High Expectations

Blue-green, wallet-size cards now carried by U.S. remote pilots of small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) closely resemble the certificates that airline transport pilots and other safety-certificated airmen have earned. Technically, the distinguishing elements are the background artwork and the acronym UAS in prominent white text. Culturally, the similarities are not coincidental; they reinforce the safety-critical responsibility and authority that holders must exercise to fly these drones (ASW, 5/15).

This pilot rating — introduced Aug. 29, 2016 — and its effect on the sUAS domain came up frequently in panel discussions held by Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials and UAS industry safety leaders at the FAA UAS Symposium on March 27–29 in Reston, Virginia. Between August 2016 and late March, FAA issued more than 37,000 remote pilot certificates. A key interest of the panelists and attendees was how well the remote pilots will accept and proactively manage the risks of their flight operations in the National Airspace System (NAS) under U.S. Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) Part 107, Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems.

Airline pilot panelists emphasized that the mindset during flights by remote pilots, regardless of today’s relative simplicity of Part 107 qualifications, should be comparable to what is expected of manned aircraft pilots. Bryan Quigley, managing director and system chief pilot, United Airlines, and co-chair, FAA Drone Advisory Committee Subcommittee, said, “We assume that when aviators climb in the cockpit and carry passengers around the world that they’re going to understand what the rules are. They’re going to be willing and they’re going to be able to comply with them. That’s the same thing that I would expect from anybody that’s flying a drone. There are certain conditions that you can cause while operating that drone that can be incredibly risky.

“If airplane pilots see drones on approach to the airport, the question to ask is ‘How did those drones get there?’ I actually believe that the vast majority got there because somebody lost control of that aircraft or they just had no idea where they were operating. A rather small number [of sUAS-pilot respondents] reported back on our subcommittee’s last survey that they had lost control. I’m making this up, but let’s just say it’s 10 percent — if 10 percent of 2 million [sUAS] aircraft have lost control, that’s a lot of opportunity to be sighted operating in the wrong place.”

FAA Administrator Michael Huerta described the back story of Part 107’s lengthy cultural clash this way: “Now we’re ushering in a new age of aviation here in America — the unmanned aircraft era. And it’s moving at a quicker pace than anything that any of us have seen before. It’s fair to say that what is sometimes called the ‘traditional aviation industry’ has its own culture and that [the] unmanned aircraft [community] has a culture that is quite different from that. The traditional aviation culture is a very cautious culture. Nobody wants to be the one who messes up what has been an incredible safety record. The UAS community comes to us with a culture that is predicated much more on innovation, on getting products to market as quickly as possible. And they want the market to serve the sorting function — of ‘making the product better.’ It is important that the cultures coexist and work together.” Huerta and other FAA panelists noted that the agency has developed what one called an “enormous willingness to trust” remote pilots flying sUAS aircraft in the NAS under Part 107.

Earl Lawrence, director, FAA UAS Integration Office, said he has to be constantly aware of the week-to-week pace of sUAS innovation, anticipating millions of drone operators and managing the already-high volume of these aircraft. “In the FAA, we’re just not used to dealing with the numbers that we’re dealing with. It just changes even the basic systems that we have,” he said. “Drones in your backyard is kind of a new experience to us all … the realization that we’re not just integrating drones into the FAA or into the NAS, but we are integrating into society a whole new technology. To do this, we really need to focus on some keystones: safety, shared accountability and collaboration.”

From the drone industry’s perspective, Ben Marcus, CEO, AirMap, and co-chair, Unmanned Aircraft Safety Team (UAST), said that despite awareness of safety data gaps, early research has given this team’s analysts the anecdotal impression of positive progress toward the desired sUAS safety level and appreciation of the need to calculate rates of sUAS safety events. “This data bracket is a real challenge to the UAST because we don’t have any ‘real accidents’ to analyze. Thankfully today, sUAS are pretty safe. You just don’t hear about fatalities. So I think we’re starting in a good place.”

