US Army Colonel Says They Should Be Now

The Army's unmanned aerial vehicles are doing just fine operating in the shared airspace over the Middle East... so why slow down efforts to integrate them into the national airspace here at home?

That's the word from Colonel Don Hazelwood, head of the US Army’s unmanned air system acquisition program office -- who told Flight International recently there are plenty of reasons to accelerate the use of drones over the USA.

"Last night on the news there was a missing person, a child missing," Hazelwood said at the recent AUVSI Unmanned Aerial Systems North America conference in Orlando, FL. "Could we not put up UAVs to go out on search missions? Could we not go out and help the forestry department, instead of giving them 2000 soldiers with shovels, could we not send a few UAVs and pinpoint where the hotspots are [in forest fires] and assist them in their tactical operations on where they send out their bulldozers to build firebreaks? Utilize technology?"

But if that was good news for UAV developers, Hazelwood did drop the other shoe... chiding manufacturers for not paying enough attention to "aviation discipline and culture."

"To fly in the national airspace, to get anyone in the [US military] to stand up and go toe to toe with the FAA, we all need to understand what flying in the national airspace means; what aviation culture and discipline brings to meeting those objectives," he said.

Hazelwood also says the Army can't justify entering serious talks with the FAA about the use of drones in the national airspace until at least some UAV makers improve the equipment itself so that it can safely operate over the United States.

It's a pressing problem. In the next five years, Hazlewood expects some 230 UAV companies will be trying to test more than 10,000 aircraft here in the US.

UAV's now make up about 80-percent of the total number of aircraft in the Middle East theater of operations, he says. Those drones still stationed in the US should have better things to do than counting cows at Fort Campbell, KY.

But they're stuck with such tasks, according to Hazelwood, until the military can prove UAVs are safe to co-mingle with manned aircraft in the skies over America -- despite what he says is a proven track record in such hostile environments as Iraq.

"[The Army] goes 24/7, 365 days a year [and] intermingles armed aircraft, medivacs, commercial aircraft, FedEx, and 20-30 UAVs everyday, all day," said Hazelwood. "It has never had a UAV accident. It has had some close calls.

"So when the question comes up 'can we fly in Class B airspace'?" Hazelwood continued. "Well yes, we do it every day, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. And isn't Iraq international airspace? And isn't international airspace more challenging than national airspace? So I am not sure that I buy the argument that we can’t fly in the national airspace today. Maybe we don’t meet the stringent FAA requirements to fly in Class B, but we do fly in Class B airspace every day in Iraq, and in international airspace."

Of course, pilots and their advocates -- including the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association -- are still more than a little wary of unmanned aircraft flitting around the sky because, unlike manned aircraft, they don't have the ability to see and avoid other traffic.

FMI: www.army.mil