The
FAA, Drones And The Safety Of The National Airspace
https://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2015-10-21/the-faa-drones-and-the-safety-of-the-national-airspace
Wednesday,
Oct 21 2015 • 10 a.m. (ET)
Guests
Anthony
Foxx U.S. Secretary of Transportation
Marc
Rotenberg executive director,
Electronic Privacy Information Center; professor of information privacy law at
Georgetown University Law Center
Rebecca
MacPherson transportation attorney,
Jones Day in Washington, D.C. and former assistant chief counsel for
international law, legislation, and regulation at the Federal Aviation
Administration (2004-2013)
Craig
Whitlock reporter covering the Pentagon
and National Security, The Washington Post
Richard
Hanson director, government affairs,
Academy of Model Aeronautics
Three
years ago, Congress passed a law that made it illegal for the Federal Aviation
Administration to regulate civilian drones. The law was intended to encourage
business opportunities for unmanned aircraft. In the years since, sales of
recreational drones have exploded. This holiday season, as many as one million
could be sold. But airline pilots say near misses with drones are becoming too
common. And earlier this year, a drone crash landed on the White House lawn.
Under pressure to respond, the FAA announced this week it will require
recreational drone operators to register their aircraft with the federal
government. Diane and guests discuss new regulation of civilian drones and what
it means for the safety of our national airspace and individual privacy rights.
- 10:06:53
MS.
DIANE REHMThanks
for joining us. I'm Diane Rehm. This week, the Obama administration announced
it will require civilian drones to be registered with the federal government.
The move comes after several high profile incidents of drones crash landing in
public spaces and near misses with airplanes. The FAA estimates nearly 1
million drones could be sold this holiday season.
- 10:07:22
MS.
DIANE REHMJoining
me to talk about new regulation of unmanned aircraft, Marc Rotenberg of the
Electronic Privacy Information Center, former FAA counsel Rebecca MacPherson,
now of Jones Day, Craig Whitlock of The Washington Post and Richard Hanson of
The Academy of Model Aeronautics. But first, joining us from his office here in
Washington, D.C., transportation secretary, Anthony Foxx.
- 10:07:53
MS.
DIANE REHMSecretary
Foxx, welcome to the program. Tell us why you thought it was important to
announce the formation of a taskforce on drones right now.
- 10:08:06
MR.
ANTHONY FOXXWell,
as you point out, Diane, and thank you for having me today, we have seen an
exponential growth in the use of unmanned aircraft or drones in international
airspace and, unfortunately, there are many people who make use of drones who
don't know that there are rules in place for how you move an aircraft in that
space and we believe that the taskforce is going to be important because as we
require registration, there are all kinds of questions about making sure we
both educate the folks out there, but also make sure the rules are sensible and
easy to use for consumers.
- 10:08:45
REHMWho's going
to be on this taskforce, Mr. Secretary?
- 10:08:51
FOXXWell, we'll
have a range of stakeholders represented, including folks from the airline
industry, like the Airline Pilots Association. We'll have modelers on there,
folks that are in the hobbyist category. We'll have industry -- hopefully, some
manufacturers of drones will join the stakeholder group as well. We want to get
a wide sweep of the folks that are potentially affected by this so that we can
make the best possible decisions.
- 10:09:20
REHMTell me
exactly how registration is going to work with so many -- I mean, people
estimate hundreds of thousands of drones out there. How are you doing to
register people?
- 10:09:38
FOXXWell, that is
one of the questions that the taskforce is going to help us answer, but
essentially, the idea is that we would create a portal and users would go
online or register to put their information up. The information would be part
of a central database and we try to make it as user-friendly as possible, as I
said, but one of the big problems we have with drones today is that it's very
difficult to connect the drone itself to who's using it.
- 10:10:12
FOXXAnd we've had
many incidents where a drone has fallen out of the sky and it's been very
difficult to backtrack that drone to who actually used it. This will help us
close that gap and provide us one more additional tool in the toolkit to
enforce the rules we have in place.
- 10:10:28
REHMBut, of
course, you're asking those who already have drones to voluntarily register.
When you buy a drone now, it may be different, but if you've already got one in
your possession, how are you, at the FAA, going to make sure that people do
register?
- 10:10:55
FOXXWell, again,
one of the questions that the taskforce is going to help us answer is precisely
that question about folks that already own drones and whether there should be a
grace period for them to get signed in. But let me just be very clear. There
are penalties associated with failing to register. There are fines and there's
also threat of criminal sanction as well.
- 10:11:18
REHMBut why
didn't you do this earlier as opposed to sort of after the fact? Now, you're
gonna have to go track down people who perhaps already own them, but who don't
want to register them.
