Drone Skies: The Unmanned Aircraft Revolution Is Coming
The proliferation of unmanned aircraft is already outpacing the regulations that govern them. Is U.S. Airspace big enough for a deluge of drones?
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| Call them what you want—flying robots, unmanned aircraft, or drones—vehicles such as this 5-pound Indago quadrotor are changing the skies over America. |
It's a quiet morning in San Francisco,
with soft sunlight illuminating patches of thick fog billowing over the
Golden Gate Bridge. A solitary unmanned aircraft—a 4-pound,
battery-powered wedge of impact-resistant foam with a 54-inch wingspan, a
single pusher-propeller in the rear, and a GoPro video camera attached
to its body—quietly approaches the landmark.
Raphael "Trappy" Pirker controls the aircraft from a nearby hill. The bridge is within sight, but the 29-year-old enjoys the scenery through virtual-reality goggles strapped to his head. The drone's-eye view is broadcast to the goggles, giving Pirker a streaming image of the bridge that grows larger as he guides the radio-controlled aircraft closer.
Pirker, a multilingual Austrian and a master's student at the University
of Zurich, is a cofounder of a group of radio-control-aircraft
enthusiasts and parts salesmen called Team BlackSheep. This California
flight is the last stop of the international group's U.S. tour.
Highlights included flights over the Hoover Dam, in Monument Valley,
down the Las Vegas Strip, and through the Grand Canyon. The team has
also flown above Rio de Janeiro, Amsterdam, Bangkok, Berlin, London, and
Istanbul.
The Golden Gate Bridge now fills the view inside Pirker's goggles. He's not a licensed pilot, but his command over the radio-controlled (RC) aircraft is truly impressive. The drone climbs to the top of the bridge, zips through gaps in the towers, dives toward the water, and cruises along the underside of the bridge deck. Months later, the self-described RC Daredevils post the footage on YouTube, where nearly 60,000 viewers watch it.
The Golden Gate Bridge now fills the view inside Pirker's goggles. He's not a licensed pilot, but his command over the radio-controlled (RC) aircraft is truly impressive. The drone climbs to the top of the bridge, zips through gaps in the towers, dives toward the water, and cruises along the underside of the bridge deck. Months later, the self-described RC Daredevils post the footage on YouTube, where nearly 60,000 viewers watch it.
Team BlackSheep is willfully—gleefully, really—flying through loopholes in the regulation of American airspace. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) allows unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) to fly as long as their operators keep them in sight, fly below 400 feet, and avoid populated areas and airports.
The FAA also forbids any drone to be flown for business purposes. "In the U.S. right now, it's completely open, so long as you do it for noncommercial purposes," Pirker says. "The cool thing is that this is still relatively new. None of the laws are specifically written against or for what we do."
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| Raphael Pirker, shown operating a quadrotor in Hong Kong, conducts daredevil flights with drones near global landmarks, to the delight of Internet viewers and the dismay of many governments. |
While the FAA did not sanction Team BlackSheep for buzzing landmarks as a
publicity stunt, it has shut down other for-profit drone operators,
including Minneapolis-based Fly Boys Aerial Cinematography, which was
using drones to take photographs for real estate developers.
are specifically written against or for what we do."
Even the military and other government operators must obtain FAA waivers
to operate drones. That means that flying over a wooded area is fine
for an amateur, but a fire department that uses a drone to scout a
forest fire in the same area requires special federal permission.are
specifically written against or for what we do."