AirMap, which offers an airspace-management services platform for drone flights, already services more than 100,000 drone flights per day, he said. “The UAST wants to enable [studying] more kinds of use cases over time. On the [occurrence-rate] denominator side, we’re looking for data similar to what the airlines have been collecting for flight operations quality assurance. So how do we collect a broad corpus of operational data? We have a group within the UAST working with large operators and manufacturers that have already volunteered to share a lot of this data.” Details of data confidentiality and protection are still being developed.

Remote Pilot Indoctrination

FAA panelists summarized the knowledge, skills and attitudes that remote pilots are expected to possess while exercising their flight privileges, as explained in today’s “ground school” training curriculum and multimedia resources designed for written test preparation and periodic refreshers. Among points underscored were the “homework” of carefully assessing operating conditions before and during every flight; explicitly designating the remote pilot-in-command (PIC) for each flight; studying scenarios in which the PIC may need to exercise authority to deviate from regulations in the immediate interest of safety and later be able to justify the decision, if required; understanding how FAA enforces compliance with restrictions such as flying near people but not flying directly over people, safe coverage structures for people under the flight path of a drone and maintaining direct visual line of sight with the aircraft; yielding right of way to all other aircraft; avoiding interference with the traffic patterns at any airport; obeying strict prohibitions against dropping objects from a drone; and realizing the broad scope of behavior, inaction and failures that FAA could identify as “careless and reckless operations.”

Joe Morra, manager, FAA Safety and Operations Branch, FAA UAS Integration Office, said that upon receiving the remote pilot certificate, safety becomes the airman’s personal responsibility. “You’re part of the safety culture, and you are flying with airline pilots. It’s Class G [uncontrolled] airspace at 400 ft AGL [above ground level] unless you’re within 400 ft [122 m] of a structure. You keep the drone 2,000 ft [610 m horizontally] from a cloud. Airliners pop out of clouds all the time. You need enough distance to make sure that you’re not going to impact, or even come close, to that aircraft. You need to understand, beyond the regulations, how to utilize those regulations safely.” (Among other Part 107 operating restrictions relevant to collision avoidance, the sUAS aircraft also must be no less than 500 ft below the cloud, minimum flight visibility as observed from the control station must be no less than 3.0 mi [2.6 nm/5 km] and the groundspeed of the sUAS aircraft may not exceed 87 kt [100 mph/161 kph].)

Steve Jangelis, aviation safety chairman, Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA), and a Delta Air Lines captain, told the symposium that the union supported FAA’s slow and methodical approach during Part 107 rulemaking — most of all, ensuring that people flying aircraft under this regulation are regarded by society as aircraft pilots. “Congratulations! We are all sharing this airspace as a result, and we’re happy to share,” he said. “We wanted to make sure that we have folks flying who are called pilots not operators. The bottom line is that a well-educated, well-trained pilot is the best safety tool.

“But whether you’ve done 10 or 20 years as an aviator in the military or four years at an advanced school to get your flight experience, training takes you to the minimum, and so do these regulations. The remote pilot certificate is a license to learn.

“Our big concern — as we look at a drone made of plastics, steel, composites and lithium batteries — is what happens when it goes into an airplane engine. I know I’m ‘selling’ a little bit of fear here, but it could happen. Ten years ago, airline pilots were saying, ‘Dual-engine failure due to birds will never happen.’ So we fear that the next collision will be with a large drone or a small drone in our airspace or another object that isn’t manned. When we start getting into flying larger UAS aircraft operating beyond visual line of sight, that’s another big concern to us.”

ALPA also considers practical demonstrations of proficiency in piloting each type of sUAS aircraft to be flown a very important issue. He added, “I know it’s not technically an FAA requirement right now, but I think it’s something remote pilots need to [consider]. Introducing sUAS aircraft into controlled airspace adds risk to airline passengers, cargo operations and the public at large. In order to maintain safety, remote pilots will be required to reliably and consistently control the sUAS aircraft with a higher degree of accuracy and pilot proficiency [than in Class G airspace]. Learn what your vehicle can do. Stay in touch with the manufacturer on any software updates, geofences and things like that. It’s also your responsibility as pilot-in-command to make sure that you’re aware of everything on board that aircraft, and operate it in a safe and methodical manner.”