- 10:11:39
FOXXWell, look, I
think there's a lot of reasons. First, the growth in the group of consumers
that are buying drones has just been beyond what anybody expected at the
outset. But more importantly, there's a long tradition in our country of having
a very relaxed environment around hobbyists as they use different things, from
model rockets to model airplanes. The difference here is that while there isn't
as much skill required to get one of these drones into above 400 feet of
airspace, once you enter into the national airspace, you have the potential to
interfere with other users in that space.
- 10:12:23
FOXXAnd,
unfortunately, so many of the users don't know the rules of the road already,
and so we think that this registration is going to have a great side benefit in
that it's going to expose people to those rules and I think we're going to see
a lot more compliance as a result of having this registration in place.
- 10:12:39
REHMSo how about
enforcement? Who's going to be in charge of tracing drones that do violate
airspace?
- 10:12:49
FOXXSo, again, as
we experience people who violate the rules of the road, so to speak, having the
registry will help us trace that drone back to the actual user of that drone.
And so this is going to enhance our ability to enforce above and beyond what we
can do today.
- 10:13:10
REHMSo a lot of
people, Mr. Secretary, are concerned about privacy. Is the FAA planning to
address that issue?
- 10:13:24
FOXXI believe the
taskforce will discuss that issue. The purpose here is one that has long been
part of the FAA's mission. Planes have to be registered. This is not something
that is foreign to folks that use the national airspace. The difference here is
that we have heretofore treated these drones like model rockets or any other
kind of hobbyist device and they're different in some ways and we're going to
have to wrestle with how to treat these a little differently than we've been
treating other hobbyist devices.
- 10:14:01
REHMAnd, of
course, many of our listeners want you, Secretary of Transportation Foxx, to
define drone.
- 10:14:13
FOXXYeah. Well,
that, again, I think it's fair to say that this taskforce will look at whether
there is a category of these devices that doesn't pose a threat to the national
airspace. And to the extent that we're able to lock in an definition that holds
water, you can expect there to be some exclusions of things that will not have
to be registered. But that, again, is some of the work we're going to ask the
taskforce to help us with.
- 10:14:40
REHMAnd what
about the possibility of an unregistered drone being sucked into the engine of
a plane? How are you going to deal with that possibility?
- 10:14:55
FOXXWell, we have
a lot of things that we're doing as an agency to insure the safe integration of
drones into the airspace and so I don't want your listeners to think this is
the only thing the FAA or U.S. Department of Transportation is doing. We have a
small UAS rule that is in the process of being finalized. We hope it gets done
in the first six months of next year, that will lay the foundation for
commercial use of drones, which I think is going to be the dominant use of
these devices.
- 10:15:27
FOXXYou will also
see us, and you have seen us, allow categorical exclusions that actually are
allowing some of those commercial uses today. This is just another step along
the way of integrating and we have other steps that are being contemplated to
assure ourselves that we're being as safe as possible. But I'd like to save
time to make those announcements later.
- 10:15:49
REHMSecretary
Foxx, I think lots of people are wondering about the dangers of the use of
drones by, say, a terrorist. Doesn't Homeland Security come into the picture
here?
- 10:16:08
FOXXThere is
multiagency work being done at the federal level to look at security risks and
in many of the issues that you've raised. That is interagency work that is
ongoing and I can't speak directly to those at this point. All I can say,
though, is that folks are paying very careful attention to this issue and
progress is being made to assure ourselves that we're being as safe as possible
with these drones.
- 10:16:34
REHMAnd yet, a
couple of drones have already ended up in or near the White House lawn. I mean,
you know, that's pretty scary.
- 10:16:47
FOXXWell, and
those issues are being seriously, both by our security agencies and by law
enforcement. But I think the big thing here is that one of the challenges we've
had with enforcement is that we haven't been able to track back to the user.
And this registry is going to help us do that and there's going to be criminal
penalties and fines associated with folks who don't comply with the law.
- 10:17:10
REHMSo as I
understand what you're saying is that the FBI is going to have to take a look
at that drone that landed on the White House lawn, somehow track down the
seller and thereby somehow track down the user. Is that what you mean?
- 10:17:31
FOXXWell, what I
mean is, is that today, if a drone lands in a sensitive area, we have no idea
how to find the user. We have to go through a lot of machinations as opposed to
having a registry that would have us, you know, either tie to a serial number
or some identifying information on that drone that allows us to immediately
track who the user is. And that is a huge help to law enforcement. I think
it'll be a huge help to consumers because it will expose them to the rules of
the road and help them understand where they shouldn't the flying the drones.
- 10:18:06
REHMSecretary of
transportation, Anthony Foxx, thank you so much for joining us.
- 10:18:14
FOXXThank you,
Diane.
