[House Hearing, 109 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES AND THE NATIONAL AIRSPACE SYSTEM
=======================================================================
(109-60)
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
AVIATION
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 29, 2006
__________
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure
____
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COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE
DON YOUNG, Alaska, Chairman
THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin, Vice- JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota
Chair NICK J. RAHALL, II, West Virginia
SHERWOOD L. BOEHLERT, New York PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
WAYNE T. GILCHREST, Maryland Columbia
JOHN L. MICA, Florida JERROLD NADLER, New York
PETER HOEKSTRA, Michigan CORRINE BROWN, Florida
VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan BOB FILNER, California
SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi
SUE W. KELLY, New York JUANITA MILLENDER-McDONALD,
RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana California
ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey EARL BLUMENAUER, Oregon
JERRY MORAN, Kansas ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California
GARY G. MILLER, California BILL PASCRELL, Jr., New Jersey
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa
ROB SIMMONS, Connecticut TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania
HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South Carolina BRIAN BAIRD, Washington
TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania JIM MATHESON, Utah
SAM GRAVES, Missouri MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota RICK LARSEN, Washington
BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania JULIA CARSON, Indiana
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida TIMOTHY H. BISHOP, New York
JON C. PORTER, Nevada MICHAEL H. MICHAUD, Maine
TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee
KENNY MARCHANT, Texas BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
MICHAEL E. SODREL, Indiana BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
TED POE, Texas ALLYSON Y. SCHWARTZ, Pennsylvania
DAVID G. REICHERT, Washington JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado
CONNIE MACK, Florida JOHN BARROW, Georgia
JOHN R. `RANDY' KUHL, Jr., New York
LUIS G. FORTUNO, Puerto Rico
LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia
CHARLES W. BOUSTANY, Jr., Louisiana
JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio
(ii)
?
SUBCOMMITTEE ON AVIATION
JOHN L. MICA, Florida, Chairman
THOMAS E. PETRI, Wisconsin JERRY F. COSTELLO, Illinois
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa
JOHN J. DUNCAN, Jr., Tennessee PETER A. DeFAZIO, Oregon
VERNON J. EHLERS, Michigan ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of
SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama Columbia
SUE W. KELLY, New York CORRINE BROWN, Florida
RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio JUANITA MILLENDER-McDONALD,
FRANK A. LoBIONDO, New Jersey California
JERRY MORAN, Kansas ELLEN O. TAUSCHER, California
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina BILL PASCRELL, JR., New Jersey
HENRY E. BROWN, Jr., South Carolina TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania
TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
SAM GRAVES, Missouri JIM MATHESON, Utah
MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas RICK LARSEN, Washington
JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
JON C. PORTER, Nevada BEN CHANDLER, Kentucky
KENNY MARCHANT, Texas RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania JOHN T. SALAZAR, Colorado
TED POE, Texas NICK J. RAHALL II, West Virginia
JOHN R. `RANDY' KUHL, Jr., New BOB FILNER, California
York, Vice-Chair JAMES L. OBERSTAR, Minnesota
LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia (Ex Officio)
DON YOUNG, Alaska
(Ex Officio)
(iii)
CONTENTS
TESTIMONY
Page
Cassidy, Radm Thomas J., Jr. (Ret.), President, General Atomic
Aeronautical Systems........................................... 22
Cebula, Andrew, Senior Vice President, Government and Technical
Affairs, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA)......... 22
Heinz, Mike, Executive Director, Unite UAV National Industry
Team (UNITE)................................................... 22
Kostelnik, Michael, Assistant Commissioner, Customs and Border
Protection, Office of Air and Marine, Department of Homeland
Security....................................................... 6
Mealy, Jay, Programs Director, Academy of Model Aeronautics..... 22
Owen, Dr. Robert C., Professor, Department of Aeronautical
Science, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.................. 22
Pease, Gerald F. (Fred), Jr., Executive Director, U.S.
Department of Defense, Policy Board on Federal Aviation........ 6
Sabatini, Nicholas, Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety,
Federal Aviation Administration................................ 6
Weatherington, Dyke D., Deputy, Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)
Planning Task Force, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Defense Systems-Air
Warfafe, U.S. Department of Defense............................ 6
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
Boswell, Hon. Leonard, of Iowa................................... 35
Carnahan, Hon. Riss, of Missouri................................. 37
Costello, Hon. Jerry F., of Illinois............................. 62
Johnson, Hon. Eddie Bernice, of Texas............................ 78
Marchant, Hon. Kenny, of Texas................................... 91
Oberstar, Hon. James L., of Minnesota............................ 101
PREPARED STATEMENTS SUBMITTED BY WITNESSES
Cassidy, Radm Thomas J., Jr. (Ret.)............................. 38
Cebula, Andrew.................................................. 51
Heinz, Mike..................................................... 64
Kostelnik, Michael.............................................. 81
Mealy, Jay...................................................... 92
Owen, Dr. Robert C.............................................. 103
Sabatini, Nicholas.............................................. 123
Weatherington, Dyke D........................................... 133
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Cassidy, Radm Thomas J., Jr. (Ret.), President, General Atomic
Aeronautical Systems, responses to questions................... 42
Cebula, Andrew, Senior Vice President, Government and Technical
Affairs, Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA),
responses to questions......................................... 57
Heinz, Mike, Executive Director, Unite UAV National Industry
Team (UNITE), responses to questions........................... 69
Kostelnik, Michael, Assistant Commissioner, Customs and Border
Protection, Office of Air and Marine, Department of Homeland
Security, responses to questions............................... 88
Mealy, Jay, Programs Director, Academy of Model Aeronautics,
responses to questions......................................... 99
Owen, Dr. Robert C., Professor, Department of Aeronautical
Science, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, responses to
questions...................................................... 115
Pease, Gerald F. (Fred), Jr., Executive Director, U.S.
Department of Defense, Policy Board on Federal Aviation,
responses to questions......................................... 120
Sabatini, Nicholas, Associate Administrator for Aviation Safety,
Federal Aviation Administration, responses to questions........ 130
Weatherington, Dyke D., Deputy, Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)
Planning Task Force, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense
for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Defense Systems-Air
Warfafe, U.S. Department of Defense, responses to questions.... 147
ADDITION TO THE RECORD
Healing, Hon. Richard F., P.E., Former Member, National
Transportation Safety Board, statement......................... 155
UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES AND THE NATIONAL AIRSPACE SYSTEM
----------
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Aviation,
Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in
Room 2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. John L. Mica
[chairman of the committee] presiding.
Mr. Mica. Good morning. I would like to this hearing of the
House Aviation Subcommittee to order and welcome everyone this
morning. I think we have an interesting hearing, a little bit
different, and the title of the hearing is ``Unmanned Aerial
Vehicles (UAVs) and the National Airspace System.''
The order of business today is going to be opening
statements by members, then we have two panels of witnesses we
will recognize. So we will launch our hearing here and I will
start with my opening statement and we will begin.
Welcome, everyone. Today's hearing is going to be a little
bit different, as I said, and, like the hearing on commercial
space transportation just over a year ago, launches a new era
in commercial transportation oversight.
We have just come to the end of 100 years of manned flight,
and now we are entering a new century where unmanned aircraft
will be used in ways that, in fact, defy even today's
imagination.
I was going to fly this thing this morning. Somebody took
the battery out of it. We got one of these--yes, a little bit
of a wounded prop. But the thing actually does fly in a remote
fashion. And it is not outside the realm of possibility that
sometime in the future we will see pilots located at remote
consoles as they fly cargo and passengers through an aviation
system that is yet to be defined.
From the early days of flight to the development of jet
engines, to the introduction of helicopters and now unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAVs), and also unmanned aerial systems,
progress continues and the safe integration of new technologies
has to be assured in our national airspace; and that is part of
the reason that we are having this hearing today.
Well, historically, UAS, the systems have been used
primarily by the Defense Department and DOD in military
settings, and sometimes outside the United States border, there
is growing demand for both government and commercial operations
of unmanned aircraft in our integrated national airspace.
Federal agencies such as the Customs and Border Patrol
Service, the Drug Enforcement Agency, the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, the Transportation Security Administration, the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, and State and local law
enforcement agencies are all interested in utilizing UAVs and
the UAS system in our national airspace; and, of course, that
creates a lot of questions and problems and airspace issues.
Additionally, UAVs are also an emerging segment of our
commercial aviation industry.
These advancements in aviation technology demand an ever-
changing and evolving aviation system. Therefore, today, our
subcommittee will learn about the development and the use of
unmanned aerial systems. We will also hear about the Federal
Aviation Administration's role in safety over flight, and the
safe introduction of UAS into the integrated national airspace
system.
We all understand that the FAA has sole authority over the
safe and efficient use of our national airspace and is
responsible for overseeing the safety of our civil airspace,
including the operations by military, government, private
pilots, and commercial entities.
In considering the operation of unmanned aircraft in the
integrated national airspace, the FAA has identified two major
safety concerns that need to be addressed: first, the need for
proven unmanned aerial systems command and control
redundancies. And there should be--if there is a disruption,
rather, in communications, or should the operator lose contact
with the vehicle, what happens? Secondly, the need for
reliable, as they say, detect and avoid capability so that
unmanned aerial systems and vehicles in the air can sense and
also avoid other aircraft. These are a couple of essential
safety responsibilities and jurisdictional responsibilities for
the FAA.
The FAA has stated that unmanned aircraft will need to
achieve the same level of safety as a manned aircraft. Such a
level of safety requires further technological advancements,
and maybe we will hear a little bit today about what is in
store in regard to these new systems. Until this level of
safety is achieved, however, the FAA has been working with DOD,
the Border Patrol, and other government agencies to allow
limited use of these unmanned aerial vehicles and systems in
our national airspace.
The FAA has issued Certificates of Authority (COAs) and
created Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs) to allow public or
governmental operations of UAS in our national airspace. The
FAA has also issued experimental certificates to allow limited
commercial operations in our national airspace. But these
processes deal with only a case-by-case issue or basis, and
they can take time and place additional demands on limited FAA
resources.
The number of requests to operate unmanned aircraft in our
national airspace is growing, particularly for operations in
support of homeland and national security. While the FAA has
worked hard to expedite Certificates of Authority and that
review process, ultimately, a longer term solution is probably
going to be required. Therefore, the FAA has asked the RTCA,
Inc., which is a private not-for-profit corporation that
develops consensus-based recommendations for the FAA on certain
technical issues--they have asked the RTCA, Inc. to help
develop standards for operation of the UAVs and UAS systems.
The RTCA Special Committee 203 will answer two key
questions: How will the systems handle command and control,
these unmanned aerial systems handle those two issues? And how
will they detect and avoid other aircraft? Both of these
questions are dependent on the development of technology and
operational procedures, and some of those we will hear about.
Certainly, supporting this emerging industry is in the best
interest of the United States, especially in light of growing
homeland and national security demands, and also in light of
increasing international competition in this area. At the same
time, ensuring that the FAA fulfills its oversight
responsibility with regard to safety is certainly a priority
for this subcommittee.
Like commercial space transportation, the integration of
aerial systems that are unmanned will create new challenges to
the safe and efficient use of our national airspace, and also
require our FAA to address a whole host of issues regarding use
of the national airspace by these new unmanned vehicles and
aerial systems.
We welcome the witnesses. We appreciate the time they have
taken to come testify before us today, and we look forward to
hearing from all of them, and am please to yield to Mr. Boswell
at this time.
