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U. of Alaska—1st org. other than NASA/DoD to get a COA to fly in civil airspace beyond line-of-sight

Posted by Tim Trueman on August 18, 2009 at 1:00pm
The University of Alaska is the first entity, other than NASA or the Department of Defense, to receive an emergency certificate of authority from the Federal Aviation Administration to fly in civil airspace with an unmanned aircraft beyond line-of-sight.A sign of progress?University of Alaska assists fire personnel in mapping the Crazy Mountain Complex fires with the ScanEagle.
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Comments

  • george August 19, 2009 at 7:03am
    With our radio modems already transmitting our location it would seem no problem to have transmit and avoid.
  • bGatti August 18, 2009 at 7:53pm
    "see and avoid" is an anachronism. It doesn't work for real, experienced pilots (see recent Hudson crash, and the history of misair collisions.)

    The introduction of drones should be used as an excuse to replace sense-and-avoid with transmit-and-avoid.
  • Tim Trueman August 18, 2009 at 7:28pm
    Well I'm never really surprised when something online is inaccurate but I would love to hear other examples. Perhaps they meant the first emergency COA?
  • Ryan August 18, 2009 at 7:18pm
    Not true, other have COA before but still good to see progress.
  • Robert Drone August 18, 2009 at 4:31pm
    Sweet!=]
  • Andrew Lynch August 18, 2009 at 4:15pm
    Do you see other universities obtaining this clearance in the near future ?
  • 3D Robotics
    Chris Anderson August 18, 2009 at 2:28pm
    LOL!
  • Tim Trueman August 18, 2009 at 1:51pm
    They cleared the airspace. Also it's just Alaska (I kid, I kid).
  • 3D Robotics
    Chris Anderson August 18, 2009 at 1:45pm
    Nice one. How did they resolve the sense-and-avoid problem, or do they just get the FAA to clear the airspace when they're flying?
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