- 10:20:02
REHMAnd welcome
back as we talk about the FAA's decision to ensure that drones are somehow
regulated. Exactly how, we're not yet sure. There will be a panel whose
decision on how to regulate will come after that panel convenes and reaches its
decisions by November 20. It's supposed to hold open hearings, but Craig
Whitlock, you've been reporting on this for quite a while. I mean, it's all
very much literally up in the air, isn't it?
- 10:20:49
MR.
CRAIG WHITLOCKWell,
that's right. The FAA has moved very slowly up until now to figure out how to
integrate drones into the national airspace, and there are two fronts with
that. One is commercial drones for businesses and using those, and they've
moved slowly. They've come up with some draft rules, but that's taken a number
of years. But the thing they completely missed the boat on were the hobbyist
drones that people just...
- 10:21:12
REHMExplosion.
- 10:21:15
WHITLOCKThat's right.
People just want to fly them for fun, and nobody even knows how many of these
are out there, but it's a consumer craze, and there's certainly well over a
million of these things flying around, and most people can fly them right out
of the box, but they don't have any training, they don't have any experience in
flying model aircraft, and, you know, it's become a real problem. The FAA has
struggled to cope with the safety threat they pose to other air traffic.
- 10:21:41
REHMWhat do they
look like? How do they work?
- 10:21:43
WHITLOCKThey range in
size. Some of them look like maybe the toy helicopters you kids used to fly
around in the house on Christmas Day. Some are that small. Some range up to
several pounds. It depends -- you know, the most popular ones are the ones that
have cameras on them, and those weigh a little bit more and can theoretically
cause a little bit more damage if they crash into a plane. And, you know, one
thing is the threat to passenger planes, like you mentioned going into a jet
engine, and the FAA hasn't even studied what sort of engineering impact that
would have.
- 10:22:19
WHITLOCKBut then you
also have helicopters like medical rescue helicopters that fly very close to
the ground and in cities or general aviation aircraft like Cessnas. And a drone
hitting one of those would cause real problems.
- 10:22:33
REHMHow high can
a drone fly?
- 10:22:34
WHITLOCKWell, this is
another basic question that the FAA hasn't really figured out. I think even the
manufacturers aren't sure. A lot of manufacturers think their drones only fly
to a few hundred feet, but we've a number, dozens or scores of reports, from
pilots, passenger airplane pilots, who have seen drones well above 6,000,
7,000, 8,000 feet.
- 10:22:57
REHMAnd how far
can they go?
- 10:23:00
WHITLOCKWell,
sometimes they just fly away, and they keep going, and nobody knows until they
run out of battery power. They can go as far as they want.
- 10:23:08
REHMAnd to you,
Marc Rotenberg, lots of privacy concerns about this. In one case, I gather
Dianne Feinstein saw one drone out her dining room window with a camera in it.
- 10:23:23
MR.
MARC ROTENBERGYes,
well Diane, I think the privacy issues are significant, but I do want to begin
by saying we support the registration proposal that the secretary described.
- 10:23:32
REHMDoes it go
far enough?
- 10:23:35
ROTENBERGNo, it
doesn't, but it is an important first step because what the secretary is
describing, which is the absence of accountability in the use of drones today
is a very serious issue. And so I'm going to say some things about the
additional steps the agency needs to take. But I will say at the outset this is
a step in the right direction. We'd like to see some privacy safeguards around
the data that's being collected because this is a new privacy issue. But as to
the larger privacy concerns about the deployment of drones in civilian air
space in the United States, I mean, we now have, you know, mobile cameras, sort
of peeping Toms in the air, with tremendous capacity to track people, to
conduct surveillance, and I think much of the public concern is driven exactly
as Craig described, by the fact that these devices don't just fly about, they
record what they see.
- 10:24:28
ROTENBERGAnd for that
reason, we've seen at the state level, California for example recently passed a
law saying you just cannot fly into someone else's property, into their
backyard, and begin taking video.
- 10:24:39
REHMAnd Rebecca
MacPherson, didn't Congress pass a law preventing the FAA from regulating
recreational drones?
- 10:24:52
MS.
REBECCA MACPHERSONWell,
they did, and this is a tricky issue. The administration's in a difficult spot
on how it's going to issue anything consistent with that statute. There are a
couple of things. First of all, the statute speaks to promulgating regulations,
which would argue that there's a new regulatory structure. As the secretary
pointed out, drones are aircraft, they've been defined as aircraft by Congress,
so that issue really has been put to rest, and every aircraft in the United
States, other than military aircraft, already have to be registered.
- 10:25:27
REHMOf course.