Mr. Boswell. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to
thank Ranking Member Costello for having this hearing. Mr.
Costello is in a markup in another committee, I understand, so
I am privileged to be here with you.
I do feel privileged in this sense. We all have our
history, and some of my history was in charge of the drones
flying out of Finton Army Airfield in Germany in the 1960s.
Some of you might remember some of those. Those were pretty
yellow, pretty antique-ish, I guess, compared to what we are
doing today, but I did do that. And then I had the assignment
for a time flying the SLAR, the side-looking radar, under L-
23s, the twin Bonanza, along the East German border, trying to
keep track of the Russian movements and so on. And, of course,
we were in the soup most of the time flying and we were
depending on radio compass, you know, to ADFD to track, and the
Russians figured out a way to overpower that and make their
needles swing to the right. And then if you slipped over there,
they would just shoot you down because you were violating their
space. So we were pretty attentive to making sure that that
needle wasn't doing an unexpected swing. If it did, we turned a
240 and left the area.
But those are kind of exciting times for the young aviator
that I was at that time.
But, anyway, today we are here to talk about unmanned
aerial vehicles, and I do associate myself with what the
Chairman said very enthusiastically, but it is timely because
government and commercial operators are starting to compete for
the use of our national airspace. UAVs come in all shapes and
sizes, from as little as four pounds. In fact, even this
Batcat--I just got a copy of their little information--is a one
pounder, I understand. And they may be programmed to work
autonomously or by a computer operator.
UAVs are currently being used for military, law
enforcement, homeland security, firefighting, weather
prediction, and tracking purposes. According to a recent
Aviation Week & Space Technology article, the UAV market is
expected to be worth $7.6 billion through 2010, with the
majority of UAVs being purchased by the U.S. We must ensure
that this emerging industry receives the proper Federal safety
oversight without discouraging the development.
The increasing use of UAVs in the national airspace
represents several challenges for the FAA and the community. Of
paramount importance, of course, is safety. The FAA is the sole
authority--is the sole authority, as I understand it--charged
with controlling the safe and efficient use of the national
airspace. It is my understanding that adequate detect, sense
and avoid technology that will enable UAVs to avoid other
aircraft is probably 20 years away. It is years away, anyway.
Therefore, safety must be their top priority as the FAA makes
decisions regarding UAV airworthiness and integration into
operations of our national airspace.
Moreover, FAA has recently accommodated the use of UAVs by
implementing large-scale flight restrictions. An example: they
established a Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) along the
U.S.-Mexico border at Arizona-New Mexico to allow the
Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection
to conduct UAV border surveillance without colliding with other
operators in the area. The TFR is 300 nautical miles long and
17 miles wide; has an effect of 12,000 to 14,000 feet, and is
active from 5 to 7 daily. In my view, the use of TFRs,
especially one that is large in scale to allow for UAV
operation, is not a workable long-term solution. It is going to
be a challenge for us, I understand that, and I hope that we
all do.
I am pleased that Mr. Sabatini is here to discuss the
agency's efforts in the short term to ensure the safety of UAVs
that currently fly in the space, as well as any long-term
solutions to allow for certification of mainstream integration
of these vehicles with other commercial use in airspace
without--without--resorting to widespread use of TFRs.
The Department of Defense and Homeland Security, the two
primary government users of UAVs, must also work in concert
with the FAA to ensure both the safety of UAVs operating in the
space and that our military and homeland security needs for UAV
operations are being met.
Today we have representatives from both DOD and CBP to
discuss these efforts, so I am looking forward to hearing from
our witnesses, on the second panel as well, regarding future
commercial applications, the challenges faced by these emerging
industry, as well as some of the potential procedural and
technological solutions that will enable the full and safe
integration of these in the space.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to your comments.
And I will just tell you up front I am very, very concerned
about general aviation. It is a big part of our economy and
there is a big need for it, and I hope you keep that in mind
every time you sit down and discuss this, as well as the other
needs. Thank you very much.
Mr. Mica. Thank you.
Any other members have opening statements? None on this
side.
Ms. Johnson?
Ms. Johnson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I am due in
the same markup that Mr. Costello is in, so I might leave out
shortly. But I want to thank you and the Ranking Member for
holding this hearing this morning on the issue of unmanned
aerial systems.
Without question, the usage of unmanned vehicles in the
areas of surveillance and recognizance missions has proven to
be an invaluable tool in the missions of our military. The U.S.
military has demonstrated that the UAV development serves a
cost-effective answer to a number of modern military needs. In
addition to UAV deployment by the U.S. military, the Congress
has also called for the usage of UAVs to support homeland
security and other law enforcement related missions.
Now it appears that there are various segments within the
commercial aviation industry interested in utilizing UAVs in
the national airspace system. Obviously, this type of demand
for UAVs begs the question that if commercial usage of UAVs are
permitted, how do we, as policymakers, ensure that the
necessary safeguards are in place for the protection of public
safety?
It is my understanding that FAA has identified two primary
safety issues with regard to the UAVs' operation in the
commercial aviation industry: one, the need for UAV command and
control redundancy should a disruption in communication arise;
and, two, the need for a reliable detect and avoid capability
so that the UAVs can sense and avoid other aircraft.
I welcome our witnesses this morning and look forward to
gaining additional insight into whether or not the FAA feels
expanding commercial UAV usage is a good idea. And, if so, what
are their plans to address safety and oversight issues as they
relate to the UAVs.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Mica. Additional members with opening statements?
[No response.]
Mr. Mica. We have no additional members, so we will turn to
our first panel of witnesses. And we have approximately four
witnesses, I believe, on the first panel. Let me introduce
them. We have first Mr. Nicholas Sabatini, who is the Associate
Administrator for Aviation Safety with FAA. We have Mr. Gerald
F. (Fred) Pease Jr., Executive Director of the United States
Department of Defense, Policy Board on Federal Aviation. We
have Mr. Dyke D. Weatherington, Deputy, Unmanned Aerial Systems
(UAS) Planning Task Force. He is with the Office of Under
Secretary of Defense for Acquisition Technology and Logistics
Defense Systems and Air Warfare with the United States
Department of Defense. And then our last witness on that panel
is Mr. Michael Kostelnik, and he is the Assistant Commissioner
for Customs Border Protection, Office of Air and Marine
Activities, in the Department of Homeland Security.
So I would like to welcome all of our witnesses. We ask if
you have a lengthy statement or information that you would like
to have made part of the official record of these proceedings,
to request so through the Chair. Hopefully, you can summarize
in approximately five minutes your testimony. So we welcome
you.
Mr. Sabatini is no stranger to this panel, and welcome him
back and recognize him at this time. You are recognized.
TESTIMONY OF NICHOLAS SABATINI, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR FOR
AVIATION SAFETY, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION; MICHAEL
KOSTELNIK, ASSISTANT COMMISSIONER, CUSTOMS AND BORDER
PROTECTION, OFFICE OF AIR AND MARINE, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND
SECURITY; GERALD F. (FRED) PEASE JR., EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR,
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE, POLICY BOARD ON FEDERAL
AVIATION; AND DYKE D. WEATHERINGTON, DEPUTY, UNMANNED AERIAL
SYSTEMS (UAS) PLANNING TASK FORCE, OFFICE OF THE UNDER
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR ACQUISITION, TECHNOLOGY AND LOGISTICS
DEFENSE SYSTEMS-AIR WARFARE, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF
DEFENSE
Mr. Sabatini. Good morning, Chairman Mica, Congressman
Boswell, and members of the subcommittee. I am pleased to
appear before you today to discuss a subject that serves to
remind us that the future is now. The development and use of
unmanned aircraft (UAs) is the next great step forward in the
evolution of aviation. As it has throughout its history, FAA is
prepared to work with government and industry to ensure that
these aircraft are both safe to operate and operated safely.
The extremely broad range of UAs makes their successful
integration into the national airspace system (the NAS) a
challenge, but certainly one worth meeting. To meet this need,
the FAA has established an Unmanned Aircraft Program Office
which has the expressed purpose of ensuring a safe integration
of UAs into the NAS.
At the outset, you must understand that UAs cannot be
described as a single type of aircraft. UAs can be vehicles
that range from a 12-ounce hand launched model to the size of a
737 aircraft. Obviously, the size of the UA impacts the
complexity of its system design and capability. Therefore, each
different type of UA has to be evaluated separately, with each
aircraft's unique characteristics being considered before its
integration into the NAS can be accomplished. FAA is currently
working with both other government agencies and private
industry on the development and use of UAs.
The number of government agencies that want to use UAs in
support of their mandate is increasing.
In working with government agencies, the FAA issues a
Certificate of Authorization (a COA), that permits the agency
to operate a particular UA for a particular purpose in a
particular area. In other words, FAA works with the agency to
develop conditions and limitations for UA operations to ensure
they do not jeopardize the safety of other aviation operations.
The objective is to issue a COA with terms that ensure an
equivalent level of safety as manned aircraft. Usually, this
entails making sure that the UA does not operate in a populated
area and the aircraft is observed either by someone in a manned
aircraft or someone on the ground. In the interest of national
security, and because ground observers were not possible, the
FAA worked with DHS to facilitate UA operations along the
Arizona-New Mexico border with Mexico. In order to permit such
operations, the airspace is segregated to ensure system safety
so these UA flights can operate without an observer being
physically present to observe the operation. The FAA is working
closely with DHS to minimize the impact of the segregation
methods on other aviation operations. In the past two years,
the FAA has issued over 50 COAs. With the purposes for which
UAs are used expanding steadily, the FAA expects to issue a
record number of COAs this year.
FAA's work with private industry is slightly different.
Companies must obtain an airworthiness certificate by
demonstrating that their aircraft can operate safely within an
assigned flight test area and cause no harm to the public. They
must be able to describe their unmanned aircraft system, along
with how and where they intend to fly. This is documented by
the applicant in what we call a program letter. An FAA team of
subject matter experts reviews the program letter and, if the
project is feasible, performs an onsite review of the ground
system and unmanned aircraft. If the results of the onsite
review are acceptable, there are negotiations on operating
limitations. After the necessary limitations are accepted, FAA
will accept an application for an experimental airworthiness
certificate, which is ultimately issued by the local FAA. The
certificate specifies the operating restrictions applicable to
that aircraft. We have received 14 program letters for UAs
ranging from 39 to over 10,000 pounds. We have issued two
experimental certificates, one for General Atomics' Altair and
one for Bell-Textron's Eagle Eye. We expect to issue at least
two more experimental certificates this year.
Each UA FAA considers, whether it be developed by
government or industry, must have numerous fail safes for loss
of command and control link and system failures. Information
must be provided to FAA that clearly establishes that the risk
of injury to persons on the ground is highly unlikely in the
even of a loss of link. Because FAA recognizes the seriousness
of this situation, we are predominantly limiting UA operations
to unpopulated areas. Should loss of link occur, the pilot must
immediately alert air traffic control and inform the
controllers of the loss of control link. Information about what
the aircraft is programmed to do and when it is programmed to
do it is pre-coordinated with the affected ATC facilities in
advance of the flight so that FAA can take appropriate actions
to mitigate the situation and preserve safety.
