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Another Headwind for Drones

Jim Patrico
By  Jim Patrico , Progressive Farmer Senior Editor
Without a licensed pilot such as Jason Downing (left), Trimble's training specialist Wade Stewart could not fly the company's UX5, an unmanned aerial system. (DTN/The Progressive Farmer photo by Jim Patrico)

Have your commercial pilot's license? Unless the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) changes current regulations, you might need one to fly a drone when scouting your farm. Or you might have to hire a commercial pilot to do the flying for you. Surprised? I was too when I went to watch a demonstration flight of Trimble's slick unmanned aircraft the UX5 and found that we were joined by a commercial pilot.

Jason Downing, who helps Trimble in UX5 testing and training near Ft. Collins, Colo., had already filed a flight plan with the local FAA office. Now he did pre-launch flight checks, discussed flight patterns with Trimble's Wade Stewart, and measured wind speeds and direction. If Downing weren't there, Stewart told me, the UX5 would not fly.

"It's actually the law. It's not just a Trimble thing; it's an FAA thing," Kyle Gilbertson, Trimble UAS flight operations manager later told me. (UAS -- unmanned aerial systems -- is the FAA terminology for drones. Others use the term UAV -- unmanned aerial vehicle).

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I knew that UASs couldn't be flown for commercial purposes without an exemption under current FAA regulations. But the commercially licensed pilot thing threw me. "It goes along with the 'Special Air-Worthiness Certificate' (SAC), which is the only way a 'civil proponent' is able to fly a UAS currently in the U.S. without an exemption," Gilbertson said.

He also noted that the FAA was unclear whether a pilot had to have a commercial license or only private license to fly a UAS. A lot is unclear these days.

That may change, but it will be a while. The FAA reportedly plans to issue proposed changes to its UAS regulations in November or December. First, it will publish a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in the Federal Register. Then, if things proceed according to its common practice, it will hold 18 months of public hearings on the matter. We're probably looking at 2016 before the fog lifts on the drone-UAS-UAV issue.

In the meantime, the movie industry has received the first and so far only Section 333 Exemption from the FAA. They can fly UAS's for commercial purposes as long as a person with a private pilot's license, according to Gilbertson, pilots them. Trimble has applied for a similar exemption, and is waiting for a response.

Homeland security concerns are one reason the FAA so far insists on commercial licenses for UAS pilots. The TSA vets all pilot license holders, which increases the level of confidence that have they pilots are not a public safety risk.

Model airplane fliers have their own exemption. Recreational users do not require SACs from the FAA or a pilot's license. Interestingly, Gilbertson told me, if a farmer wants to use a UAS to scout a field of crops he intends to use for himself, he falls into the recreational category and does not need a SAC. If he intends to sell those crops, he needs a SAC.

That's one of the many peculiarities found in a new industry trying to work its way through an old bureaucracy.

To read more about the FAA's attempts to regulate the industry, go to www.FAA.gov/uas

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