- 10:25:28
MACPHERSONWhat the FAA
has done is they've said as a matter of policy we're not going to take
enforcement against unregistered recreational drones. But the requirement is
still there. So what they'll have to say is that they are re-considering their
policy conditions, that they know believe existing regulations do apply and
that the new regulations are only to ease the registration method.
- 10:25:56
REHMSo is
Congress going to have to get in on this again?
- 10:25:59
MACPHERSONWell, well, I
mean, Congress will have to get in on it if the courts get in on it. You know,
they have -- the FAA has an argument. It's not completely ridiculous. I'm not
sure they would win in a court of appeals, but I'm also not sure anybody's
going to sue.
- 10:26:17
REHMAnd to you,
Richard Hanson, I gather you represent the recreational drone users. What do
you think about the secretary's thoughts, his ideas for moving forward in order
to somehow regulate the number of drones that have proliferated?
- 10:26:38
MR.
RICHARD HANSONYes,
and good morning. I think it's important to realize when you use the term
drones, we're talking about a very large spectrum of aircraft, as Craig pointed
out, everything from virtually toy aircraft that have minimum capabilities and
have minimum potential for damage and injury when they're used. A lot of them
have very short lifespans, and they're given as gifts for Christmas, and
they're done by New Year's. So I think it's going to be necessary to really
take a close look at the threshold for registration to make sure it makes sense
and make sure we're not capturing a whole grouping of aircraft that really
operate innocuously in the airspace.
- 10:27:25
REHMBut if you
use the word toy, I mean, that sort of brings to mind something very small and,
as you say, very limited. But if a toy has the capacity to go high and go long,
doesn't that become a drone that must be regulated somehow?
- 10:27:51
HANSONWell, whether
or not it's a drone I'm not sure because that's a pretty broad term, but
certainly it starts getting into that threshold of regulation. The key here is
the automation that's onboard the aircraft. These small devices really have
very limited capability when flown in a traditional fashion like a
radio-controlled aircraft, where the operator has to be able to see that
aircraft and control it. It really takes automation to get that aircraft beyond
what's called visual line of sight and to get it to any significant altitude
because these things virtually disappear from sight within a few hundred feet.
- 10:28:23
HANSONSo I think
that the automation capability and the automation build into the system is one
threshold we need to look at, and size and weight probably needs to be looked
at, as well.
- 10:28:33
REHMWhat about
that, Craig?
- 10:28:34
WHITLOCKWell, I think
he's right, but this is again something the FAA should have done a long time
ago, which is people saw this coming. Maybe they didn't see the popularity of
drones, but even what we have now with all the small to mid-range drones that
are flying around, that's just the tip of the iceberg. In the coming years,
we're going to see businesses, recreational users, or, you know, right now the
rule the FAA is contemplating for commercial drones are drones up to 55 pounds,
and some businesses are flying those.
- 10:29:06
WHITLOCKWell, imagine
two cinderblocks flying around at 100 miles an hour going, you know, into
airspace, the damage that can cause. And that's not some futuristic, sci-fi
scenario. That's going to start happening in a matter of months.
- 10:29:22
REHMSo I want to
go back to something you said early on, differentiating between recreational
drones and those used for business. How is the FAA going to perhaps use
different regulations for those two categories?
- 10:29:43
WHITLOCKWell, that's
a really good question and one that may not make a whole lot of sense to the
average person out there, which is you can have the same model of drone with a
camera on it that could weigh, let's say, 20 pounds. A business wants to use
it, too, for wedding photography or to do inspections on tall buildings. They
have to jump through hoops with the FAA to make sure they follow safety
procedures.
- 10:30:07
WHITLOCKIf a person
wants to do the same thing and just say they're doing it for fun or regulation,
there's absolutely no rules that apply.
- 10:30:16
REHMSo it would
seem to me that the rules on regulation would have to apply at the source,
Rebecca. You'd have to -- both your dealer and your buyer would have to be
honest enough to be willing to have that drone regulated.
- 10:30:41
MACPHERSONWell actually
the -- excuse me -- the drone industry has been pretty supportive of some form
of regulations. They recognize in general that they're exposed to a lot of risk
in the absence of regulations. In terms of registration, it's not clear how
those are going to be registered. If you register with the FAA, it's not a
problem with the dealers and the manufacturers. It's a huge workload for the
FAA, and they're really not staffed up to deal with it.
- 10:31:11
MACPHERSONIf you push
that on to the manufacturers and the dealers, they, you know, they'll comply,
but it raises a lot more privacy issues, and it also makes the situation much
more complicated in the, and I will say, rare and unlikely event that a drone
sighting actually results in anybody being able to identify that drone.
- 10:31:34
REHMMarc
Rotenberg?
