 333 exemptions to six Hollywood-affiliated film and production companies in September 2014; the following April it announced a “summary grant” process of approving batches of exemptions in cases that were similar to previous approvals.

According to the IG: “At the time of our review, the FAA…did not verify that the over 5,500 approved operators thoroughly understood the conditions for operating UAS technology within the limitations of their exemption, such as by conducting knowledge tests,” which is a requirement of Part 107. “While FAA employees and contractors review the information within the exemption, we identified examples of operators who claimed they did not understand certain exemption provisions, such as prohibited night operations, or flying too close to people not participating in the operation.”

Once applicants received a commercial exemption, they also received a blanket certificate of authorization allowing them to fly anywhere within the U.S. at or below 400 feet, except near airports. The FAA did not track exemption holders by their operating locations, the IG said. “This is problematic because exemption applicants often use attorneys to prepare and file their exemption requests. In that case, the FAA has only the address of the attorney who filed the request, not the UAS operator’s address,” the office stated. “[A]s a result, the agency has limited knowledge of where UAS operate, and limited means to oversee those operators following a granted exemption.”

The number of incident reports of rogue drones has risen dramatically, mostly involving other-than-commercial aircraft. Seventy-one percent of reported sightings occurred at altitudes at or above 400 feet, according to an IG analysis of 1,411 incidents reported between November 2014 and January 2016. But as of this April, the FAA had initiated just 30 enforcement actions against violators, of which 12 remained open, the IG said. It had collected $22,805 in fines.

The IG attributed the limited number of enforcement actions to the FAA’s “current oversight philosophy,” which prioritizes operator education over enforcement. Compared to the 30 enforcement actions the FAA had initiated as of April, the agency had issued 625 education letters, the office said.

In the audit report, the IG recommends that the FAA adopt a more proactive, “risk-based” approach to overseeing drones that includes improved training of aviation safety inspectors, better use of data sources to facilitate data mining and safety analysis and periodic inspections of UAS operators to ensure their compliance with the rules.

The “FAA is currently restricted to a reactive approach to UAS oversight, rather than proactively identifying and mitigating risks with a rapidly advancing technology,” the office stated. “Unless the FAA can adopt a more proactive approach to civil UAS oversight, the agency cannot ensure that approved UAS are operating safely in our airspace.”