FAA Getting More 'Agile' as Drones Grow, Top Safety Official Says

Drones are “one of the most important disruptive technologies” today, Bahrami said. “The new reality of entire societies living remotely due to COVID-19 is accelerating the demand for drones.” Among the uses during the pandemic are delivering medical supplies and patient samples, spraying disinfectant on public spaces and broadcasting messages to the homeless, Bahrami said. The pandemic demonstrates the importance of using drones for work considered “dull, dirty or dangerous,” he said.

FAA’s unmanned aircraft system integration pilot program helps show "safe drone uses under a variety of circumstances," the official said. It usually takes the FAA two years to certify a new commercial air carrier, but the certification of drone package delivery company Wing took less than 10 months, “demonstrating we are getting more agile,” he said.

UAS traffic management will require a system based on data sharing and must be interoperable worldwide, Bahrami said. It must be able to handle the large number of drones expected in U.S. airspace, he said: “We cannot expect to control drones as we do manned aircraft.” Air taxis that move people are inevitable, he said.

Seleta Reynolds, general manager of the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, said her city is looking at how to manage flying cars and other more complex drones. The focus should be on “the actual problems that we’re trying to solve” and how those can best be addressed, she said. “In L.A., we have a whole group of folks who have lived for decades with the negative side effects of being near large airports … and smaller regional airports,” Reynolds said. “We’re entering a complex urban airspace that already has a lot going on,” she said: “If we’re going to add to it, we really should focus on why.”

People are concerned about noise, Reynolds said. “When you say, ‘Yes, we’re going to have air taxis and we’re going to move things around in the sky,’ that’s where their brain goes immediately,” she said. People are also really worried about protecting birds, she said. Reynolds said she has heard that message many times in discussions with the public.

The FAA has an important role on safety, Reynolds said. Los Angeles County has 88 municipalities, she said. “There can’t be a wildly patchwork approach to cities trying to figure out their airspace.” But they also better understand local realities, she said.

Benefits and costs must be balanced, said Anna Mracek Dietrich, co-executive director of the Community Air Mobility Initiative. “We have to protect the birds,” she said: “New industry mission.”

“Often, the societal costs have been kind of overlooked,” Dietrich said. The impetus is on industry, she said. “We have to come up with … how are the communities actually going to be using this,” she said. Increased air mobility has to be seen as desirable “regardless of whatever lingering adverse impacts we can’t mitigate,” she said. People have to “actually want these things in their communities,” Dietrich said.

In a year, there has been an 18% jump in registered drones and 12% increase in certified remote pilots, said Sean Cassidy, Amazon Prime Air director-safety and regulatory affairs and a former commercial pilot. Over the next five years, the number of registered pilots is expected to double and drones to increase four or five times, he said. It’s critical to “connect to the drone community” and “get the safety message across,” he said.

FAA has no plans to use protected aviation spectrum for the command and control of drones, Jay Merkle, executive director-Office of UAS Integration, said in response to our question. “There are companies that are using cellular and LTE spectrum,” he said: “The jury is still out on that one.”