The COA and Experimental Airworthiness Certificate
processes are designed to allow a sufficiently restricted
operation to ensure a safe environment, while allowing for
research and development until such time as pertinent standards
are developed. The development of standards is crucial to
moving forward with UAs integration into the NAS. FAA has asked
the RTCA, an industry-led Federal advisory committee to FAA,
with the development of a Minimum Aviation Safety Performance
Standard for detect, sense, and avoid, command, control, and
communication. These standards will allow manufacturers to
begin to build certifiable avionics for UAs. Until there are
set standards and aircraft meet them, UAs will continue to have
appropriate restrictions apply.
Because of the extraordinary broad range of unmanned
aircraft types and performance, the challenges of integrating
them safely into NAS continue to evolve. The certification and
operational issues described herein highlight the fact that
there is a missing link in terms of technology today that
prevents these aircraft from getting unrestricted access to the
NAS. Currently, there is no recognized technology solution that
can make these aircraft capable of meeting regulatory
requirements for see and avoid, command and control.
FAA is fully cognizant that UAs are becoming more and more
important to more and more government agencies and private
industry. The full extent of how they can be used and what
benefits they can provide are still being explored. Over the
next several years, when RTCA has provided recommended
standards to the FAA, we will be in a position to provide more
exact certification and operational requirements to UA
operators. The future of avionics and air traffic control
contemplates aircraft communicating directly with one another
to share flight information to maximize the efficiency of the
airspace. This certainly could include some models of UA. Just
as there is a broad range of UA, there will be a broad range of
ways to safely provide them access to the NAS. Our commitment
is to make sure that when they operate in the NAS, they do so
with no denigration of safety system.
In our history, FAA and its predecessor agencies have
successfully transitioned many new and revolutionary aircraft
types and systems into the NAS. Beginning in 1937, we completed
the U.S. certification for the first large-scale production
airliner (the DC-3), then went on to certify the first
pressurized airliner (the Boeing 307 in 1940), the civil
helicopter (the Bell 47 in 1946), turboprops, turbo jets like
the Boeing 707 in 1958, as well as the supersonic transport
(the Concord in 1979), and the advance wide-body jets of today.
It seems appropriate that as we begin a new century and new
millennium, advances in aviation technology present us with
another addition to the fleet with great potential: unmanned
aircraft.
Mr. Chairman, FAA is prepared to meet the challenge. We
will continue to work closely with our partners in government,
industry, and Congress to ensure that the national airspace has
the ability to take maximum advantage of the unique
capabilities of unmanned aircraft.
This concludes my prepared remarks. I would be happy to
answer your questions.
Mr. Mica. Thank you. We will withhold questions until we
have heard from the other witnesses.
The second witness is Fred Pease Jr., Executive Director
under the United States Department of Defense Policy Board on
Federal Aviation. Welcome, and you are recognized, sir.
Mr. Pease. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Boswell,
members of the subcommittee. I do want to thank you for
inviting me to be here today. As the Executive Director of the
Department of Defense Policy Board, I represent the services
and the DOD on policy in working with the FAA. The PBFA, as we
call it, was formed about 20 years ago to not only work more
closely with the FAA, but also represent interests on mission
accomplishment in the DOD.
As you know, the Department of Defense is not only a user--
we operate fleets of aircraft--but we also--some people don't
think about this part, but we are also a provider of air
traffic services. The DOD has about 4,000 air traffic
controllers who are a seamless partner with the FAA to provide
those air traffic services to not only military, but also
civilian, general aviation, commercial. Last year, the DOD
controllers provided air traffic services for over 15 million
operations, of which 3.5 million were civil, general aviation,
and commercial traffic.
The Policy Board on Federal aviation is comprised of senior
executives and general officers from all the services and from
the Joint Staff and members of the Office of the Secretary of
Defense, and this body is supported by various subgroups, one
of which is UAS subgroup, which has recently been established
over the last couple of years and is working harder, believe
me, every day as we go along through this issue.
Although I have been involved in air traffic issues,
especially for the Air Force, and airspace and whatnot for a
long time, I just assumed this position with this DOD hat last
December, and I can assure you that UAVs have been at the top
of a very small list of issues that I deal with every day. I
work directly with Mr. Sabatini; my organization works directly
with his organization. And I am confident--and other senior
leaders in the FAA, and I am confident that we are going to be
able to work the issues that we need to work to integrate
unmanned vehicles both into the national airspace system for
DOD and working with the FAA, helping them bring--helping them
also to integrate these into the overall system.
As you pointed out, Mr. Chairman, we are going through a
period of very rapid technology advancement--you see some of
that on your desk today--and also an awful lot of operational
know-how that you find in any conflict where technology is used
in innovative ways. There are folks in Iraq and Afghanistan
that are using that UAV that you have on your desk today in
operations.
As with any technological advancement, it challenges us to
provide the policy and the guidance that we have to do to
incorporate this thing, these technologies. I am sure that
there will be some segments of the user community, including
perhaps some in my own user community, that will be a bit
frustrated because we are not going fast enough, but I believe
that we are on the right path, what I have seen over the last
couple of months that I have been doing this, and I am
confident that we will be able to provide the regulatory
guidance with the FAA that we need to safely integrate these
platforms.
My colleague, Mr. Weatherington, can provide you some more
detailed discussion about the acquisition issues associated
with unmanned vehicles in the Department of Defense. And having
said that, again, I want to thank you for having invited me
today, and I will be happy to answer your questions at the
appropriate time.
Mr. Mica. Thank you.
We will turn next to Dyke Weatherington. He is Deputy of
the Unmanned Aerial Systems Planning Task Force with DOD. So we
welcome you and we recognize you.
Mr. Weatherington. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Boswell,
and members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to
discuss with you today a very important area. As you have
indicated, I am deputy for the Unmanned Aircraft Systems
Planning Task Force within the Office of the Under Secretary of
Defense for Acquisition and Technology, and in that capacity I
am primarily responsible for the acquisition and development of
our very robust unmanned aircraft systems. I appreciate the
opportunity to provide you overview of our plan to integrate
these very large and dynamic systems into our national airspace
and international airspace safely.
DOD unmanned aircraft system are playing a major role in
combat operations both in Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring
Freedom. During the past year, unmanned aircraft operations
supporting the global war on terrorism expanded dramatically,
and theater and tactical unmanned aircraft flew over 100,000
hours just last year, and I hopefully have a graphic of that
coming up.
Unmanned aircraft systems are playing an ever-increasing
role in a wide range of DOD missions, but they are also playing
an increasing role in homeland defense, disaster support
operations, as well as support to civilian agencies such as
Department of Homeland Security for Border Security.
Today, the military departments have a force of over 2600
small unmanned aircraft, one of them you have an example of up
there, and about 300 larger unmanned aircraft that support
military operations worldwide.
It is important to note--and Mr. Sabatini made this point--
that our unmanned aircraft system span a broad range of
capability. We have small ones up on your desk and large ones
like Global Hawk that are over 27,000 pounds.
I just have a couple examples of those. The Raven, which is
the next graphic, is an example of a small unmanned aircraft
system, and this is the most polarific unmanned aircraft that
we have in the force today. It is typically operated by one or
two soldiers; it is primarily used for situational awareness at
a fixed site location. The range of the system is typically 5
to 6 nautical miles. It operates at altitudes typically of a
couple hundred feet, but up to 1,000 feet; and the endurance is
about an hour. Generally, this aircraft has performance similar
to what you might see in a commercial radio-controlled model
aircraft.
The next graphic shows an example of the next level, our
tactical unmanned aircraft systems. This happens to be Shadow,
which the Army operates. It ranges out to up to about 80
nautical miles, typically operates at altitudes less than 5,000
feet and at air speeds typically less than 80 knots. Its
endurance is about five hours, and its size and performance is
similar to many manned ultra-light aircraft. It typically
operates from small, unimproved airfields and it carries an
electro-optical and infrared camera system, one similar to what
you might find in a traffic helicopter.
The next level of performance in DOD's unmanned aircraft
are shown with the Predator A system here. Predator A is about
2400 pounds, roughly the same size as a Cessna 172. And the
next figure, Global Hawk, which I mentioned previously, is
about 27,000 pound aircraft. These systems generally operate at
altitudes ranging from 15,000 to over 60,000 feet for very long
endurances, sometimes in excess of 30 hours, and they operate
from established airfields. They carry a variety of sensor
systems, including electro-optical, infrared, imaging radar,
single intelligence payloads, and some others. They are
typically operated beyond the line of sight in that we operate
them through a satellite link. And as an example, the figure I
showed of Predator, we have multiple Predators in theater
today. Virtually all of these are operated through a satellite
link and they are commanded and controlled from an Air Force
base in Nevada.
The term ``unmanned aircraft system'' properly identifies
the airborne component as an aircraft, which is consistent with
the Federal Aviation Administration's view of these platforms.
During the last year, the Office of Secretary Defense released
our third edition, in August of 2005, of the unmanned aircraft
systems roadmap, which is our broad-range plan for integrating
service developed systems and capabilities into the longer-term
goals.
I would like to point out that one of our top goals in this
roadmap was to foster the development of policies, standards,
and procedures that enable safe, routine, and timely operations
by unmanned aircraft in both controlled and uncontrolled
airspace.
Military unmanned aircraft have historically been flown on
test and training ranges that were restricted, or in war zones,
and, thus, they were largely segregated from manned civilian
aircraft. But this is changing, as has been pointed out
recently. In order to fully integrate unmanned aircraft into
the national airspace outside of restricted airspace, there are
regulatory and technology issues that must be addressed by both
DOD, FAA, and other industry partners. Our airspace plan for
the integration of unmanned aircraft details these issues and
key drivers that must be addressed to achieve the goal of safe
routine use of the national airspace certainly by DOD unmanned
aircraft and likely by commercial entities in the future.
In 1997, FAA and DOD agreed to allow DOD unmanned aircraft
access to the NAS using the previously described Certificate of
Authorization process. The COA process allows for DOD unmanned
aircraft access to the NAS for events that are planned well
into the future, and this process has served all parties very
well and continues to do so today. However, it is insufficient
to support operations of an unplanned nature, such as disaster
operations or homeland defense. A significant number of DOD COA
approvals recently have increased in length of processing. and
in some cases a few DOD programs have experienced some delays
that impacted the programs.
Now I am happy to report today that I have been informed
that a number of those pending COAs are about to be approved
today, and that is certainly good news to DOD.
While ground-based radar has been the primary means for
providing equivalent level of safety for the COA process, it
has limitations and, in DOD's view, it is not a long-term
solution. To mitigate radar limitations, DOD is developing
technologies that fall under the broad category of collision
avoidance, also been described as sense and avoid technologies,
and we believe this capability will be organic to many DOD
unmanned aircraft. We also believe that these capabilities will
likely exceed the capability of the human eye.
Directly related to this technology development is the need
for standards to design and build to, and to collect data to
measure the effectiveness of these specific sense and avoid
systems. DOD is planning to demonstrate optical systems that
have a sense and avoid capability later this year.
Our airspace integration plan for unmanned aviation also
recognizes that not all unmanned aircraft will likely be
qualified to file-and-fly in all classes of airspace, and DOD
promotes three categories for unmanned aircraft. The first
category fully complies with Title XIV, Part 91, including the
ability to see and avoid, and systems that would meet that
qualification could be Global Hawk with future technology
upgrades.
The next category would be similar to light sport aircraft
or ultra-lights. They probably would not have a full capability
and would likely, at least in the near term, require
Certificate of Authorization to operate in the NAS. And Shadow
may be an example of one of those.
