The US Federal Aviation Administration is negotiating an agreement with the US Department of Defense that would allow for the expanded operation of small military unmanned air vehicles in the US national airspace without the use of certificates of authorisation.
The regulator says the propose arrangement will cover UAVs weighing 20lbs (9kg) or less and flying over military ranges or in class G airspace.
According to Doug Davis, manager of the FAA’s unmanned aircraft programme office, “we are actively pursuing a memorandum of agreement with the Department of Defense that would allow the DoD to expand their use of small unmanned aircraft without the need for requesting or applying for a certificate of authorisation (COA)”.
All UAV flights in US airspace are currently subject to the issuing of a COA with no exemptions available.
Speaking at the UVS International UAV 2007 conference in Paris 13 June, Davis said that military UAV systems covered by the proposed arrangement will be restricted to an operational altitude of below 800ft-1200ft depending on the actual geographic location.
Davis told the conference that “we are also looking at how, where they are the service provider, in a class D airspace where there is a not a joint use military airfield, where it is solely use military airfield, that we can expand the use of unmanned aircraft in that class of the airspace under certain conditions.”
He said that the military negotiations are expected to contribute directly to the FAA’s proposed new category of regulations for the operation of small UAVs in the US national airspace over the next year.
“That coupled with the small policy that has been bantered around…is going to, I think over the next year or so, allow us to free up some of the small unmanned aircraft to be done for other than a hobby or recreation.”
The FAA flagged of a potential creation of a new category of regulations for small UAVs in February this year, with this based on allowing operations under within visual flight rules.
A review into the feasibility of the new category was announced by the regulator in a policy notice issued 13 February. That same announcement re-iterated standing prohibitions on the use of the FAA’s AC 91-57 model aeroplane regulations as the basis of small UAV operations in US airspace.
It said that the proposed new category would cover “unmanned ‘vehicles’ that may be defined by the operator's visual line of sight and are also small and slow enough to adequately mitigate hazards to other aircraft and persons on the ground.”
Such a category “may be a new flight authorization instrument similar to AC 91-57, but focused on operations which do not qualify as sport and recreation, but also may not require a certificate of airworthiness.
“They will, however, require compliance with applicable FAA regulations and guidance developed for this category.”
In a related developments, industry and regulatory authority talks on options for establishment of an international approach to common light UAV regulations covering air vehicles below 150kg (330lbs) in weight were launched in Paris 13 June.
Source: FlightGlobal.com
