Legal uncertainty could hamper growth of drone industry, panelists say
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Legal uncertainty could hamper growth of drone industry, panelists say
Peter Lee, a UAS legal expert with the law firm of Taylor Vinters, said the regulatory UAS regime in the United Kingdom is “more permissive” than in the United States, in part because UK lawmakers have recognized UAS as a potential job-creation industry. The UK has separate rules for drones that weigh less than 44 pounds and those that weigh less than 15 pounds. Line-of-sight operations generally are allowed, and extended line-of-sight operations are allowed in many cases, he said.
The policies seem to be having the desired impact, Lee said.
“It’s no accident that Amazon Air have opened an office in Cambridge in the UK,” he said.
Panelists noted that there are significant privacy and insurance issues associated with UAS operations in the United States, but those need to be addressed with some direction from Congress. The FAA proceeding is focused solely on the safety aspects of drones.
Indeed, McNeal noted that there is a natural tension between industry, which wants to see rules that will encourage greater use of drones, and the FAA, which is responsible for ensuring safety in the air.
“The agency has actually no mandate to value innovation,” McNeal said. “Their singular mandate is safety—to prevent accidents in the air and on the ground. That’s why we have certification requirements for manned aircraft, and that’s why it was a huge leap to get certification requirements out of unmanned aircraft.
“If you go to your job at the FAA and accidents don’t happen, then you’re successful. If you promulgate the rule that allows an accident to happen, you have failed in your job, and no one’s going to say, ‘Well, you were valuing innovation.’”
What is unknown is how a micro drone that gets caught in a jet engine would impact the larger aircraft’s flight, Williams said. Some micro-drone proponents argue that the impact would be the same as a bird, but a drone has components that are more solid than a bird weighing the same amount, he said.
Actual tests could be conducted, but they would require millions of dollars to fund that the FAA does not have, Williams said. As a result, the FAA is conducting simulation research in its effort to determine the risk, he said.
But Schulman said he believes that rules can established should address this concern, noting that prohibiting drone use above 500 feet and within 5 miles of an airport should be enough to prevent encounters between planes and drones.
Currently, no such rules exist to limit the operations of several hundred thousand drones in the U.S., but there have been no accidents reported to date—a reality that should serve as an indication that UAS operation generally is safe, McNeal said.
“People are going crazy, and nobody’s getting hurt,” McNeal said.