FAA Rules Crackdown Has Model Aircraft Community Up in Arms
The Federal Aviation Administration wants to crack down on what it calls the increasing recklessness of hobbyists who fly small drones for recreational purposes, and that has many in the model aircraft community up in arms. Comments are due Friday on an FAA rule “interpretation” in which the agency is claiming broad enforcement authority over model aircraft operations that don’t meet “statutory definition and operational requirements,” including being flown in a pilot’s “visual line of sight,” it said in a June 25 notice (http://1.usa.gov/1qwPmkg).
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The rule interpretation on model aircraft has broad implications for the FAA’s long-awaited rulemaking on commercial operations of small drones. That’s because model aircraft that don’t meet the listed “statutory requirements are nonetheless unmanned aircraft, and as such, are subject to all existing FAA regulations, as well as future rulemaking action, and the FAA intends to apply its regulations to such unmanned aircraft,” the notice said. The rulemaking on small commercial drones is due in November, after prodding by the aerospace industry and by CEA, which have said “American entrepreneurs and businesses cannot realize the tremendous benefits and efficiencies” of small unmanned aircraft until proposed rules move forward (CD March 28 p16).
More recently, CEA, following Amazon’s petition to test commercial drones on its property in Seattle (CD July 15 p8), has defended “lightweight” commercial drones as being “poised to transform industries from online retail to film and photography to farming and even Internet signal delivery.” CEA deems it “crucial that we have an appropriate regulatory framework in place as soon as possible that supports this innovation, related job and economic growth, and U.S. policy leadership,” CEA has said.
By midday Monday, nearly 23,000 comments had been received on the FAA’s rule interpretation (Docket FAA-2014-0396), a large majority of them negative (http://1.usa.gov/1tr8MVl). Said one Tim Coombs, typifying other commenters: “I believe that the FAA is over-reaching with these regulations. You are taking a hobby that has been enjoyed safely for years and making unnecessary restrictions.” A “community-based” group, the Academy of Model Aeronautics, has helped orchestrate the outpouring of comments, saying the FAA actions are too sweeping. Said the AMA on its government relations blog (http://bit.ly/1jJx6Bf): “The FAA may, at its discretion, subjectively apply any rule or regulation created to address full-scale operations to model aircraft. In the strictest sense this could even require licensing of model aircraft pilots. This might be unlikely, but this clearly opens the door to that possibility."
The new interpretation would single out for crackdown what the AMA calls first-person view (FPV) operations, during which the hobbyist controls the aircraft while wearing goggles that display images transmitted from a camera mounted in the front of the model aircraft. While the FPV intent is to provide a simulation of what a pilot would see from the flight deck of a manned aircraft, the FAA said, the goggles “may obstruct an operator’s vision, thereby preventing the operator from keeping the model aircraft within his or her visual line of sight at all times.” But the AMA argues that FPV control “adds no danger to the hobby, especially when a spotter is present to monitor the airspace."
In its recent petition, Amazon attempted to make clear to the FAA that its commercial drone tests would be safer than flying model aircraft. It took special pains to promise that its drones will be flown “within the visual line of sight of the operator and/or one or more observers,” and won’t stray higher than 400 feet off the ground, even if operated far from the nearest airport. In its rule interpretation, the FAA also puts hobbyists on notice that it may require them to notify an airport operator if the model aircraft will be operated within five miles of an airport facility.
The FAA rule interpretation follows by several months the agency’s unsuccessful attempt to fine University of Virginia videographer Raphael Pirker $10,000 for operating a commercial drone without the agency’s permission because he accepted payment for flying a model aircraft and therefore was no hobbyist. His lawyer, Brendan Schulman, of the New York law firm Kramer Levin, calls Pirker’s prosecution the FAA’s first-ever federal case involving commercial drone operations. In early March, an administrative law judge sided with Pirker in arguing that at the time of his alleged infraction, the FAA had no “enforceable rule” on the books governing the operation of model aircraft or for “classifying” model aircraft as commercial drones (http://1.usa.gov/1nbxrfc). The FAA is appealing.
Critics of the FAA contend it’s seeking broad enforcement powers under existing rules as a result of having been repudiated in the Pirker case. The FAA said it’s acting only in response to increasing incidents of reckless model aircraft flying. Among the FAA crackdowns is its attempt to draw broad distinctions between commercial and recreational use of model aircraft. But critics, including the AMA, say the new interpretations would leave them vulnerable to FAA violations for doing little more than accepting payment to train another hobbyist how to fly.