Today's guest Doug Davis, Director of Global UAS Strategic Initiatives at the NMSU PSL.
Doug has been a long time contributing member of the unmanned aviation community. This will be an excellent opportunity to hear about the Global UAS airspace integration effort past, present and future. He was head of the FAA UAPO department so should have his finger on the pulse of what might be about to happen.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/suasnews/2013/01/09/global-uas-initiatives
Please email patrick@suasnews.com if you have any questions the link above should show the right time zone for whatever one you are in. Its in a couple of hours.
Comments
Ok it's there now http://www.suasnews.com/2013/01/20522/doug-davis-tells-it-like-it-i...
Woooh there Patrick I have not added the .PDF yet ;-) Quite the show that
Listened to the whole thing and reading between the lines a bit the most important conclusion I came to is that the FAA is truly not likely to make a reasonable batch of regulations in relation to our Hobby RC flying, let alone small commercial unmanned aircraft.
It really seems that the FAA is not at all equipped to even properly understand the issues let alone make informed decisions regarding them.
The big U.S. money is all in LARGE unmanned aircraft, even though the vast majority of likely uses of unmanned aircraft will be small to very small ones.
To this end, it appears that the FAA is going to be making rules and regulations covering Large UAVs not small ones and that there is a strong likelihood, completely inappropriate large aircraft rules will simply be forced down the throats of the small aircraft users simply because they don't have enough economic clout to fight back.
Maybe the AMA and the congressional mandate to keep their hands off of hobby RC flying will help us hobbyists some, but this is going to be a long, drawn out thing and a lot of interests are going to inevitably get unjustifiably sabotaged by the FAA simply because they do not have adequate expertise, funding or interest in doing otherwise.
Basically if the FAA restricts small UAV's commercial and hobby out of existence, they won't be held accountable for any liability accruing from their use.
Probably won't fly in the long run, but at the moment it seems to be the operating paradigm.
On Episode #34 we hit pay dirt! Guest Doug Davis gives us some powerful insight into the Global Airspace Integration process. If you or your company has any realistic designs on being in the unmanned aircraft industry, this is the must listen to Episode! Check out the add on presentation on the suasnews.com webpage.