- 10:31:34
ROTENBERGWell, a
couple points. I mean, first of all, as others have pointed out to me, you
know, this looks very much like ham radio license in some ways, which the
government is quite familiar with and was instituted in part to educate people
to take responsibility for a technology that impacts others. And I think the
FAA can take a responsibility, just as the FCC does to protect the airwaves, so
that people can make use of drones.
- 10:32:00
ROTENBERGNow as to the
scope of the application for recreational users, it seems to me a little
obvious line to draw. If the device, the toy, is in your home or in your
backyard or on your property, it's probably not necessary to register. But if
you're going to take it anywhere outside of your home, where there are
implications for others or public safety...
- 10:32:19
REHMAnd that goes
to the automated question, yes.
- 10:32:21
ROTENBERGIt seems
almost obvious that it should be registered. And I think the public understands
this. I mean, I think it really is a situation where when you begin to take
these new technologies, and we're going to have this issue, by the way, with
robots, as well. I mean, robots will be sort of traveling along the sidewalks
just as drones are flying in the air, and I think we need to begin to take some
responsibility for these autonomous devices, and we need to be clear that if
one of these devices is off someone's property, they're going to bear the
responsibility for what happens.
- 10:32:55
REHMCraig
Whitlock, it sounds to me as though, as in many other issues, we're playing
catch-up
- 10:33:02
WHITLOCKWell,
exactly. I mean, look at the FAA. They've been dealing with this issue for
years, how to regulate drones. You've had a number of reports, last year, this
year, of drones crashing into the White House lawn, into air traffic, and now
all of a sudden they're saying oh no, Christmas is around the corner, we're
selling so many of these we have to register them within two months. They're
clearly playing catch-up on this.
- 10:33:26
REHMCraig
Whitlock, he's a reporter for the Washington Post covering the Pentagon and
national security. And you're listening to "The Diane Rehm Show." And
as you can imagine, we've got lots of callers. Let's go to the phones,
800-433-8850, to Milford, Connecticut. Hi there, Jordan, you're on the air.
- 10:33:58
JORDANHello there,
thank you very much for having me on the show.
- 10:33:59
REHMSurely.
- 10:34:01
JORDANI hope it's
not cheating to have two things because I did want to ask regarding, will this
regulation be applied to toy helicopters and remote-controlled airplanes? And
also, I recently got started with quad-copters, and I like them a lot, am
interesting in using them for photography, however, regarding the privacy
thing, the thing is, like, drones, the majority of drones that are sold to
hobbyists are absolutely terrible for espionage. They have, like, four, whiny
motors. So you can't really good audio for them. And if you really want to spy
on somebody, you're going to get noticed with something with flashing lights
and stuff. So they're not good for spying. I just want to bring that up.
- 10:34:40
REHMAll right,
thanks for your call. What about this question of toy helicopters and
airplanes, Richard?
- 10:34:49
HANSONYes, that
goes to my previous comment about establishing an appropriate threshold. We
know that model aircraft, traditional, radio-controlled model aircraft, have
been flown for decades within our community-program and under our safety rules
for decades with very little difficulty and harmoniously within our
communities. So I would certainly advocate that toy aircraft, model aircraft in
the traditional sense are not at that threshold of needing registration.
- 10:35:20
HANSONBut when you
add in the automation and the capability of going beyond visual line of sight,
that's when you start getting into aircraft that could be problematic.
- 10:35:29
MACPHERSONBut you see
today that the aircraft that are being used are not designed to go beyond
visual line of sight. I think the thing to keep in mind, to your point that
it's been very safe for a lot of years, is these are people who traditionally
have been aviation enthusiasts, and they understood the risk to the national
airspace system. Our new group of drone users are not those people, and there's
really not any difference between the device, depending on whether you use it
for commercial or private use. The exact same drones are used for various
purposes, and I just don't think it's a good way to draw the line.
- 10:36:04
REHMBut are
professionals operating the commercial ones, and individuals perhaps totally
untrained operating the others?
- 10:36:13
MACPHERSONNo, they're
operating the exact same drones. If you look at the part -- the Section 333
exemptions that the FAA has granted, the largest number of exemptions have been
granted to a DJI model, which is designed specifically for recreational use.
- 10:36:28
REHMNo, but what
I mean, what about the people operating?
- 10:36:33
MACPHERSONBut the 333s
are commercial operation by definition, and they are using the drone that has
been designed for recreational use. It just doesn't make any difference in
terms of the actual device.
- 10:36:44
REHMDoes the
person who's operating the commercial device and the person who's operating the
recreational device, their training surely is different, isn't it, Craig?
- 10:37:04
WHITLOCKWell, if
you're doing it for fun, for recreation, you don't have to have any training
whatsoever.
