|
|
|
Vol. 44, No. 6 • Nov.-Dec. 2008 |
|
Outside the Lines
|
|
The Sky Isn't Falling — Or Is It? Part 3
|
 |
|
|
by Ira J. Rimson and Ludwig Benner, Jr.
Page:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4
|
|
Once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward.
— Leonardo DaVinci
In our past two columns1, we identified real and potential risks to manned aircraft, and terrestrial humans and property, posed by unmanned aeronautical vehicles (UAVs)2, which should give us good reasons to turn our eyes skyward — and be prepared to duck. UAVs have been employed successfully in widespread remote military operations, in many cases operated by pilots located halfway around the world. The success of those military operations has led many non- or quasi-military government agencies to join the queue for unmanned systems of their own. UAVs' advantages are legion: minimizing costs for expensive crews, operating from unimproved strips rather than airports and, best of all, little or no regulation.
But wait! Doesn't the FAA regulate aircraft operations within the U.S.? Well, yes and no. It regulates the operations, maintenance, crew licensing, air vehicle design and certification, and air traffic control for civil aircraft. Public aircraft, on the other hand, get a statutory pass, except for certain operational and traffic control regulations.
By the Air Commerce Act of 19263, the U.S. Congress charged the Secretary of Commerce with establishing an agency that would foster air commerce4, issue and enforce air traffic rules, license pilots, certify aircraft for airworthiness, establish and designate airways, and operate and maintain aids to navigation. Note that these functions originated as adjuncts to "fostering air commerce." When the Congress established the Bureau of Air Commerce in 1934, it made clear that regulations relating to air traffic, airways and air navigation, licensing and certification applied solely to the relatively new endeavor of commercial aviation. Government aviation, having had its head start even before World War I in military applications, apparently was assumed to be capable of fending for itself without additional oversight. After all, at that time, neither military nor commercial aviation was sufficiently commonplace that one could have been expected to interfere with the other.
|
|
next page »
1
"The Sky Isn't Falling — Or Is It? Part 1" Journal of System Safety, Vol.44, No. 2, Mar.-Apr. 2008, pp. 4-7; and "The Sky Isn't Falling — Or Is It? Part 2" Journal of System Safety, Vol. 44, No. 4, Jul.-Aug. 2008, pp. 4-7.
2
In the interest of brevity, we will use the term "UAV" to encompass both "unmanned aeronautical vehicles/UAVs" and "unmanned aeronautical systems/UASs."
3
Public Law 69-254: Vol. 44, U.S. Statutes @568 et seq.
4
Air commerce is defined at Title 14, U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, Part 1, §1.1 General Definitions, as "…interstate, overseas, or foreign air commerce…" [emphasis added], thus perpetrating a regulatory tautology that has rendered the definition meaningless for decades.
|
|
|
|
|
)
)