FAA Officials Reassure Drone Industry Rules Are Changing to Keep Up With Growth
BALTIMORE -- FAA rules allow lots of flexibility for drone operators and manufacturers, but the key is safety and working within the current rules, said Earl Lawrence, executive director of the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Integration Office, at an agency event. “We have a plan for integration,” he said Tuesday. “We’re working to build a regulatory foundation. We’re on that path.” Regulations struggle to keep pace with change, he said.
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Companies that come in to see the FAA often take the wrong approach, Lawrence said. In some cases, companies bring nine lawyers and one person who understands operations, he said. "That’s not the best way," he said. “What we want to hear about is how are you going to maintain a safe operation,” he said. “Don’t bring us your business model, bring us your safety cases.” What are you waiting for? Lawrence asked industry. “If you’re waiting on us, you’re waiting on the wrong folks,” he said.
Air safety is always a big concern for the agency, Lawrence said. “There is a way in our existing regulations to do just about every operation you want to do.” The public won’t accept any decline in air safety, he said. Being first at the FAA on any new service is tough, but the regulator needs proposals so it can develop new rules, he said.
Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has made clear her three top priorities are safety, infrastructure and the future of transportation, said Finch Fulton, DOT deputy assistant secretary for transportation policy. “What we do with drones touches all of those areas,” Finch said. “We’ve all been on board and we’ve all been leaning in hard on the regulatory side and thinking through what policies can help with the safe integration of drones into our national air space system as quickly as possible.” Chao discussed drones at CES in January (see 1801110009).
The Trump administration is making the right moves on drones, said Mark Aitken of Akin Gump, who has industry clients. “There’s a recognition by the FAA that there are opportunities to be doing things a little bit more efficiently and they do need to keep up with the pace of innovation,” he told us. “There’s an open dialogue.” Aitken said the move to keep up with change started under the Obama administration, which held a White House workshop on drones in August 2016 (see 1608020015). “The attention from across both administrations underscores that this industry isn’t going away, they need to pay attention to it,” he said.
There's much uncertainty about drone mandates, said John Duncan, executive director of the FAA Flight Standards Service. “At this point, we don’t exactly know what rules you’re going to work under.” The current requirements were written many years ago and “have served us well,” but they were written with a “proscriptive” focus with earlier aircraft in mind, he said. Lots of the old rules don’t apply to UASs, he said.
The agency wants industry to come in, Duncan said. “Tell us what you want to do,” he said. “It gives us the opportunity to determine what regulations apply.” The FAA expects objections, he said. One example is “see-and-avoid rules,” Duncan said. “See and avoid is about separating the aircraft” so there are no collisions, he said. The FAA needs to figure how those kinds of rules apply to drones, he said. As the agency works with different companies and issues exemptions, “that information becomes grist for the rulemaking mill,” he said.
Drone requirements are at heart deregulatory, said Nan Shellabarger, director of the FAA Office of Policy and Plans. “We created a lesser pilot certificate that was deregulatory.” Many of the rules to come will also be deregulatory, she said. FAA officials reach out to industry as they work on the pending rulemakings, Shellabarger said. Officials ask about the costs, failure rates and other issues, she said. “If you hear from someone at the FAA who says we want to ask some questions, don’t hang up on them.” Industry consensus is helpful, she said. Sometimes, comments convince the FAA it made the wrong decisions and must rethink its approach, she said.
Jackie Keshian, aviation aide to Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John Thune, R-S.D., said committee staffers have had hundreds of meetings on a pending FAA reauthorization bill, which addresses drone regulation. Keshian also encouraged the public to reach out: “We’re pretty open to meetings.”
The FAA can do a lot through waivers and exemptions, said Lirio Liu, executive director of the Office of Rulemaking. “We are doing them at a pretty high volume.”