- 10:37:07
REHMRight.
- 10:37:08
WHITLOCKIf you're
doing it for commercial purposes, you do need to demonstrate some familiarity.
You need to get a pretty basic license from the FAA. But, you know, there's --
training may be exaggerating it a little bit.
- 10:37:24
REHMOkay.
- 10:37:24
WHITLOCKThe rules so
far has been you need to have some familiarity but not too stiff.
- 10:37:29
REHMAll right,
we'll take a short break. We've got lots of callers who want to join the
conversation. Short break, right back.
- 10:40:04
REHMWell, and
here's the other side of the argument from Laura in Pittsburgh, so says, I'm a
big fan of yours, Diane Rehm, but I'm very disappointed to hear your take on
the drone issue. And by the way, I don't have a take. But she goes on to say,
based on the questions you've asked a listener who has no experience with
drones will become frightened by them. My sons have drones. They obey all the
rules about where and how high to fly them. My boys make videos with their
drones, videos of nature's beauty that would make you weep. Please explore on y
our show how great drones can be. Craig?
- 10:40:54
WHITLOCKWell, Diane,
there's no question what we're seeing right now is a revolution in aviation.
The technology that allows drones to fly on an automated basis, the cameras
they can carry, the capabilities that they will have in the coming years are
kind of hard to wrap your mind around. And there are tremendous uses for them,
no question, and we're going to see that revolutionize our dailies lives. It's
more than just taking pretty pictures of nature. There's a lot of other things
you can do. The two questions, though, that the government, the federal
government and state governments, haven't figured out and are just starting to
wrestle with, are how do they do this safely. How can we make sure this is done
safely, and what about privacy with the cameras? Because right now, as Marc
said, you know, no one setting foot outdoors should have any expectation of
privacy when it comes to cameras on drones. The laws aren't set up to address
it.
- 10:41:54
REHMHelp me to
understand the automation process, Richard, and how much control the operator
has with an automated drone, how high it can fly, whether it can collide with
some other object. I mean, how much control does the operator have?
- 10:42:18
HANSONThe operator
has a lot of control in terms of programming the aircraft on how it's going to
fly.
- 10:42:22
REHMProgramming,
okay.
- 10:42:25
HANSONWhen it has,
say, an autopilot that's coupled to a GPS receiver. It then is capable of being
pre-programmed to great distances and great altitudes, depending upon the
discretion of the operator to follow appropriate rules. That's why I get back
to the point that that's really where the breakpoint is between traditional
model aircraft and toy aircraft is when you start putting the level of
automation that gives that aircraft the capability of going great distances
from the operator, and the model aircraft industry, the model aircraft
traditionals, there's over 180,000 members of the AMA, have flown the
traditional model aircraft safely and responsibly for decades, and they do it
within a safety structure.
- 10:43:07
HANSONAnd that was
really what Congress was getting to when it passed the last reauthorization
bill and created the special rule for model aircraft. It does create a
carve-out for hobbyists but only hobbyists that are operating within a
community-based organization. Those people, personal users and consumers, that
choose not to operate within such a structure are then subject to any regulation,
current regulation and future regulation, that the FAA might write, and that's
very specifically pointed out in the proposed rule that the FAA released in
February.
- 10:43:37
REHMSo if an
automated drone the person on the ground has programmed the drone, how does
that drone happen to collide with an aircraft?
- 10:43:56
HANSONWell, under
current technology that aircraft in and of itself has no ability, what they
call see and avoid or sense and avoid another aircraft. So it's pre-programmed
to go from Point A to Point B, and another aircraft is in that path, there's no
way of avoiding it.
- 10:44:13
REHMAnd who's got
the right of way?
- 10:44:15
HANSONWell, the
manned aircraft certainly does, but...
- 10:44:16
REHMPresumably.
- 10:44:16
HANSONAnd that's
why the FAA up to now has not really been sanctioning any beyond visual line of
sight occurrences or operations because the technology isn't proven yet where
you could actually do what they call sense and avoid.
- 10:44:32
REHMCraig?
- 10:44:32
WHITLOCKYeah, one
problem, Diane, too, is the reliability of a lot of these aircraft,
particularly the ones that are being manufactured now. The FAA doesn't have any
standards in place that they meet certain mechanical or technological
requirement. So most of the time they work very well, when somebody programs
in, I want to fly around, I want go here or there, I want to look over Diane's
backyard or something like that. But the problem is sometimes things go
haywire, and they fly away, and that's a term that's come up among drone
hobbyists are problems with fly-aways, and they just take off, they lose their
radio control link, they lose their satellite link, and off they go.