Finally, the last category are the small unmanned aircraft,
similar to RC model aircraft. We do not believe a COA is
probably appropriate for these, at least an individual COA, and
BATCAM and Raven might be candidates for this category.
Standards and technology enabling unmanned aircraft to be
qualified for file-and-fly are still being developed; however,
DOD is investing significantly in this area. Once the
technology is developed and proven, regulatory changes will
likely be required to allow DOD unmanned aircraft to file and
fly. Regulatory changes that could allow DOD more flexibility
for small unmanned aircraft we believe, however, could be
implemented very soon, and DOD needs that.
In summary, DOD has safely accumulated hundreds of
thousands of unmanned aircraft flight hours, many of which were
in congested airspace in Iraq. DOD unmanned aircraft
increasingly require routine access to national airspace
outside of restricted areas for combat training, homeland
defense, and disaster relief operations. Routine access at the
current COA process does not accommodate well. Changes to the
current COA process can provide more routine access and safe
access to the NAS now, while DOD and FAA work together to
define and implement a long-term plan for airspace integration
for the full range of unmanned aviation.
DOD's priorities for immediate action are: first, to
continue to work with FAA to approve all our pending and future
COA requests in an expeditious and timely manner; second of
all, to work with FAA to provide great airspace access for our
small unmanned aircraft operations outside of restricted
airspace; and, finally, to work with FAA and other government
agencies for the development of standards for sense and avoid
capabilities.
Today, DOD and the Department of Homeland Security unmanned
aircraft operations in the NAS typically occur over very low
population areas and airspace with very low densities, and our
safety record clearly demonstrates that DOD unmanned aircraft
operations in the NAS have not posed a significant risk or
threat to the public or have been a hazard to safe airspace
operations, and DOD fully intends to keep it that way.
This concludes my prepared remarks, and I would be happy to
answer any questions at the appropriate time.
Mr. Mica. Thank you.
We will now hear from our last witness on this panel, Mr.
Michael Kostelnik. He is Assistant Commissioner of the Customs
and Border Protection Office of Air and Marine under the
Department of Homeland Security.
Welcome, sir, and you are recognized.
Mr. Kostelnik. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman
Boswell. Thank you for the opportunity, at a time period when
the Nation's security is on the people's mind, to have the
opportunity to share with you how U.S. Customs and Border
Protection is actually using UAVs today in the national
airspace in concert with the Department of Air Force,
Department of Defense, and our good friends at the FAA.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection, now three years old,
got into the UAV business through legislation and direction
under the Intelligence and Terrorism Prevention Act in 2004,
and with the funding that was subsequently provided in 2005 and
2006, we were able to competitively choose and procure two
operational systems. We chose a Predator B, which is a larger
version of the Predator A that my colleague just showed, very
similarly equipped, but much more capable in terms of duration.
We actually entered into service with the first vehicle in
September of last year, and it has been very high performing,
as was indicated by earlier comments, in the southwest border
under the auspices of the Border Patrol.
Now, the UAV is not the panacea for all our missions. They
are not going to approach manned approaches to border
surveillance, but they certainly are force multipliers, in our
view, and we use them very carefully where they make a lot of
sense. We have a lot of activities and a lot of infrastructure
dedicated toward border surveillance, much as Congressman
Boswell talked about. We still have aircraft with standoff
radars looking around our borders, much as we did in the 1960s
and later in the 1970s, when borders were important overseas.
But today it is much more sophisticated and we have other
capabilities: we have air stats, airships covering the
southwest border, P-3 aircraft and other smaller aircraft
carrying a wide variety of sensors and multi-spectrums, doing
border surveillance. And our UAV use of the Predator B fits
nicely into this approach.
The aircraft we have chosen is a fairly large aircraft by
UAV standards, realizing there are many issues with a wide
variety of UAVs that exist today. It is about 10,000 pounds max
gross weight, a wing span of about 66 feet. So if you saw this
in person, you would pretty much think that you were looking at
a light home-built type of aircraft.
The issues that have been raised in terms of safety, the
continuity of command and control, see and avoid are all issues
that we try to deal with in some way. The Predator B design was
specifically chosen because of the specific robustness in this
area because of the size of the vehicles and the design. There
are multiple redundancies built into the programs, multiple
options for fail safe approaches during emergencies. And
although the vehicle itself is unmanned, there are large crews
on the ground in the near vicinity where the aircraft is
operated and remote sites with radar coverage over all of the
flying infrastructures in the Country that watch our vehicles
in the areas we choose to fly in throughout all the regimes of
flight.
Our specific area of operation is currently in the Arizona
border, participating in a wide variety of activities, trying
to secure the southwest border. The typical missions launch in
the evening. We fly pretty much at night, from dusk until dawn
the next day, typically 14 hour missions. The vehicle is out
doing surveillance with both radar, infrared and electro-optic
sensors, looking for illegal immigration, looking for illicit
narcotics movement, and working with Border Patrol and other
equities on the ground to recover.
I am proud to say that we have had very good result from
our systems since our system has been operational, one vehicle
since September of last year. This vehicle, in concert with
Border Patrol equities on the ground, have been responsible for
detecting 1800 illegal immigrants trying to come across the
border in the southwest. Twelve hundred of those were actually
detained and apprehended as a result of inter-relationships
between the UAVs and people on the ground. About 7,000 pounds
of illicit narcotics, mostly marijuana, has been recovered, and
the seizure of four vehicles. So you could see if you took just
the street value of those things and the potential issues if
some of those immigrants turned out to be terrorists or
terrorist-oriented, rather than economic emigres, the
significant impact the UAVs are currently having in our border
security initiatives to date.
We are very pleased, working very close with the FAA and
will continue to do so in the future to ensure that we not only
keep the national airspace safe, but we keep our borders safe
as well. We honestly believe with greater facilities like the
air marine facility out in Riverside, California, and current
connectivity, all the time we are flying with the vehicle
through radar in current connectivity with the FAA, the way we
file with flight plans, the redundancies of the vehicle, we
feel very strongly not only can we operate the vehicle safely
and around the times and the areas we specifically choose and
need to protect our borders, we think we can contribute very
purposely to the learnings and to hopefully the requirements
definition for how other UAVs could be modified with similar
approaches to fly in broader reaches of the airspace. We are a
member of the group with the FAA and look forward to working
with them to extend the operations through the remainder of the
borders.
I look forward to your questions. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Mica. Thank you. I have a few questions I will start
out with.
First of all, Mr. Pease, I think I attribute this quote to
you, that the COA, this current process of approval, is not a
long-term solution. I think that was a comment that I heard
from DOD. And then I think one of you alluded to the fact that
some COAs that have been pending are about to be approved. I
don't know if it is as a result of the hearing, but one of the
problems that we have heard, that this current process that we
have takes a long time, and we have current congestion in the
approval pipeline, and we probably expect more in the future.
So your comments or DOD's comments that this is not a long-term
solution, what do you suggest?
Mr. Pease. I am not sure, Mr. Chairman, that I said that.
In fact, I don't think I did. But--
Mr. Mica. It was either you or Weatherington.
Mr. Pease. Yes, sir. I would like to address it, however. I
think the COA process was a good process when it was put in
place, and it has worked very well over the last--I believe it
has been working since the late 1990s. But in any process,
especially when you are dealing with very rapid changes, as I
talked about before, in technology and operational know-how and
increased demands, then, and as Mr. Sabatini said, the numbers
of COAs are starting to get up very--becoming time intensive,
if you will, for staffs and whatnot. And we have, again, since
I started looking at this last December, we started to look at
the process itself to re-engineer the process. So I think up
until--in the past the COA process has been adequate, but in
the future we are going to have to look at making it more
streamlined. And I believe we are committed--I know the FAA is
committed--to making it more streamlined.
We have looked at the COAs that are about to be approved.
We took about a 90-day look at them again, just to make sure we
are operating safely, because of what we see as there going to
be a proliferation of new requirements in the future.
And I will let Mr. Weatherington add anything to that he
wants.
Mr. Weatherington. Sir, I would just confirm what Mr. Pease
indicated. For some activities the COA process still probably
fits DOD's requirements pretty well if we can fix this backlog
that we have. There are some operations, however, because of
their very time intensive nature, that a COA process does not
seem well suited for. Now, we do--DOD and FAA do have other
methods to accommodate those. They aren't well developed yet.
So DOD and FAA will be continuing to work the improvement of
the COA process and the refinement of other options. TFRs were
mentioned as potentially another solution. There are
limitations and potential drawbacks to TFRs also, however. So
the long-term aspect from DOD's perspective is we need to
develop the technologies that for the most case will allow
DOD's unmanned aircraft to file and fly and gain access to the
NAS similar to what commercial aviation does today.
Mr. Mica. And for the DHS representative, you are being
called on more for border patrol enforcement purposes. Are you
seeing the same problem, the approval process is awkward or out
of date, or we need some expedited means of approval?
Mr. Kostelnik. I think for the present, Mr. Chairman, we
are actually in pretty good shape. We are in fact operating
under a COA in Arizona in about a 100-mile stretch, and we do
have one of those pending that is in the final stages of
approval this week, which we expect to get authorities to
extend that coverage to 344 miles. But for us, since we only
have one operational vehicle and will not get our second
aircraft until summer, actually, we are the beneficiary of
taking time to do this, and I would submit that each one of
these COAs needs to be kind of driven, the time of it, by the
risk associated with the type of aircraft that is seeking
approval, the location and way in which that aircraft will be
flown, and the risk both to civil aviation and the purposes on
the ground. So for us, in the areas where we are flying now, in
the Arizona, soon to be Arizona and New Mexico border, and
hopefully downstream in the Texas border, we will be flying, by
and large, late at night and over uninhabited areas, again,
with a very sophisticated radar coverage.
So we are comfortable with the process to date, and we
don't really have the number of assets that DOD has to require
such a fast turnaround, so I think we are comfortable with
where we are today.
Mr. Mica. Mr. Sabatini, having known him for some time, is
sort of Missouri-oriented in his philosophy, sort of like Mr.
Show-Me. He said in his testimony that we do not now have the
technology to monitor these unmanned aerial vehicles. And then
I heard--and again I don't have names--one of the DOD
representatives said see and sense and avoidance systems are
right around the corner. How close are we, Mr. Weatherington or
Mr. Pease? In fact, one of you testified that--my notes here--
it would be better than the human eye. When can we expect that
technology?
Mr. Weatherington. Yes, sir. From a technology perspective,
DOD has extensive work modeling human pilot performance, and we
have the opportunity then to take that human pilot performance
and run it through a number of simulations. And our data
indicates that for some scenarios, the human eye, assuming that
the pilot is very responsive to visual cues, still is not
sufficient to avoid some near miss situations. So that was
really the basis for a remark that, from DOD's perspective, the
detect and avoid systems that we are developing we believe
need, in most cases, to be an improvement of what the human
capability is today.
I also mentioned that--
Mr. Mica. When do you think that you will have something
that meets Mr. Show-Me's requirements?
Mr. Weatherington. DOD has been in consultation and has
briefed FAA on--
Mr. Mica. Are we talking a couple of years, a decade, right
around the corner?
Mr. Weatherington. Sir, it really depends on the
performance of the system. Certainly by the end of the decade
DOD believes that we will have technology sufficient to provide
an equivalent level of safety for a Predator class system in
visual flight condition rules, and hopefully have that onboard
the system.
