WASHINGTON — Last February, Congress passed legislation outlining steps for the Federal Aviation Administration to integrate unmanned aerial systems – drones — into the national airspace and setting deadlines for those steps to be made.
But the FAA missed its Nov. 10 deadline for drafting a plan for UAS integration.
According to a spokesman for the FAA, private entities can still only operate drones for research and development purposes, not commercial purposes. They must obtain experimental airworthiness certificates to fly.
Without a new plan, the possibility of Pizza Hut using drones to deliver pizza or FedEx using them to ship packages is far in the future. The rise of drones being used commercially is dependent on implementing a plan to integrate the unmanned vehicles into civil airspace.
The FAA bill sets September 2015 as the final date for complete integration of civil drones, but the plan has yet to be drafted. Gerald L. Dillingham of the Government Accountability Office said the delay is due in part to privacy concerns.
Another step required under the law – called the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 — that has been delayed is the creation of six test ranges to help integrate the UAS. For this goal, the FAA asked for public comment to determine the site requirements and standards, as well as the locations. However, creation of the sites missed its August 2012 deadline.
FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said in a Nov. 1, 2012, letter to members of the House Unmanned Systems Caucus that privacy concerns were one of the main reasons why the sites hadn’t been set up yet.
However, the FAA has met some of the deadlines set in the law. By May, the agency had developed an automated, web-based process to streamline the application process for UAS civil applications, called Certificates of Waiver or Authorization, which will help “time-sensitive emergency missions such as disaster relief and humanitarian efforts.”
And by August, the bill called for the creation of an Arctic plan to allow drones to fly in permanent areas for research and commercial areas. That plan is now in motion, with an estimated deadline of August 2013.
