Excerpt from Model Aviation Magazine

Just FYI...

Excerpt from "President's Perspective," Model Aviation magazine, November 2010

FAA Ruling May Be Challenging to AMA

Things continue to move forward, albeit relatively slowly, with the FAA regulatory process for small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) that will have some collateral impact on model aviation.

AMA’s internal workgroup, comprising members with considerable experience representing a number of modeling disciplines, continues to draft an initial set of standards that we will present to the FAA. The purpose of these standards is to create a path in which model aviation enthusiasts may operate outside of the "default" set of regulations that were [proposed] to the FAA by an Aviation Rulemaking Committee (ARC) in March 2009.

Rich Hanson, AMA’s Government Affairs Representative, and the Safety Committee chairperson, Jim Rice, traveled to Washington in early September to meet with representatives from the FAA’s Unmanned Aircraft Program Office (UAPO). The purpose of that meeting was to share with the UAPO the direction that we are taking with our standards and to ask for guidance to ensure that the form and format of our work was moving in the right direction.

The results of that meeting have raised some additional concerns for us. We have scheduled a follow-up meeting with UAPO manager Rick Prosek. This meeting will have taken place by the time this issue of MA reaches you. I will update you on the results of this meeting next month.

Putting aside the military-industrial complex aspect of this (i.e. regulation favorable to them), the primary issue with sUASs would be safety, correct? So, I tried to think of some comparable activities to get some idea of what we can expect. In other words, if a similar activity is going on legally, maybe we can some day fly our hobby sUASs outside of manual range (which is actually shorter than visual range; I can see my plane a long way away, but might not actually be able to control it).

One activity came to mind immediately -- free flight. I went to the AMA web site to try to find rules or guidelines on safely flying free flight models and found none. They probably exist, but other than forms for record attempts, nothing obvious came up. So, just what is the legal status of flying free flight model airplanes? How do you keep them under 400 feet? By definition, they are not under manual control, although I think some, if not all, have dethermalizers to limit their range. Maybe that's one of the requirements.

I have no doubt that the AMA has guidelines. I'll keep looking. In any case, I think it's an interesting comparision, or contrast, with sUAS activity.

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Paul Marsh October 26, 2010 at 10:21am

Putting aside the military-industrial complex aspect of this (i.e. regulation favorable to them), the primary issue with sUASs would be safety, correct? So, I tried to think of some comparable activities to get some idea of what we can expect. In other words, if a similar activity is going on legally, maybe we can some day fly our hobby sUASs outside of manual range (which is actually shorter than visual range; I can see my plane a long way away, but might not actually be able to control it).

One activity came to mind immediately -- free flight. I went to the AMA web site to try to find rules or guidelines on safely flying free flight models and found none. They probably exist, but other than forms for record attempts, nothing obvious came up. So, just what is the legal status of flying free flight model airplanes? How do you keep them under 400 feet? By definition, they are not under manual control, although I think some, if not all, have dethermalizers to limit their range. Maybe that's one of the requirements.

I have no doubt that the AMA has guidelines. I'll keep looking. In any case, I think it's an interesting comparision, or contrast, with sUAS activity.
T3

Rory Paul October 26, 2010 at 8:35am

Jan

Here in the US I suspect that if you were involved in some kind of accident it will not matter if it was computer in control or pilot in control. You will find yourself in front of a judge / jury and they probably will not be technically capable of making a distinction (there are days I wish I was back in South Africa).

I know there was an incident a few years back in Hungary where two people were killed during an RC competition. They determined that a Hungarian state transmitter was the cause of the interference which caused the plane the crash.
Jan van Hulzen October 26, 2010 at 2:13am

Yes that is the case here as well. On the other hand in cases where the intention was to control but the control was somehow lost, like a car losing a parking brake or a boat losing its moorage there is coverage. So i think that although there are no strict rules for robots it may well be that it is covered since it can be claimed that supervisory control is also control. In the case of someone dying because of the craft i don't know. However i know of at least two cases where a rock climber died because of mistakes by a belaying partner who somehow lost control. In both cases they got 6 months (suspended).

At any rate i think that a heavy aircraft say > 5 kg can cause enough damage to kill a person if it it is colliding at max speed. So there must be cases where this has happened in the past. So the skills and level of control will be the determining factor here.
T3

Rory Paul October 25, 2010 at 3:16pm

@Jan

As far as I know there is no insurance coverage that would cover damage caused by an accident caused by an aircraft under autopilot control. There are as far as I know two companies which provide limit coverage for aerial photography from rc aircraft.

I am sure you could buy coverage but it would cost and arm and a leg.
Jan van Hulzen October 25, 2010 at 1:59am

I am wondering what the effect of these rules are on insurance. I live in holland and there are some strict regulations which can be ignored due to loopholes in the law. For example the aircraft needs to be under control of an operator who has constant line of sight. So if the model airplane crashes into a car under human control the damage should be covered by standard insurance. A robotic craft is different but if there is a failsafe, then it is unclear. How are things in the US? Is a separate insurance needed?
Moderator

Gary Mortimer October 24, 2010 at 12:55pm

You said what I could'nt find the words to say Rory I think you are bang on right.
Paul Marsh October 24, 2010 at 12:49pm

Given the state of the economy, but not even necessarily because of that, I see manufacturers of both hobby and commercial systems being in a good position for favorable regulation. These are job creating activities, albeit with some risk involved. But we've seen the downside of risk in the model aviation community before and, despite the hand-wringing that follows, no clampdowns on our activities have ever really happened. We are still a self-regulated activity except for a vague fact sheet from the FAA that is interpreted differently depending on who you ask (i.e. the one that talks about being limited to 400 feet altitude).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm somewhat optimistic that things will move forward in a positive way for sUAS activities, both hobby and commercial.
T3

Rory Paul October 24, 2010 at 12:47pm

Storm in a tea cup...the bottom line is that it "looks" like the FAA may start beefing up enforcement of the COA process by adding some people. Anybody here have a COA? I do suspect that they are under pressure (being taken to play golf and lots of lunches at expensive DC restaurants) to get some type of policy in place to allow the use of sUAS in the NAS by law enforcement (thanks AV) and here lies the risk to us. The companies making miltary grade sUAS do not want us "hobbyists" muddying the waters. They want to sell units at $25-30K a pop and if we can do it for under $1K it makes them look greedy. So expect along with the policy enabling law enforcement to operate sUAS some form of attempt to clamp down on us.
Moderator

Gary Mortimer October 24, 2010 at 12:28pm

Patrick Egan has had some pretty highly placed people commenting on a similar theme. Looks like things are coming to a head over there. I know there is strong lobbying from manufacturers that are seeing overseas deployments ending and they need a place to sell their wares.
T3

Rory Paul October 24, 2010 at 12:05pm

I wrote a letter to the AMA with regards to their passive stance regarding sUAS and their lack of vision regarding where modeling is going. I received a response that just reinforced my opinion that the AMA is only interested in maintaining the current flying status. Their problem is that their membership going to start thinning and unless they come to terms with "computer aided" flying they will not attract a younger membership.

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