It all sounds good, again, and there are a few steps in the right direction, but they are listening to the wrong people trying to sell the government their snake oil “solutions.” We fell into this same trap first with the legacy vendors trying to sell expensive “stuff” like reasonably priced radar systems, and then the #CCP tried to offer up their subsidized “stuff” in the form of toy company-grade RID.
The common denominator here is misguided management defending gilded fiefdoms over at the Federal Aviation Administration. “Not in my airspace!” Or “Do No Harm,” not just for bumper stickers anymore. US national security and a viable domestic aerospace ecosystem be damned!
Some real policy F-ups have hobbled the West. To the point that the #1 Happy Goodluck Quadcopter company believes that it is too big to fail. Who is ready to sue the CCP in Chinese government court?
250grams was an arbitrary number used to destroy an industry. The Registration Task Farce established a baseline on the notion that drones are as lethal as shrapnel from explosions. Yes, that’s right: MITRE ginned up some junk science on an FAA contract, and the software kiddies knuckled under, not understanding the concept of material density.
A .18 pellet of BB can be fatal, yet millions continue to be sold. And before you hit me with the FAA doesn’t regulate BB guns, last time I checked, their charter does not include regulating shrapnel from explosions either.
We need a competent and objective Drone Czar, not more Part 107 waivers and exemptions that will only lock up airspace for companies that can afford to lose boatloads of money. Have you ever wondered why the FAA, and drone “advocates,” and “experts” don’t want workable solutions?
Where is the scientific baseline, or FAA adopted consensus-based standards for See And Avoid (SAA) or Detect And Avoid (DAA)? Where is all the data the FAA has been collecting for the last twenty-some-odd years, and finally, where is a modicum of accountability to the American people? Changing “unmanned” to “uncrewed” isn’t much to hang the progress hat on.
Test sites and corridors are loser ideas that throw up expensive and time-consuming impediments to accessing a public trust resource. The domestic drone ecosystem was arbitrarily shut down, and stakeholders were told that the Rube Goldberg test ranges would facilitate data collection. Total BS, the test site construct was put in place so DoD vendors could train deployers, test, and obtain system acceptance. In some cases, at public airports for commercial purposes.
The FAA, on one side of its face, would sing the old saw about the safety of the NAS, while commercial ops were not allowed, while vendors crashed a Predator B, I mean, collided with terrain in people’s front gardens.