Mr. Mica. Quick question. What kind of safety record do we
have now with both DHS and DOT? Have we had--I thought somebody
told me we had some near misses. Is that the case or am I
getting a bad scoop?
DOD?
Mr. Weatherington. Sir, for NAS operations, I am not aware
of any incident that we have had in the last seven years that
resulted in a near miss with commercial or general aviation
aircraft. Now, I will say that in restricted areas DOD operates
somewhat more aggressively to simulate combat operations. In
those cases we do integrate manned and unmanned very closely.
We have not encountered any unsafe operations, but it really
depends on how you ask the question as to what answer you get
back.
Mr. Mica. DHS?
Mr. Kostelnik. No, sir. In our operational experience since
September of 2005, we have had no incidents, safety or
otherwise, with the Predator B that we have been flying.
Mr. Mica. Mr. Sabatini, you are spending more and more
resources, time and effort in this current approval process. Is
there anything that can be expedited? You saw from the charts
the number of these flights; just in like the last year it
looked like they doubled. What are we going to do from your
standpoint? You are going to need more resources just to handle
the current processing. Is this going to be out of control in a
short time without technology to deal that you deem
satisfactory?
Mr. Sabatini. Mr. Chairman, let me say that I would agree
that the COA process is certainly not a long-term solution,
recognizing that this has now become quite prominent in terms
of unmanned aircraft seeking access to the NAS. This past year
I established an unmanned aircraft office, program office, with
three people assigned to it. Again, those folks are taking out
of hide. We had not anticipated growth so early. So that
basically has come out of our hide, as I say. But in the 2007
budget I am asking for six people that can add to the
processing of COAs and experimental airworthiness certificates.
I believe that we are being quite responsive to the needs
of the different Federal agencies. Where today, again,
beginning with a process that started fairly recently, we had a
60-day turnaround. We are cutting that down to 30 days as we
have gained experience. It is also important to note that we
have a long history with the military in terms of they are
responsible, as we all know, for the defense of this great
Country of ours. They have been able to access the airspace,
the NAS, to conduct their business on an ongoing basis, and
they have developed an expertise. If you recall the discussions
we had a few years ago around public use aircraft, they have a
resident expertise in the certification of their own airframes.
As other Federal agencies come online and wish to operate in
public use aircraft over which the FAA has no direct
certification responsibility for the airframe, those agencies
need to develop their own expertise similar to what DOD has
done very successfully.
So we are anxious to work with the Federal agencies, and I
believe that we can turn around COAs in a very timely way.
Mr. Mica. Thank you.
Mr. Boswell.
Mr. Boswell. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just to continue there, Mr. Sabatini, how long do you
visualize before final resolution for the regulations for the
UAV integration into the national airspace?
Mr. Sabatini. It is difficult to put a time on that, Mr.
Boswell. We have, again, proactively, engaged and tasked the
RTCA to address the command and control, detect, sense and
avoid issues because they are--those capabilities are lacking
on unmanned aircraft today. The RTCA has been quite responsive
in expediting the process that they are using. Remember, this
is a voluntary basis on the part of industry. They come
together at their own expense and work with FAA and the Federal
agencies in determining what those requirements need to be. And
we believe we will have an outline of what those requirements
may be by the end of this year, in 2006, and expect further
development by the end of 2007 for positioning us then for
rulemaking.
Mr. Boswell. Okay. When you lose control, what do you do,
destroy the aircraft, or do you land it, crash it? What do you
do with it if it gets away from you?
Anybody.
Mr. Kostelnik. I will go ahead and answer that for DHS.
Flying the Predator B I think is very typical of the Predator
A. We fly these things both line of sight with a C-band and
also beyond line of sight, especially in the DOD, with Ku-band
radar. The aircraft are programmed such that if you lose line
of flight, it preprograms into an alternative. In the case of
DHS Predator B, we can fly the vehicle through another source.
Even though we typically have line of sight only for our
aircraft, we can fly them through an Iridium satcom that allows
us to take the aircraft back to a locale where it can re-
establish line of sight. If it cannot establish realignment
with the line of flight [sic], then it goes into an orbit for a
certain amount of time and then ultimately returns back to
field and hopefully gives an opportunity to pick up again line
of sight control. And if line of sight is not picked up, then
typically it is either landed or purposely crashed in a non-
inhabited area.
So you can program and have backups to all kind of
contingencies that happen. In the case of DHS, during these
kind of emergencies, we are always monitored by our radar
facility out in California, through local radars in the area
where we are immediately following, and through feeds directly
that are tied with the FAA. Everything that happens with a
vehicle is watched on radar with multiple people in the loop.
So, today, losing a line of sight communication is not a big
deal, and when it happens usually we are able to reacquire an
alignment shortly thereafter.
Mr. Boswell. I am just curious about line of sight. You
know, if you are flying at, for some of us, 200 feet doesn't
reach out there too far.
Mr. Kostelnik. No, that is true, and certainly the vehicle
you have, the actual performance and the design of the vehicle
and the way you operate it are first order effect on this. In
our case, we fly our missions at 13,000 feet, so we are fairly
high altitude, and we fly well within our line of sight range
to have margins there which add to our redundancy to make sure
we can maintain line of sight control.
Mr. Boswell. Okay, thank you.
Back to you, Mr. Sabatini. I understand you have issued
guidance to require a company to apply for an experimental
aircraft certificate for a particular UAV before it can flight
test. I hear that some companies have suggested that you should
develop the equivalent of a company certificate of
authorization to allow them to conduct private operations in
remote areas for multiple aircraft models. What are your
thoughts? What are you doing there?
Mr. Sabatini. Well, for many, many years the experimental
airworthiness certificate has been the vehicle that we have
used to allow companies such as those that have suggested that
to conduct research and develop. It is the perfect vehicle. And
because it is an experimental, we then work out restrictions
and limitations, and protect the public and keep those
operations in areas where it cannot do any harm to people on
the ground or in the air. Safety is paramount.
Mr. Boswell. Okay.
Mr. Pease, in the COA process employed by the FAA to allow
military use of UAVs, is it sufficient to ensure our needs, do
you think?
Mr. Pease. Yes, sir. Up until now--again, when I started my
position as the Executive Director of the Policy Board on
Federal Aviation and these COAs were coming up to expiration, I
wanted to make sure that we had--and these COAs, again, as I
said before, had been in place since 1997 and a lot of things
had changed since 1997. So we instituted, with the FAA, a
review of our process. Again, I think that the COAs are a good
process to deal with for the kinds of activities that we are
conducting. As in any process, it can be re-engineered, it can
be made better. We are trying to do that. And I think that it
will, in the short-term, we will be able to meet our needs, but
in the long term we are going to have to look at other things,
as has already been discussed.
Mr. Boswell. Okay, this last question or comment, what is
your consideration to develop these TFRs, general aviation and
their impact? How much do you involve that in your decision-
making process? Anybody.
Mr. Sabatini, I will help you out. You first.
Mr. Sabatini. Certainly, all those factors are considered
and we work with the various associations.
Mr. Boswell. Do you actually contact, like, for example,
AOPA to see what their feelings are? Do you actually engage
them at the table?
Mr. Sabatini. Well, I don't know that we actually might be
at a table together, but we certainly have conversations. For
example--
Mr. Boswell. They are pretty nice folks. You ought to get
at the table once in a while.
Mr. Sabatini. Well, Mr. Boswell, I am a member of AOPA.
Mr. Boswell. So am I, but that is not the point.
Mr. Sabatini. But I do know them, and we work very closely
with them, and I will tell you that we certainly consider, very
definitely consider their concerns and their issues before
issuing a TFR. Their needs are well understood and accommodated
for.
Mr. Boswell. Okay. Well, thank you. We will count on that.
I appreciate that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Graves. [Presiding] Mr. Coble?
Mr. Coble. Mr. Chairman, I have been between hearings,
Judiciary and here, and have missed most of this. I just want
to thank the panel for being here, but I have no questions.
Mr. Graves. Mr. Hayes, questions?
Mr. Hayes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Congressman Boswell, don't rush off here, now. Is it true
that they accused your helicopter of being unmanned when you
were flying it?
[Laughter.]
Mr. Hayes. Leonard and I are very good friends and have an
extremely high interest, as does Chairman Graves, in this whole
issue.
I think the integration into the system--and I apologize
for not hearing the first part of your testimony. I appreciate
your being here and appreciate Chairman Mica holding the
hearing.
When will there be routine operations, in the opinion of
the panel, taking place in the national airspace? Well, let us
start with that. When might this take place, or, in your
opinion, General Kosteli [sic], is that happening now?
Mr. Kostelnik. No, sir, I certainly don't think it is
happening now. And I think, given the policy issues with the
wide variety of UAVs, I mean, there are some like the model
that is sitting up there, you know, it is not very capable
compared to a 10,000 pound, 66 foot wingspan. So we have
everything--and Global Hawk even larger--we have everything in
between. I would certainly, as a professional pilot myself, be
more comfortable with these larger systems operating with all
the kind of things it would have and all the redundancies. I
would not be as comfortable with that flying in the routine
national airspace with small things.
For us in Homeland Security, the good news and the bad news
for us is we are flying at very specific locales, very close
to, in many cases, DOD ranges that exist, very close to the
border, where you wouldn't expect a lot of commercial civilian
traffic; and mostly our missions are late at night, when
usually the people that are flying in those locales are up to
no good. So a lot of our activity, which I would say is not
routine, is very carefully orchestrated, using a wide variety
of assets, and I think we are probably not much of an impact or
threat to impacts on civilian aviation into the national
airspace. And as we continue to grow this capability, we will
be growing in different border locations, the northern border
in particular, as well as the south and some of the coastal
regions, but typically they will be in locales that are low-
density populations and very carefully orchestrated towards
very specific ends.
Mr. Hayes. So you don't really see this, at this point, as
being a major conflict. As is Leonard and Sam, we are all
concerned about conflicts. The general aviation industry is so
important to our economy, the commerce, aircraft manufacturers
in this Country are so important. I want to make sure, going
forward, that we don't fail to blend this in, but it is an
important tool.
I am led to believe, in my home State of North Carolina,
recently a police department had talked about using an unmanned
aerial vehicle. Is that being contemplated, is that being done?
Anybody on the panel now. How common is that?
Mr. Sabatini. Well, it is not very common, Mr. Hayes. We
did have conversation with the police chief at Gastonia, North
Carolina, and he has been very cooperative. We helped him
understand the complexities of introducing a vehicle into the
airspace, the difficulties in the perhaps unsafe operations
over congested areas, and he has agreed to operate those
aircraft in accordance with what we are doing to help them be
successful in those operations.
Mr. Hayes. Anybody else have a thought on that? As long as
we keep the coordination and cooperation going and keep
everybody in the loop.
Mr. Weatherington?
Mr. Weatherington. Sir, yes. I don't know if you saw the
graphic I showed earlier. Last year, DOD flew in excess of
100,000 hours. Now, most of those hours were in combat
operations.
Mr. Hayes. Absolutely.
Mr. Weatherington. Approximately 30,000 of those hours,
slightly greater than that, were for operations in CONUS. Most
of those were in DOD restricted airspace. However, as DOD
continues to populate the forestructure, more and more of those
hours will be flown outside of restricted airspace. A specific
example of that is later on this year the Air Force will begin
regular operations at Beale Air Force Base with Global Hawk.
Beale is Class D airspace up to 3,000 feet, I believe, but once
you get above 3,000 feet of airspace, you are in the NAS.