- 10:45:11
WHITLOCKAnd that's
one of the problems we're seeing, and that's not just hobbyist drones. The
military has problems with losing link with its aircraft, with its drones that
they fly overseas, and they're increasingly flying them at home, too, and these
are big drones. These aren't little, tiny things. These are ones that are the
size of regular aircraft. So most of the time they work, but sometimes when
they don't, that's -- when haywire happens, that's the big problem.
- 10:45:36
REHMMarc?
- 10:45:38
ROTENBERGWell, I think
the key point here is that the FAA has a mandate to protect public safety, and
even though Congress said in 2012 let's promote the deployment of drones in the
national air space, it also said you need to develop a comprehensive plan, and
we believe that that comprehensive plan includes both safety regulations and
privacy regulations.
- 10:46:02
ROTENBERGThe FAA was
supposed to announce at the end of the September its proposal for regulations.
It missed that deadline, which is significant, by the way.
- 10:46:12
REHMAnd now
they've set a new deadline, November 30.
- 10:46:15
ROTENBERGWell, this is
the deadline for the recommendations from their task force for registration,
which as I said, I think we support that. But there's so much more that needs
to be done. As I mentioned to your producer earlier, following a petition from
many privacy experts and organizations to the FAA administrator for privacy
regulations and their failure to take up our proposal, we've actually sued the
agency. We've said we believe you have a legal responsibility to put in place
privacy rules as part of the comprehensive plan.
- 10:46:47
REHMAll right to
Patrick in Orlando, Florida, you're on the air.
- 10:46:52
PATRICKThank you so
much, Diane. I love your show.
- 10:46:54
REHMThank you.
- 10:46:54
PATRICKI'm retired
from a major aerospace company that's headquartered in Bethesda, and 10 years
ago I worked on the UAV program, which is really related, UAVs, UAS, drones,
they're all the same thing, just different terminology. The FAA had the
opportunity years ago to look at this. We tried to partner with another company
to fly aircraft across Hurricane Katrina, and we couldn't because there were
restrictions, the term was deconfliction.
- 10:47:42
PATRICKAnd we simply
had to stop what we were doing. The other issue is, when you're talking about
the little drones that you can buy, you or I can dry, can buy, sorry, the issue
there is they need to be treated like the little toy gun that can be confused
as a real gun because in the case of this drone, it's got the potential for
damaging aircraft, as in the case with the little toy gun, it's got the
potential for somebody confusing it as a real gun.
- 10:48:24
REHMAll right,
thanks for your call, Richard.
- 10:48:29
HANSONWell, I'm not
sure that the analogy fits between toy guns and toy aircraft. There's lots of
things that compose a hazard to manned aircraft, but the virtual toy aircraft,
by its appearance, really doesn't do that. So I kind of question the analogy
that the caller has presented.
- 10:48:48
REHMCraig?
- 10:48:48
WHITLOCKWell, this
isn't exactly what the caller, what Patrick was referring to, but just to make
your hair really stand on end. There has been a case earlier this year where a
young man in Connecticut had -- bought a hobbyist drone and equipped it with a
semi-automatic pistol, and he posted video to YouTube of the aircraft firing
shots in the woods, and the police, you know, tried to arrest him, tried to
make him stop, but the law was unclear on what they could or couldn't do, and
these are the kind of things that people haven't really addressed or figured out
what to do with it.
- 10:49:25
WHITLOCKIn the end he
wasn't charged with anything. He was just doing it in his backyard. But, you
know, imagine the mayhem somebody like that could cause with these things.
- 10:49:35
REHMAnd other
mayhem, Marc Rotenberg, there's been an example of a drone situated in
Aberdeen, Maryland, right now that is government-operated, and we have no idea
why it's there.
- 10:49:55
ROTENBERGThis is the
giant blimp that people see now when they're driving along the Beltway. It's
suspended in the air. It's part of the JLENS program operated by the Army, and
it has surveillance capability all over Washington, no privacy rules in place.
- 10:50:10
REHMNo privacy
rules in place.
- 10:50:13
ROTENBERGNo, and we
think that obviously needs to be addressed as part of a comprehensive program
to address these issues.
- 10:50:22
MACPHERSONThe FAA
wouldn't have authority to deal with that anyway, though. That's a public
aircraft operation, and the question of whether there are privacy rules in
effect regarding -- you know, those are covered by your standard, existing,
traditional rules that apply to any intelligence operation. I don't think
anybody, including Congress, wants the FAA addressing the privacy considerations
of military aircraft, which is essentially what it is.
- 10:50:47
REHMAnd you're
listening to "The Diane Rehm Show." Let's go back to the phones,
well, an email from Nick in Virginia. Will the public be allowed to comment on
the proposed drone registration regulations? Isn't this required by the
Administrative Procedure Act? Rebecca?