Noting public concerns about trends such as reports of drone sightings by airline flight crews during approach to landing, Winsome Lenfert, deputy associate administrator, FAA Office of Airports, said that until relatively recently, average non-aviators flying drones lacked useful knowledge about protecting final approach paths at airports. This partly explains many of the early airspace incursions, she said (see ‘Waivers Unlock Extra Privileges’). “What it comes down to is education, awareness and communication.”

Revolutionary Change

By several FAA panelists’ estimates, finalizing Part 107 “changed everything” by essentially preauthorizing remote pilots to fly sUAS aircraft at up to 400 ft AGL in the Class G airspace now depicted by FAA on digital sectional aeronautical charts. They noted that Class G constitutes about 90 percent of all low-level airspace in the NAS.

Under Part 107, remote pilots or operators have flexibility to conduct non-commercial or commercial or public aircraft flights of small UAS (weighing 0.55 lb [0.2 5kg] to less than 55 lb [25 kg]).

The public demand already experienced by FAA shows that a large subset of all remote pilots wants to fly their aircraft through controlled airspace as soon as possible, and panelists said the key to facilitating that capability is the remote pilots of sUAS being aware of manned aircraft that could be flying in the same airspace.

In this context, James Eck, assistant administrator, FAA NextGen Office, said the agency encourages remote pilots — but does not require them — to apply the best training, procedures and technologies at their disposal (such as monitoring ground control station–sited receivers of automatic dependent surveillance–broadcast [ADS-B Out] messages from manned aircraft) to detect manned aircraft or even large drones, and to take immediate action to see other aircraft and avoid a collision. “ADS-B will play more of a safety role for unmanned aircraft to stay clear of manned aircraft that are radiating ADS-B,” he said.

Symposium panelists also noted that remote pilots, with few exceptions, ideally should “guard” relevant aeronautical radio frequencies but not initiate voice communication with air traffic control (ATC), airport authorities or pilots of other aircraft because such calls could saturate ATC communications.

Remote pilot certification is based on scoring 70 percent correct answers on a proctored multiple-choice written examination representing key knowledge areas, and on a background check by the Department of Homeland Security. The knowledge areas comprise: applicable regulations relating to sUAS rating privileges, limitations and flight operation; airspace classification and operating requirements, and flight restrictions affecting sUAS aircraft operation; aviation weather sources and effects of weather on sUAS aircraft performance; sUAS aircraft loading and performance; emergency procedures; crew resource management; radio communication procedures; determining the performance of sUAS aircraft; physiological effects of drugs and alcohol; aeronautical decision making and judgment; airport operations; and sUAS aircraft maintenance and preflight inspection procedures.

By comparison with the 37,000 remote pilot certificates issued, about 600,000 FAA manned aircraft pilot certificates are now in circulation, and since late 2016 — when registration of all UAS aircraft and model aircraft became mandatory — FAA has registered about 770,000 drones. However, most of these drones are model aircraft flown by hobby or recreational drone owners under community-based organization standards defined by the Special Rule for Model Aircraft (Public Law 112-95, Section 336) and FARs Part 101, Subpart E, Model Aircraft; a U.S. federal appeals court in mid-May struck down the registration requirement as it applied to hobbyists.

Trusting Remote Pilots

An individual’s FAR-compliance intent — demonstrated by pilot certification and drone registration — normally leads FAA to presume that a given remote pilot intended to comply with all applicable FARs. Peggy Gilligan, who retired March 31 as associate administrator of the FAA Aviation Safety Organization, said that in regulatory enforcement, the agency therefore first turns to its compliance philosophy–based policy.