Now, Global Hawk transitions relatively quickly up to a
relatively high altitude at low congestion levels, but those
operations will become very common later on this year, and
certainly next year.
Additionally, General Atomics, which I believe Admiral
Cassidy is on the next panel, has operations very close to DOD
restricted airspace near Edwards Air Force Base. There are
regular operations ongoing at those locations also. Typically,
they transit into DOD restricted airspace to conduct most of
their operations.
But in answer to your question, from DOD's perspective,
there is a significant amount of activity happening today in
the NAS. Again, most of that is in restricted airspace today,
but the percentage of hours outside of restricted airspace will
grow considerably over the next five years.
Mr. Hayes. If I might, Mr. Chairman, just one more
question. Is it safe to assume--now, I am assuming that
military operations are very precisely choreographed and
handled, and the operator of the vehicle is in contact with the
appropriate control facilities as the vehicle penetrates
airspace. If I am correct, assure me that is the case. Where my
concern goes, if there is a significant number of uncontrolled
by various and sundry agencies just out doing whatever
Gastonia--not to say that it is anything bad. But that is where
my concern begins to get great.
Thank you all for your testimony. I apologize for going
over.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Graves. We are going to go ahead and set the next panel
now. We are going to have a vote coming up in about 10 or 15
minutes, so we want to try to get started as quickly as
possible. I apologize all of you being here today.
And we will set the next panel, which is going to be Dr.
Robert Owen, Professor of the Department of Aeronautical
Science at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University; Mr. Andrew
Cebula, Senior Vice President, Government and Technical Affairs
with the AOPA; Dr. Mike Heinz, Executive Director of UNITE UAV
National Industry Team; Rear Admiral Thomas J. Cassidy, who is
President of General Atomic Aeronautical Systems; and Mr. Jay
Mealy, Programs Director at The Academy of Model Aeronautics.
Thank you all for being here. We will go ahead and start
with Dr. Owen.
TESTIMONY OF DR. ROBERT C. OWEN, PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF
AERONAUTICAL SCIENCE, EMBRY-RIDDLE AERONAUTICAL UNIVERSITY;
ANDREW CEBULA, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, GOVERNMENT AND TECHNICAL
AFFAIRS, AIRCRAFT OWNERS AND PILOTS ASSOCIATION (AOPA); MIKE
HEINZ, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UNITE UAV NATIONAL INDUSTRY TEAM
(UNITE); RADM THOMAS J. CASSIDY, JR. (RET.), PRESIDENT, GENERAL
ATOMIC AERONAUTICAL SYSTEMS; AND JAY MEALY, PROGRAMS DIRECTOR,
THE ACADEMY OF MODEL AERONAUTICS
Dr. Owen. Thank you. Members of the Committee, first of
all, let me say, like everybody else does, that I am honored to
be here. These are important hearings and I am glad to be a
part of them.
If I may impose on you for just a moment, I want to explain
Embry-Riddle's interest in unmanned aviation. As the world's
only university centered on aviation, we take a broad interest
in anything that has to do with building aircraft, conducting
and supporting flight operations, and managing aviation
business. This interest extends to unmanned aviation as well.
Currently, we are addressing UA through a variety of
engineering, flight test, human factors, air traffic and flight
simulation, and policy development activities.
In my remarks here, I intend to lay out a few important
what I call truths of commercial unmanned aviation for your
consideration and to suggest two legislative priorities
springing from those truths. My hope is that these points will
make the case that the time for more active congressional
involvement in this area is now, not later.
First, it is important that we all understand that private
and commercial operators are flying thousands of unmanned
aviation vehicles and systems in this Country and around the
world. I list a few areas of application here on the slide just
for illustration; there are many, many more. The problem is
that there is no body of law or regulation in this Country that
enables the conduct of routine, safe, and profitable unmanned
commercial flight. While the FAA's Advisory Circular 91-57
covers the flight of recreational model aircraft, neither it
nor any other document allows people to fly similar or more
sophisticated unmanned aircraft for pay. If, for example, I use
a three pound radio-controlled aircraft to photograph my house
for fun, AC 91-57 makes that a legal operation. If, on the
other hand, I use the same aircraft on the same flight to
photograph my neighbor's house and charge him $10, I am
operating outside the bounds of regulatory approval.
Next slide.
Virtually all of the systems operating commercially today
are low-end systems. Most of those are small systems as well.
These are aircraft, often only a few pounds in weight,
controlled directly by the operators, who maintain visual,
line-of-sight contact with their aircraft and their operating
environments. As the bullets in this slide indicate, the
commercial advantages of low-end systems include: their small
size; and operating patterns that usually don't require flying
more than a few hundred feet above the ground, well below
normal air traffic. Not often recognized is the economic
benefit of their operation by what I call adjunct pilots,
pilots who fly the aircraft as an aspect of their job, but not
as the primary focus of that job.
In contrast, there are no high-end UAS systems that have
entered civil government or commercial markets on a routine
basis. By high-end, I mean systems that tend to be large,
perhaps tons in weight, and, most importantly, that operate
outside of the visual range and, quite often, beyond the
electronic horizon of the operator. The current barriers to
applying high-end UASes to commercial operations are profound.
Most importantly, the absence of permissive regulation makes it
impossible for operators to put them into national airspace
routinely or predictably. Also, their control infrastructures,
whether terrestrial or space-based, are expensive. The size of
these unmanned systems also represent significant risk to other
aircraft and people on the ground, resulting in high insurance
costs. Last, the flight and support crew costs of these high-
end systems at the moment are more expensive than those of
manned aircraft doing similar missions.
Next slide.
As I believe this panel is aware already, the focus of UA
regulatory development has been on high-end systems. This focus
has made sense given the immediate interest of the military and
the major manufacturers providing its unmanned aerial systems.
But from a commercial perspective, this focus is ironic since
it serves realms of UA that are the least likely to be viable
economically on a large scale and in the near term, and ignores
the low-end realm that has become economically active despite
the neglect.
The point of this slide simply is that the state of UA
knowledge and regulation today makes it difficult to measure
its business attributes and potentials. The absence of a common
analytical language, for example, about things like categories
of commercial UA operations and cost calculators, hinders
rigorous discussions of their economic and business attributes.
Likewise, we need some regulator decisions on things like
control system, crew member, and safety standards to provide a
basis for making credible calculations of cost and profits.
Last--and this is my pet peeve--the manufacturers and operators
tend to hold their data pretty close to their proprietary
chests, which makes it difficult for somebody like me to build
up a case for the commercial application of those systems.
This discussion leads to a couple of what I think are
legislative priorities. The first, above all else, is the need
for Congress to accelerate the entry of UA into the national
airspace and economy. The next step in that process from the
congressional perspective, I would think, may be to charter a
GAO and/or other studies to summarize where we are now and to
suggest things like how to categorize these operations and
certify them and move them on into the national airspace. This
also would be a good time to pull together a relatively compact
tiger team of government, industry, and academic thinkers to
provide a summary assessment of near-term legislative and
regulatory requirements, and perhaps even to draft language to
ease military and civil operations in the national airspace and
to promote the development of commercial UA.
Next slide.
Second, I believe that Congress needs to charter a Federal
knowledge manager for civil unmanned aviation. The role of this
knowledge manager will be to provide a single office of primary
responsibility for advising and supporting other agencies
moving into UA activities, overseeing, and in some cases
funding research and development of relevance to civil and
commercial operators, and encourage the public dissemination of
useful information and knowledge. There is an imminent need for
such a knowledge manager. Federal and, as we have just seen,
State agencies interested in exploring the application of UA to
their missions do not have a single source of objective and
comprehensive advice and support available to help them make
effective and efficient decisions.
With that, I would like to thank you again for the
opportunity to make my comments, and I will be standing by with
everybody else to answer questions. Thank you.
Mr. Mica. [Presiding] Well, thank you for your testimony. I
guess our next witness, having just come in, is Andrew--is it
Cebula?--Cebula, Senior Vice President, Government and
Technical Affairs, Aircraft owners and Pilots Association.
Welcome, and you are recognized.
Mr. Cebula. Well, good morning. As you said, my name is
Andy Cebula, and I am with the Aircraft Owners and Pilots
Association. We are an organization that represents more than
406,000 pilots and aircraft owners, more than two-thirds of all
the active pilots in the United States.
Thank you, Chairman Mica and Mr. Graves, for holding this
timely hearing on the safety of unmanned aerial vehicles and
incorporating them into the Nation's airspace system.
Although the FAA has been considering this issue for over
15 years, other than these Certificates of Authorizations,
which have been discussed, with governmental agencies, no
requirements for UAV operations have been issued. Meanwhile,
various agencies within the government have made investments in
UAVs and want to operate these unregulated in the national
airspace system. Because there is no FAA regulation, the
solution has been to use flight restrictions that prohibit
flights within a specific area of airspace, defined by ground
references during stated dates and times as the means to
separate manned aircraft from UAVs.
AOPS members are extremely concerned about this approach of
using Temporary Flight Restrictions, or TFRs. The recent use of
airspace restrictions stretching for over 100 miles to
accommodate UAV operations by CBP in the southwest part of the
United States has created problems for pilots in the area.
Members tell us that there are problems maintaining radio
contact with the FAA in areas of high terrain that avoid the
TFR. It has added to the numerous restricted airspace in the
southwest, and it presses pilots to fly under the ceiling
created by the TFR.
We understand that the TFR will once again be increased
over 300 miles later this week. This is just another in a
string of airspace restrictions, such as the Washington, D.C.
Air Defense Identification Zone, that illustrates the FAA is
losing control for the safe and efficient use of the nation's
airspace. And as we have seen with these other TFRs, they are
anything but temporary. In fact, just recently I know that this
subcommittee made certain that language was included in H.R.
4437, the border protection legislation, that ensured that the
FAA retained the authority to oversee, regulate, and control
the safe and efficient use of airspace in the United States as
UAV operations were implemented. We appreciate your action, but
it underscores the need for the FAA to issue regulations.
A unique problem the FAA faces in doing so is the fact that
UAVs challenge a historic foundation of pilot and aircraft
certification because they operate unlike any other aircraft in
the airspace system: by remote control. This makes the basic
safety principle of see and avoid extremely difficult. I know
that the RTCA special committee is addressing this threshold
issue.
In preparation for this hearing, we surveyed pilots, asking
them how UAV operations should occur, by restricting airspace
or certifying their operations in the airspace system. Not
surprisingly, an overwhelming majority favored certification.
However, pilots tell us that the following safety concerns must
be addressed before UAV operations should be considered: the
inability of UAVs to detect, see, and avoid manned aircraft;
the inability of UAVs to immediately respond to ATC
instructions; the absence of testing and demonstrations that
UAVs can operate safely in the same airspace as manned
aircraft; and the need to certify UAVs to the same level of
safety as manned aircraft. There are also questions about the
loss of control by the operator that affects not just the
aviation system, but buildings and people on the ground.
Finally, as entrepreneurs are finding innovative ways to
use UAVs, an example appears in the November 28th issue of last
year's Washington Post that featured a story on Aeroview
International's use for agricultural and environmental
evaluations. Just last week, the University of North Dakota
held a summit discussing its development of research in the use
of UAVs. Clearly, this is a technology that is garnering a
great deal of interest and building momentum.