- 10:51:13
MACPHERSONSo it is
unless the administration issues an emergency rule, in which case the
requirement for public comment can be waved. And I think that's exactly what
the administration plans on doing after it gets the recommendations of the task
force on November 20. If it plans on issuing anything in less than, you know,
about eight months to a year, it's going to have to do it by claiming that
there is a safety emergency sufficient to waive the comment period, and I think
that's exactly where they're headed.
- 10:51:43
MACPHERSONThey've
signposted very clearly that they're going to deal with any potential issues by
playing the safety card.
- 10:51:52
REHMLet's go to
Marco in Dallas, Texas. Hi, you're on the air.
- 10:51:54
MARCODiane, thank
you for taking my call.
- 10:51:56
REHMSurely.
- 10:51:58
MARCOI wanted to
talk a little bit about the differences, and I think your speakers have done a
good job in differentiating between commercial drone activity and recreational
drone activity. We started utilizing UAVs about four years ago to provide a
wide array of unmanned aerial inspection services across North America, Europe
and now down in South America. It -- in January of last year, when the FAA
grounded all commercial drone activity, it basically put us out of business.
- 10:52:33
MARCOWe stopped
all activities in the United States, focused on expanding our business in
Europe and other regions, and once we got our 333 certification in April of
this year, we have started gaining, you know, some traction and getting back
into business in the United States. The regulations that the FAA have put in
place, I feel, are, you know, valid, they increase the level of safety as an
operator, and they give credibility to the commercial side of the business.
- 10:53:05
MARCOYou know, we
can't fly a drone with one person. We have to have either a private pilot or a
commercial pilot as the PIC, and we have to have a spotter, who their
responsibility is only to keep their eyes on the flight path of the drone so we
don't lose line of sight. We have to follow COA. So the local FAA regulations
say, you know, they have to know where we will be operating, what days, what
times. And I think the problem really comes in when someone who is using the
exact same drones that we use recreationally and doesn't adhere to those
regulations.
- 10:53:41
REHMIndeed,
Richard.
- 10:53:43
HANSONWell, he's
exactly right. The existing rules that are in place for 333 exemption holders
are very specific in the operations that have to take place and can take place.
The hobbyist or the personal user, I would call it, because I think there is a
differentiation between true hobbyist and the consumer, but the person user
just doesn't know those rules. And what we did last year was to partner with
the Association for Unmanned Vehicles, Systems International and the FAA in an
educational program called Know Before You Fly, which is intended to get the
basic safety information and some of those rules into the packaging of these
products so the consumer has it when they open the package for Christmas.
- 10:54:23
REHMCraig
Whitlock, I understand that there are many states that aren't going to wait for
the federal government to make some overall and general rules. What's happening
statewide?
- 10:54:38
WHITLOCKWell, across
the country it's a real mess, Diane. You have different states passing bills,
introducing legislation that conflict with one another. You know, Marc
mentioned in California there was a bill that passed by the legislature but
ultimately vetoed by the governor that would have prevented people from using
camera drones to spy on...
- 10:54:58
ROTENBERGIt was signed
October 6.
- 10:55:01
WHITLOCKOkay, well
maybe you have more updated information on that. But, you know, in Florida,
they passed something this summer, you know, very strict, won't let people use
them in backyards. Other states it's wide open. You know, there's all these
different scenarios come up whether you can use drones to take video of
hunters. You know, animal rights groups have pressed for, you know, pressed
that, and states have tried to protect the hunters.
- 10:55:24
WHITLOCKSo, you know,
all these states have different patchwork of laws in place, but really it's
going to take Congress to weigh in to have some uniformity to it, and so far
they haven't done that.
- 10:55:35
REHMWell, we had
one tweet that said, I will not be purchasing anything that must be regulated
by the FAA. Do you think that there will be compliance, Rebecca, if indeed the
FAA does pass new, stricter rules?
- 10:55:58
MACPHERSONSo I think
there will be essentially no compliance with the requirement that you register
a drone you already own. There probably will be compliance with the new drones
because the dealers will probably make you fill out the paperwork before you
leave the store. How they're going to do that with online purchases I don't
know, but anybody who has an existing drone, they're not going to register.
- 10:56:23
REHMAll right,
we'll have to leave it at there and watch what the FAA does. Rebecca
MacPherson, she was assistant chief counsel at the FAA, Marc Rotenberg of the
Electronic Privacy Information Center, Craig Whitlock of The Washington Post
and Richard Hanson, director for the Academy of Model Aeronautics. Earlier you
hear from Anthony Foxx, secretary of transportation. Thank you all.
- 10:57:03
ROTENBERGThank you.
- 10:57:04
