Within three years, we may be seeing thousands of drones in the skies over America. Congress has appropriated $63 billion for the Federal Aviation Administration for the next four years in a bill that requires the FAA to replace its radar-based traffic control system with GPS technology, and—even as air traffic in the U.S. is expected to increase by 50 percent during the next decade—to clear the way for more drones in U.S. airspace.
(Both Massachusetts senators supported the bill, while the entire Massachusetts House delegation opposed it.)
Until now, the FAA hasn’t allowed drones except in certain blocks of military airspace; in airspace over our borders; or over places targeted for surveillance or research by public agencies such as law enforcement or universities, or companies operating in partnership with those public entities.
The FAA has been strict about the use of drones in skyways partly because they weren’t well equipped to avoid mid-air collisions or crashes into buildings. (In Afghanistan last year, a drone hit a C-130 cargo aircraft; fortunately, it didn’t do much damage.) Now their makers are being told to get a handle on the collision prevention issue pronto, so more of them can fly over us—an estimated 30,000 by the end of 2015.
That’s because Congress, egged on by the “Unmanned Systems Caucus”—some of whose 50 members have drone manufacturers in their districts—is eager to open the skies to drones of all sorts, including commercial drones. The latter are most typically used for taking pictures, including sophisticated pictures used in photogrammetry (collecting data about the geometric properties of objects or features of a landscape), and they are cheaper to operate than manned planes and helicopters.
Drones range in size from tiny, 19-gram “hummingbirds” to the seven-story Northrop-Grumman LEMV blimp. Many of those expected to be released into air space here weigh about 55 pounds. In Britain, where there is also a movement to open the skies to UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), it’s even been suggested that smaller drones be colorfully painted to counteract the images of the dark-winged ships of death that seem to have such a knack for killing the wrong people in Afghanistan. As the Guardian reported, “The Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems Association (UAVSA), a trade group that represents the drone industry to the U.K. government, has recommended drones deployed in Britain should be shown to ‘benefit mankind in general,’ be decorated with humanitarian-related advertisements, and be painted bright colours to distance them from those used in war zones.”
The prospect of filling the skies with unmanned objects has caused waves of concern about issues ranging from privacy to safety. Airline pilots, private fliers and various groups and trade associations involved with aviation are afraid the timetable for the widespread introduction of drones is too rapid to do justice to safety concerns. As Flying magazine reported two weeks ago, “Congress’ proposal does not address how unmanned aircraft would co-exist with manned aircraft in today’s system. Much of today’s air traffic system safety strategy is based on see-and-avoid technology, which relies fundamentally on manned operation of aircraft. How a controller will issue a traffic alert to a UAS is unknown. How the UAS will ‘see’ other traffic is unknown. How they will avoid other traffic is, likewise, unknown and unaddressed in the legislation.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and other civil liberties advocates object to the possible invasions of privacy by unmanned cameras, including infrared cameras, on the loose over our heads. And what happens if one of the buzzing, flitting things just falls out of the air?
As Steven Aftergood, a senior analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, told the New York Times, “The use of drones domestically raises a whole range of questions that have hardly been asked, let alone answered. What is the probable impact of drone operations on personal privacy? What are the worst-case safety consequences of a drone failure?”