Our request to the subcommittee is to press the FAA for
expeditious action on regulations for UAVs. Failure for prompt
action threatens safety and the efficient use of the aviation
system. Neither accidents between UAVs and manned aircraft, nor
the implementation of flight restrictions is acceptable. The
pressure for expanded use of UAVs will continue, and we believe
that the time for FAA to act is now. Thank you.
Mr. Mica. Thank you for your testimony.
Mike Heinz, Executive Director of UNITE/UAV National
Industry Team. You are recognized. Welcome.
Mr. Heinz. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for this opportunity to provide an industry
perspective on the issue of integrating unmanned air systems,
or UASs, into the national airspace.
Today we are witnessing a repeat of aviation history.
Military operations in World War I served as catalysts for
maturing manned aircraft. This maturation was necessary to
unleash the full potential of manned aviation for civil and
commercial applications. Likewise, recent military operations
have matured unmanned systems. Today, UASs are indispensable to
battlefield commanders and are now on the threshold of exerting
the same influence in civil and commercial fields.
We can now envision a future in which UASs provide 24/7
border and port surveillance to guard against terrorist
intrusion, or a future in which UASs are deployed rapidly in
disaster relief operations to fill communication needs, while
normal infrastructure is incapacitated. Other examples are
limited only by our imagination.
However, to realize this future, we must first solve the
challenge of operating UASs safely and routinely in the NAS.
Currently, as has been already discussed this morning, the FAA
allows temporary and restricted operations of UASs in civil
airspace through the COA process or through experimental
certificates. These impose operational constraints, such as
observers being within visual range of the UAS, which negates
the inherent advantage of unmanned systems: that is, being able
to operate remotely from a human.
For the promise of UASs to be fulfilled, we must find a way
to gain file and fly access to the NAS and do it with no
compromise to safety. As you heard earlier today from Mr.
Sabatini, FAA has embraced this goal. The FAA in fact is, it is
in the FAA flight plan. However, the FAA must continue to
restrict access until evidence is developed that UASs can
operate safely in the NAS. This requires a combination of
technology, systems development and flight demonstrations to
guide the development of regulations and standards. This job
requires multi-agency collaboration and a Government-industry
partnership.
There is an urgency of action dictated by DOD and DHS
mission needs, some of which were addressed earlier today.
There is also an urgency in maintaining U.S. aviation
leadership. U.S. leadership in manned aviation has contributed
directly to U.S. national security, global trade and quality of
life. The potential for unmanned systems to make similar
contributions has not gone unnoticed by the rest of the world.
Indeed, the European Union has sponsored a road map for Europe
to have a major influence in civil UASs.
U.S. industry is eager to retain leadership and to satisfy
its customers' needs. However, it is disadvantaged by the
inability to conduct industry-sponsored flight tests of new or
improved UASs. Experimental certificates are a great step
forward. But industry ultimately needs more flexible and timely
flight test access to the NAS to remain competitive.
Also, as noted in the Committee's DHS authorization bill
last week, the FAA faces challenges when certifying new
products. This challenge also applies to UASs and needs
resolution for sustained U.S. leadership.
To effectively deal with this national need, UNITE makes
the following recommendations. First, developed a unified plan
in which the efforts of multiple Government agencies are
coordinated, redundancies are eliminated and gaps are filled to
generate a sound technical basis for informed rulemaking and
certification standards.
Second, define an organizational construct within which all
relevant Government agencies, industry and academia can
participate in a collaborative environment, but in which one
agency is assigned as lead to integrate the overall effort or
each major element of the plan. And third, provide the Federal
funding necessary to implement the plan through the appropriate
agencies.
Thank you once again for this opportunity. Industry looks
forward to a participative relationship with Government to
solve this pressing national priority.
Mr. Mica. I want to thank you for your testimony.
I will tell you what we are going to do, we have two
additional witnesses. I have asked Mr. Graves to proceed and
vote and return, rather than have one of you start your
testimony and me walk out if he is not back. What we will do is
stand in recess for just a couple of minutes until Mr. Graves
returns, and then I will vote. We will do a little tag team
here. But he should return shortly, and I have a limited amount
of time to get to the floor to vote.
So we apologize for this interruption in this panel's
testimony. But Mr. Graves will be coming back and he will
recognize Mr. Cassidy and Mr. Mealy at that time. So we will
stand in recess. I would not disappear, I would say three to
five minutes, Mr. Graves will reconvene the hearing and we will
hear from our other two witnesses, and then get to questions.
So we will stand in recess until that time.
[Recess.]
Mr. Graves. [Presiding,] Admiral Cassidy, I believe you are
up.
Admiral Cassidy. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is a
pleasure to be here today to discuss this very important
subject of flight of unmanned aircraft systems in national
airspace.
Predator, the unmanned airplane controlled by an instrument
rated commercial pilot, first flew in June 1994. This event was
the beginning of a new era in powered flight. This same
airplane type, and variants of it, have been involved since
that time in supporting our military services in combat
operations worldwide. Numerous types of UAVs, most without
professional pilots at the controls, have actually been flying
in confined areas for years before that, but the serious effort
to fly unmanned aircraft type missions for very long periods
began about 12 years ago.
Predator type airplanes have now flown close to 200,000
flight hours. They have operated over five continents,
providing situational awareness and defensive strike capability
to our military by performing missions that cannot be performed
by manned airplanes. These aircraft, depending on the type, can
fly for 30 to 50 hours up to altitudes of 50,000 feet. They
carry cameras and radar systems and weapons and are controlled
by a ground-based pilot through an electronic satellite link.
Most aircraft operating over Iraq and Afghanistan are
controlled by pilots and sensor operators in the Las Vegas,
Nevada area. Some are controlled locally line-of-sight.
The numbers of these aircraft and the number of daily
missions required to be flown in the continental United States
to prepare pilots and system operators in the global war on
terrorism has dramatically increased in recent years. The real
problem is pilots that operate these aircraft must be trained
in the United States before they deploy. Most of the 200,000
hours I talked about are flown overseas. But we have to prepare
people in the United States to get them ready to go.
Military pilots typically fly in restricted airspace
adjacent to these bases. Our company pilots, who deploy into
combat areas, must train at our company airports, which are not
always in or adjacent to the restricted areas. Our company has
some 70 deployed personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan and
elsewhere in various combat areas supporting the U.S.
Government. They must be trained at our airports and we must
also fly airplanes between locations in the U.S.
The capabilities of these aircraft systems are continuously
being improved with the addition of new sensors that must be
developed and tested. These operations, often on company-owned
airplanes, are conducted at company airports. The prop-jet
Predator B is now flying near daily missions on the U.S.
southern border for the Department of Homeland Security. The
success of this operation is so impressive that you can expect
tremendous growth in the number of Predator Bs operating over
the borders of the continental U.S. in the near term.
The U.S. Air Force is standing up 15 new Air National Guard
Predator and Predator B squadrons throughout the United States.
These aircraft must fly where they are needed, which may
include border protection missions. But they will be operating
in probably 12 different States.
Now, these activities will dramatically increase the number
of unmanned aircraft systems that must fly in national
airspace. The problem is with us now and the solution must be
provided now. Up until October 1st, 2005, our company operated
under a COA which allowed us to then file with the FAA and fly.
It was a workable solution. After October 1st, the FAA
memorandum stated an intent to only issue COAs to military
services.
We met with the FAA and Congressional staff and argued that
since our company provides pilots to fly military Predators
over Iraq and Afghanistan in combat, that our company should be
considered a semi-military organization for the purposes of the
COA, and under these rules be issued COAs so our company pilots
can be trained in the U.S. for overseas deployments.
Our company still does not have a COA, and under the
current rules cannot obtain one. The Air Force and Army now
have COAs to fly. The DHS now has a COA and a very small
operating area approved down in Arizona. And the Navy does not
yet have a COA, even though we have the Navy Predator B sitting
on the ramp ready to fly right now, but we don't have a COA to
fly it.
The COAs for each user tend to be different, even though
the aircraft are flying from the same locations. I might add
that the Predator B flying the U.S. southern border had to fly
in a confined, military restricted area south of Fort Huachuca
for the first two months of the operation, able to only
identify people and material entering the U.S. illegally that
had the misfortune to select the route into the U.S. that
happened to underlie a restricted area. The other 2,200 miles
of border were off limits to the Predator B surveillance
airplane, since it could not fly in national airspace.
So in the immediate near term, we need to expand the
capability of these types of unmanned aircraft systems capable
of filing and flying an IFR or VFR flight plan to routinely fly
in national airspace and on IFR flight plans under positive
control. TCAS or other collision avoidance systems can be
installed with a few months lead time. In fact, we are in the
process of developing a TCAS system to go into Predators as we
speak.
The FAA must provide COAs in order to fly aircraft of the
type we produce to any Government agency, including our
company, who have a need to fly those airplanes to support
national defense objectives. We need to issue one COA, one COA,
to our company to operate airplanes in support of all military
and DHS operations. We need to establish reasonable and
expanded operating areas over and adjacent to our airports at
Gray Butte and El Mirage.
We need to allow company owned and military, DHS and NASA/
NOAA owned airplanes to operate in these areas and also file
and fly IFR flight plans on support missions. And we need to
develop a quick response process that will allow our company-
produced unmanned airplane systems to be recognized as
airworthy for purposes of operating in low density areas in
national airspace.
In the long term, realistic operating criteria must be
developed by the FAA that will allow unmanned aircraft systems
capable of IFR flight clearance to operate in the NAS clear of
heavily congested airspace.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide these comments.
Mr. Graves. Thank you, Admiral. Mr. Mealy?
Mr. Mealy. Thank you, Mr. Graves.
We have submitted our formal testimony previously to the
Committee. That form includes three documents that I will refer
to in my summation here. I thank you for allowing us to present
this morning.
The Academy of Model Aeronautics has been in existence
since 1936 and has grown to represent more than 170,000 members
nationwide who participate in the sport of building and flying
model aircraft. Prior to 1936, we were part of the National
Aeronautics Association through which we were represented to
the world governing body of sport aviation, the Federation
Aeronautique Internationale. Since our establishment, we have
represented our members to the FAI directly.
The Academy charters over 2,500 clubs and sanctions more
than 3,000 flying events annually, the largest of which is the
National Aeromodeling Championships. We are also responsible
for supporting our national teams, representing the United
States in world competitions and hosting numerous world
competitions in this Country on a regular basis. These programs
and activities have established the United States as a
recognized leader in the sport of aeromodeling.
The Academy's mission as a world class association of
modelers is focused on promotion, development, education and
advancement of modeling activities. The Academy is also
dedicated to model aviation as an educational tool for the
formal classroom as well as the informal after school clubs
activities and camps. Through the active educational outreach
program of the Academy, we support classroom teachers and
leaders of communities who wish to infuse topics of math,
science and technology with engaging aviation activities.
Since our inception, we have worked closely with local,
State and Federal agencies to establish and ensure the high
level of professionalism and safety that our members exhibit
and the general public has come to expect in a sport as
beneficial as building and flying model aircraft. The sports
spans all socioeconomic boundaries and brings together
families, friends, communities and even countries in an
atmosphere of camaraderie, competition, education and
recreation.
Building and flying model aircraft develops such important
life skills as creativity, patience, goal setting and
perseverance, no matter what age it is entered into. The
Academy has established a long and cooperative working
relationship with such Government agencies as the Federal
Communications Commission, the Federal Aviation Administration,
the Transportation Security Administration, to name a few.