“If you’ve gone to the trouble of understanding what waivers and other approvals you might need, that shows you mean to do this correctly,” she said. “By and large, folks who operate in the NAS are voluntary compliers. UAS is a new community; so you do need to demonstrate that your intention is to be in compliance. Then if there is some time that you are not compliant, our approach will be to understand why that happened, and we and you will make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Brad Zeigler, aviation safety analyst, Airman Training and Certification Branch, FAA Flight Standards Service, said that the consequences of any remote pilot’s reckless, careless or willfully noncompliant behavior while flying an sUAS aircraft could disrupt or ruin an aviation career if that person also happens to be a pilot, aviation maintenance technician, air traffic controller, aviation safety inspector or flight attendant, for example. “If you do something that is so egregious or is a fraudulent case, then it is possible that it could affect your other certificates. For the more malicious or egregious or intentional cases, all certificates are potentially affected,” he said.

Of special significance to remote pilots, but also important information for manned aircraft pilots,  are the sections of Part 107 that specify waiverable provisions (see “Concise Application Leads to FAA Waiver”).

Written applications for these waivers are granted or denied on a case-by-case basis and approval is contingent on the remote pilot (or operator) writing an adequately detailed, well-reasoned risk analysis and suitable risk mitigations that FAA finds acceptable. The waiverable provisions (and location in the regulation) are known as: operation from a moving vehicle or aircraft (107.25); daylight operation required (107.29); visual line of sight aircraft operation required (107.31); visual observer required (107.33); operation of multiple sUAS aircraft by one remote pilot prohibited (107.35); yielding the right of way to all other aircraft (107.37 [a]); operation over people prohibited (107.39); operation in certain airspace prohibited (107.41); and operating limitations for sUAS (107.51). See details at <faa.gov/uas/request_waiver/>.

Brian Wynne, president and CEO of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, said his organization’s analysis of 320 Part 107 waivers showed that 94 percent involved proposed exceptions to the standard prohibition against night flying of sUAS aircraft.

FAA expects Part 107 waivers to be expedited during 2017 when the remainder of 900 Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability (LAANC) facility maps for Classes B-C-D-E airspace are released within FAA and to the public (see “Safety News,” ASW, 4/17). These free digital maps show controllers, and will show remote pilots, the pre-approved airspace near airports where ATC most readily and safely could authorize remote pilots to fly.

Headquarters staff in the FAA Air Traffic Organization already use a centralized system to process applications from remote pilots who seek temporary ATC authorizations to fly within one or more predefined blocks of controlled airspace. These authorizations normally function without subsequent real-time voice or data communication between remote pilots and ATC, or any sUAS avionics to make these drones detectable to air traffic controllers or to pilots of manned aircraft or drones in the vicinity. Comparable work in progress includes the FAA’s program to replace cumbersome and disconnected processes for ATC authorizations using fully automated services to registered remote pilots and others through public portal–database technology, agency officials said.

Introducing the certificated remote pilot as a safety factor completes the second phase of long-term FAA UAS initiatives. The FAA’s risk-based introduction of all kinds of UAS into the NAS comprises the following sequential steps: assuring that hobbyist/recreational operations of drones and traditional model aircraft continue within safe confines (done); introducing safe and routine low-altitude flights by certificated remote pilots who are responsible for small UAS aircraft in uncontrolled airspace within their visual line of sight (done); expanding Part 107 to routinely allow sUAS operations over people (a near-term objective); expanding Part 107 to allow beyond visual line of sight operations (a near-term objective); introducing integrated/ATC-controlled UAS operations throughout the NAS (a long-term objective); and future aircraft automation enabling UAS-like pilotless operation of large aircraft, with and without passengers (an aspiration receiving early consideration).

In summary, symposium panelists stressed, the newly minted remote pilots have a historic opportunity to positively influence a scenario in which sUAS aircraft fly with predictability and reliably avoid collision with manned aircraft through compliance with Part 107, waivers and ATC authorizations. Many remote pilots and sUAS operators also could equip themselves for optimum situational awareness of manned aircraft while regularly updating their knowledge, skills and attitudes that affect the level of safety.

Featured image: © pict rider | Adobe Stock
Sample UAS license: U.S. Federal Aviation Administration