Wired Science

Why Pilots are More Scared Than Excited About Unmanned Aircraft

To technology geeks, the thought of a sky dotted with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles might seem like the coolest thing in the world. But to a lot of pilots, the prospect is a scary one. When a tiny bird hits an airplane, it can do some pretty serious damage; what happens when an unmanned metal vehicle gets in its way? It could spell disaster.

"We're totally opposed to any type of flying vehicle or aircraft that doesn't have someone actively at the controls," says Gail Dunham, president of the U.S. National Air Disaster Alliance and Foundation. "It's common sense, right?"

Pilots like Dunham are concerned that as more Unmanned Aerial Vehicles—or Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs), as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) likes to call them—take to the skies, they will put airplanes and pilots at serious risk. The FAA awarded twice as many flying authorization certificates to UASs in 2006 as it did in 2005, and a similar doubling is expected by the end of this year. "Interest is growing in a broad range of uses, from aerial photography to surveying land and crops, to monitoring forest fires and environmental conditions, to protecting borders and ports against intruders," says agency spokesperson Les Farr.

But Farr admits that certification standards for UASs have not yet been developed. In 2005, the Associated Administrator for Aviation Safety asked the Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics, a government-industry forum for the development of consensus-based technical standards, to provide recommendations on how to proceed with UAS regulations. As of yet, however, no decisions have been made. The biggest issues, says Farr, involve developing standards for UASs with regards to their abilities to detect, sense and avoid other aircraft, and also their ability to communicate, command and control.

These are key issues for pilots, too. "One of the main concerns we have is that these unmanned aircraft systems do not have any standard or sophisticated see-and-avoid equipment that is equivalent to the manned operator," says Heidi Williams, the director air traffic services at the US Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association. In addition, she says, there has to be contingency plan that can keep the skies safe if a UAS loses communication with the ground. Pilots want to know that at all times, "the system can operate in an equivalent level of safety and similar to a manned aircraft operation," she says.

The FAA agrees and promises to ensure the safety of our skies, even if regulations aren't yet in place and others are skeptical. "The US enjoys the safest air transportation system in the world," Farr says. "Ensuring the continuation of this safety record is the top priority for the FAA and, therefore, the safe integration of UASs into the National Airspace System is our biggest concern."