These relationships and interactions have demonstrated the
valuable resources and talents possessed by the Academy and the
Academy's willingness to utilize those resources and talents in
a meaningful resolution to provide for the preservation of this
sport, and for the benefit of future generations.
In 1972, the Academy realized the need for guidance for
modelers. ``FAA was interested in the fact that AMA had
proposed safety code which could be utilized as a set of
standards for addressing the operation of model aircraft within
the national airspace system.'' That is when the original
National Model Aircraft Safety Code was adopted, an historic
event.
In addition, and as an example of cooperation and joint
effort between the Academy and the FAA, an advisory circular
titled ``Model Aircraft Operating Standards'' was created in
July of 1972, designated AC-9134 and later revised in June of
1981 as AC-9157 for the purpose of outlining and encouraging
voluntary compliance with safety standards for model aircraft
operators.
I am before you today to speak on behalf of the AMA and its
members, to preserve our privilege to operate in the National
Airspace System, a system which is being asked to make room for
the burgeoning UAV community and the vehicles they are creating
for commercial and military purposes. It is not the intent of
the Academy to in any way impede such development, evolution
and acceptance. We are fully aware of the market and utility of
such vehicles in enhancing the lives of us all.
We do, however, note that because of the superficial
similarities between model aircraft and UAVs the potential does
exist to look at them as one group. They may look the same, but
they are definitely different. And that difference is not in
their appearance, but grounded solidly in their intended use.
The focus of the AMA is on recreation, sport and
competition, activities that are available to model aviation
participants. Our 70 years of overseeing this sport speaks
highly of the ability of the Academy and its members to
continue to operate effectively in a cooperative manner with
related governmental and non-governmental agencies. Model
airplanes may have been a huge contributing factor in the
development of UAVs, but model airplanes are still model
airplanes, fulfilling their intended purpose of recreation,
sport and competition, as they have for decades.
Our request to this Committee is that model airplanes be
permitted to continue operating within the National Airspace
System as we have for more than years, as we commit to
tirelessly working with all pertinent Government agencies and
in particular, the FAA, as we have always, to guarantee the
safe and sound operation of model aircraft in this Country. We
request that model aviation not be innocently sucked into a
black hole of regulation, a place in which, based on its long
and successful history, it does not deserve to be.
Thank you for your understanding and consideration in this
very important matter. I look forward to providing answers to
any questions you may have. Thank you.
Mr. Graves. Thank you.
Can you all, and I guess it's directed to everyone, I would
be very interested in ultimately what we are looking at, how
far we are going to go with this. Obviously the commercial
applications of UAVs are incredible. There is a lot of things
that can be done out there, which concerns me a little bit as a
pilot, which is the reason for this hearing.
But I will direct it to, and we will start with you, Dr.
Owen, what ultimately are we going to be seeing? I think in
your testimony we saw that already in the world we are seeing
crop dusting operations and we already know that things are
going on with the military and INS, things like that. But I'm
talking about commercial operations. What are we ultimately
looking at?
Dr. Owen. I am told by my engineering buddies that for a
million dollars they could convert a Boeing 747 into a UAV for
cargo operations. I can't verify those numbers exactly, but
they would say that that is certainly within the realm of
possibility.
We held a conference on the commercialization of unmanned
aviation at Embry-Riddle last October. We will hold a second
one next March. And one of the questions we asked was, how much
or how willing would people be to commit their lives to a
robot, to an automated system. We had a historian give a very
good paper, his point was, looking back historically is that
with the right kind of performance and the right kind of
publicity, people will put their lives in the hands of
machines.
So I guess I am one of those people who say it is in the
realm of possibility that we could see passenger aircraft
flying somewhere out there some time in the future, not with me
on board, but without pilots. Whether or not we would ever get
social permission to go that far, I don't know.
More to the point now, though, is that I think, in fact, I
know, there are literally hundreds of people out there who are
either already performing commercial operations outside the
bounds of regulation, generally without insurance, but who are
more than ready to do so. So as you point out, this could be, I
think particularly at the low end of the short term, it is a
large industry waiting to be born. In fact, it is already born
to some degree.
Where we will go in the long run depends on a lot of
essentially non-technological issues, sociology, politics,
economics, business, human nature and so forth, that have not
been well explored. So I don't know the ultimate answer.
Mr. Graves. Anyone else? Admiral?
Admiral Cassidy. We have actually been involved to some
level in forest fire monitoring with these airplanes. I don't
know all the details, but I know we had Predators deployed down
in the Louisiana area for Katrina and also in Texas. I don't
think they were ever flown because of this National Airspace
problem.
But the people that own these airplanes, in this case the
U.S. Air Force, felt that they could contribute and they moved
the airplanes down there but never got to use them. So there is
a lot of potential out there. I think if we move faster that we
are moving on this problem that we will get a lot of use out of
these airplanes.
Mr. Graves. Mr. Heinz?
Mr. Heinz. I think as in any embryonic industry the
applications are limited only by our imagination at the moment.
But some of the near term applications that come to mind,
probably one of the most promising would be, since these
systems can operate, let's say, in near space for very long
periods of time, they could potentially serve as communications
satellites for all practical purposes, not necessarily
replacing space-based satellites but certainly complementing
them and filling in gaps and allowing that last mile problem to
be fixed.
Someone mentioned unmanned cargo. That is certainly in the
realm of possibility out in the future. There are many other
commercial applications that have already been mentioned.
So it is embryonic, it is waiting to be unleashed. Only
time will tell exactly where the market forces take us.
Mr. Cebula. One of the big issues, and I think the
Subcommittee has done a great job in bringing the issue to the
forefront, because I don't know that most people in civil
aviation have really thought about what may be the future for
UAVs or what's even the current reality. So this is a very good
start.
But there are some really significant issues and ones that
really concern us, which is, the Customs continued desire, and
we certainly can't fault them for what they are attempting to
do, but it all requires temporary flight restrictions or, in
the case of year-long flight restrictions. And when they are
talking about the entire southern border, and I think he also
alluded to, the previous witness alluded to Canada, in that
order.
That could have a very significant impact on aviation. I
think one of the things that has to happen is that the FAA must
have a regulatory framework for the operators of UAVs to know
what it is that they have to meet.
Mr. Graves. Well, this may be a question that is more
appropriate with the last panel, but I will ask it, because,
Admiral Cassidy, you brought it up VFR versus IFR. How often
are flight plans filed VFR as opposed to IFR? Can you tell me
that, or do you know?
Admiral Cassidy. Well, when we transit any place in the in
the Predator, the Predator B, it's typically on an IFR flight
plan at high altitude, above 18,000 positive control. The pilot
is talking to an FAA controller the entire time. He takes
vectors just like the airliner in front and behind him are
doing. And they fit, the controller really doesn't even know
it's an unmanned airplane. He is talking to an instrument rated
pilot who can follow his direction. We have never had a problem
with it.
Now, VFR, we really don't transit VFR. We always go IFR.
And that is the way I think we ought to be doing this, under
positive control.
Mr. Graves. VFR is what I am worried about. If you are
loitering over an area or whatever the case may be, and VFR is
what I am worried about more than anything else. You are
obviously going to be changing altitudes, you are going to be
moving, it is just, that is what I worry about, I guess.
When you talk about restricted areas, and using those areas
to train, are you looking at, I mean, what would you ultimately
like to see, more restricted areas? Or my belief is, we have
restricted areas out there for military personnel to train in.
That is what they are set up for. We as regular pilots, private
pilots, are supposed to stay out of those restricted areas.
Are you looking at, or would you like to see more
restricted areas or access to those restricted areas for your
company, that is trying to train pilots and obviously having a
problem with that, trying to get that access?
Admiral Cassidy. The airports we operate and own are within
about 20 miles of the Edwards restricted area. When we do
operate at Edwards, we have to pay a tremendous amount of money
by the hour to use the restricted area. So to me, that is not
very desirable.
Plus, the rules for using it and the oversight border on, I
don't want to say the word, but it is extremely complicated. I
would prefer we didn't have to use restricted areas. I would
prefer we have temporary flight restrictions. Any time we are
operating, put a NOTAM out. If we had TCAS in the airplanes,
that is a step forward. I would even go so far as to add
another camera gimble to the airplane that you could use to
rotate 360 degree continuously to see and be seen.
I fly a KingAir. I can see about this much in front of me.
I can't see anything behind me or above me. If you have a
camera gimble on these unmanned airplanes that is rotating, you
can see a lot more than the typical commercial or general
aviation pilot can see. So I just think we need to get a little
more aggressive in what we are asking the UAV operators to do
and let's get on and do it.
Mr. Graves. Personally, I would rather not have the TFRs. I
would rather have you in a restricted space that is just yours
and we will stay out of it and leave your training to that. But
that is a personal opinion, I guess, or what I would think. I
am a little concerned about it. I understand the use. I
understand how important it is, and I know it is doing
wonderful things in Afghanistan and Iraq. I can see, I am a
little frustrated by the fact that it would cost so much to
train a pilot that is going to be doing military operations. If
it is commercial operation and you are training somebody for
commercial, I can see a little bit different, obviously a
difference there. Maybe we need to set something up for that.
I do have a question for Mr. Mealy. This is, what right
now, and I know you sanction clubs and you sanction flying. I
know there is a lot of flying that goes on. For the most part,
when you are talking about model airplanes, it is all line of
sight. I used to do that, radio controlled, in our city, used
to do a lot of it. What are the restrictions right now with the
use of, and I am curious, because I know in my home town, a lot
of the guys that fly RC, they come out to the airport and they
use the airport. If somebody is flying, they pretty well shut
down.
What is the restriction right now? I know with your
organization, you obviously have to have a field for insurance
purposes and that sort of thing. But what is the restriction on
use of a public use airport?
Mr. Mealy. At the present time there is no restriction. If
you refer to the AFD, there are approximately 150 general or
public use aircraft airports that in their note section of that
document report model aircraft activity upon their premises.
What we do is encourage safety procedures, the following of the
National Model Aircraft Safety Code, and the agreement and
consensus of both parties.
In other words, the club has to be appreciating the
activity of full scale pilots and vice versa. There has to be a
common agreement between the tenants of that airport, the users
of that airport, both full scale and modeling, that those
activities can happen safely without compromising the safety or
utility of that general aviation airport.
Mr. Graves. I certainly recognize the difference between
the AMA and what you all are doing. And obviously what we are
talking about here with UAVs, it is a completely different
situation. I know you all want to be kept out of any possible
restrictions that might be placed out there. I hope that is the
case.
Mr. Mealy. On the other hand, Mr. Graves, if I may, I also
want it to be known that understanding the complexity that
seems to be entering into the National Airspace System, we are
willing to work with the responsible agencies, so that we can
all benefit from the use of the airspace system and maintain
that same level of safety and utility that we have all become
used to.
Mr. Graves. Absolutely.
I do not have any more questions. We will keep the record
open for two weeks to allow members to submit questions for the
record and accept any additional written testimony. I might
point out that all the statements made by the witnesses and the
members will be placed in the record in their entirety.
I do appreciate you all coming here. This is an extremely
interesting subject, something that is dear to my heart as a
pilot and it concerns me. I am excited about the potential, but
it concerns me. More traffic in the airspace, particularly
traffic that doesn't have somebody sitting in the cockpit,
concerns me a lot. Hopefully we can work something out and take
a look at this as it continues to develop and air traffic
continues to develop.
Thank you all for being here. This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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