UAVs have been a hot topic in the aviation industry as of
late. What is their purpose? Are they
safe? Who should regulate them? These
are some of the questions that have been brought to our attention. Make no mistake, UAVs are here to stay and
with more advanced technology they will continue to be more intertwined in our
lives. It is my belief that UAVs will be
utilized in more applications in civilian aviation that do not involve carrying
people. For instance, UAVs could be used
in police surveillance as well as photography.
In addition UAVs could be used to deliver supplies to job sites or
customer’s homes. If fact amazon.com was
recently working on utilizing UAVs to deliver orders to customers that lived
within a certain distance from amazon’s distribution centers.
I think it will be a very long time before UAVs are used to
shuttle passengers to locations around the world. There will always be a need to have actual
pilots on board for the foreseeable future, incase there is a situation onboard
that the system fails and the need for pilots to take over.
Right now UAVs are regulated by the FAA, which currently
does not have many regulations that obtain specifically to UAVs. What I believe will happen is that UAVs will
be a gray area with the FAA regulations until there is a tragic accident at
which time the FAA will over react and place too many regulations on UAVs.
I do foresee UAVs being integrated into the NAS for the
simple fact that UAV usage will continue to increase not decrease. Some of the problems with this will be who
will be qualified to fly these UAVs. Are
the pilots going to need to have the same certifications as pilots who fly
aircraft? Who is responsible when a UAV
crashes and causes damage? Will there be
enough network power to provide control over the increase UAV usage and what
would happen if the system crashes? With
increase UAV usage, the general population will have problems with UAVs flying
over their houses and “spying” on their private lives.
UAVs have transformed the military strategy. The military is now able to provide areal
coverage for ground units as well as carry out missions without putting a
pilot’s life in danger. It costs the
military less money to send UAVs into the air than traditional military aircraft. From an ethical standpoint there has been
some debates over their usage. One of
the more resent debates I heard was that military UAVs could be used to take
out individuals and four American citizens have been killed by UAVs
overseas. This has caused some debate as
these American citizens did not have a trail before these strikes there
conducted. faq/http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/08/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-drone-debate-in-one-faq/
Right now there are few jobs in the aviation management side
of UAV application. There are many jobs
posted that are looking for pilots to operate the UAVs as well as I.T.
personnel to oversee and upkeep the intergraded systems of UAVs. I do believe that the role in the aviation
management will be much the same as it is for manned aircraft that is working
at the airport that UAVs would be based out of.
Aviation management would also manage UAV stations in the same way that
FBOs are used for traditional aircraft
You bring up some very good questions that we will have to deal with soon. Especially, who is at fault when a UAV crashes? By the nature of their position, pilot error is to blame for most of the recent airliner accidents. This is why I believe UAVs will be safer. Will we start to see engineers and software programmers take the blame when UAVs crash?
ReplyDeleteI agree that these are some possibilities for positions in UAV management. I have also been told that many of the college programs that are going to start a UAV program will only require the private pilot license and instrument rating...making it a good option for those who want to do some flying, but not as a commercial pilot.
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