Page 12 - Volume 20 No. 6

Drones: A Cautionary
As I write this, yet another near-miss has occurred, this time in the U.K., where a small drone came within 20 feet of an Airbus 319 on approach at Heathrow. Encroachment of these aerial missiles into controlled airspace is becoming an everyday event, affecting FAR 91, 121, and 135 operations. It’s only a matter of time before an airliner’s jet engine ingests a mixture of plastic, metal, electronics parts and Lithium Polymer batteries, with predictable results. For operators of smaller aircraft, a drone will eventually bull’s-eye a cockpit windshield, or maybe hit a wing and rupture a fuel tank, resulting in a fire. Of course, it could hit the elevator: “What happened to my pitch control?” We don’t know the way it will play out, but, at some point, two of these airborne objects will try to occupy the same place at the same time.
What are the “authorities” doing about this?
In much of the world, the authorities aren’t doing anything, other than wagging a finger towards a TV camera and reminding viewers that they have an obligation not to
10 • TWIN & TURBINE
fly their new toy anywhere near
airports. The reaction
of many drone owners? Yawn.
In the U.S., you are now required by law to register your drone with the FAA and place the assigned tracking number on each of your devices.
But, what’s the FAA going to do with the registry data? Well, if enough of the device survives an encounter with an airplane or helicopter, the Feds will be able to track down the malefactor and cuff ‘im. Of course, airplanes are still damaged (best case) and/or people are dead (worst case.)
Will this registry idea work?
There is a precedent we can study. It doesn’t involve dead people but it does involve the general public and a federal agency. It’s a cautionary tale about what happens when a technical enterprise collides with human nature. The agency was the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) and the event was the creation of the Class D citizens-band radio service, in September of 1958.
Class D citizens band radio was created by stealing – sorry, “repurposing” – the 11-meter high frequency radio band from amateur radio enthusiasts. The FCC went through the required notice of proposal/public comment period and received around a 10-to-1 response against the plan, driven principally by the amateur radio community’s abhorrence of the idea. Ham operators pointed out that they often provided the only means of emergency communications in times of natural disaster - plus other public services - and they needed the 11-meter spectrum.
Those in favor of the idea were mostly made up of the usual suspects: people that stood to gain financially. In 1958, just as now, that group held trump cards over the great unwashed masses, so the FCC ignored the voices of reason and sided with the robber barons.
How did the bureaucracy handle the implementation?
The FCC required those wanting to operate CB radios to obtain a license before they fired up their new toys. There was no training or supervised testing required (unlike the mandatory requirements for the
JUNE 2016