from Aviation Week:
 
     
 
Business and Commercial Aviation
UAVs, or Nothing Can Go Wrong, Go Wrong. . .

Jan 29, 2008  
By George C. Larson  
Before most people noticed, the idea of employing aircraft  in the national 
airspace without pilots aboard them --  unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs (and 
sometimes UAS, where  the S is for "systems") -- has gotten to a point where 
their  introduction is considered inevitable. Who'd have thought?  After all, 
these machines were originally developed to conduct  military missions in areas 
deemed too hazardous for humans,  not for ordinary flying tasks. Advocates 
like to say UAVs are  best at "3-D missions" -- those that are dull, dirty or  
dangerous. 
Now there's palpable pressure from UAV advocates to insert  the aircraft into 
an array of civilian missions as well. And  there are two leading arguments 
for their use: long endurance  and low cost. 
It's true that replacing the weight of a pilot with an  equal amount of fuel 
confers on the UAV a higher fuel fraction  in its design gross weight, which 
is where the endurance comes  from. A solar-powered Zephyr UAV stayed aloft for 
54 hours,  setting a record in 2006, and the turbofan-powered Northrop  
Global Hawk operated by the U.S. Air Force has a claimed  42-hour endurance. No 
current production human-piloted  aircraft can match numbers like those, although 
Burt Rutan's  one-off designs for record-setting aircraft prove that  
endurance can be had with a pilot aboard. (Rutan's Voyager  flew for nine days, or 
216 hours, on its nonstop,  round-the-world flight. It also demonstrated that a 
flight of  that length is hard on pilots.)  
The cost-saving argument, though, may not hold up for  high-end machines such 
as the military's Predator and Global  Hawk families, which can be priced in 
the tens of millions  (average Global Hawk in 2003: $57 million) and require  
extensive logistics and ground crew. Versions tailored to the  less-exotic 
needs of civil operators are cheaper but still  priced like small business jets. 
Economy-class UAVs are  confined to much smaller vehicles in a class with  
radio-control scale-model hobby aircraft; they are cheaper to  acquire and 
operate. One problem at the low end is that many  would-be operators think of them 
as the same as recreational  scale models and don't yet realize that the flight 
of these  vehicles falls under the jurisdiction of the FAA. 
Perhaps a typical example is one from The New York Times of  Jan. 13, 2005. 
Chang Industry, Inc., of La Verne, Calif., was  reported to be marketing a 
five-pound aircraft with a  four-foot wing and a unit cost of only $5,000. The 
company  anticipated a demonstration for the Los Angeles County  Sheriff's 
Department to show off a video surveillance camera.  With a fabric wing and 
kite-like structure, a service ceiling  of 1,000 feet and an endurance of 20 minutes, 
the little  airplane seemed harmless enough if things went south. But  Chang 
knew its market: There was also a $15,000 model in the  works with an 
eight-foot wing. An FAA spokesman quoted in the  story pointed out that the agency 
would issue limited  certificates of authorization defining where such aircraft  
could operate and under what conditions. And that's still the  way it's done 
today. 
There's no argument in wartime over the preference for an  unmanned aircraft 
in combat areas where lives are at stake.  The saving of an American life 
trumps all, and Congress has  responded in kind. The Congressional Research 
Service (CRS)  reports that between 2001 and 2004, UAV expenditures rose from  $667 
million to over $1.1 billion. In Washington, UAVs (now  labeled 
"transformational," the magic word around the  Department of Defense) are the darlings of 
procurement  programs and may well have a total market somewhere north of  $3 
billion by now. 
But the question lingers as to a UAV's comparative  effectiveness and cost 
performing ordinary surveillance  missions in the national airspace system (NAS) 
when the  competition is a Cessna 182 with aux tanks and containing a  couple 
of observers with night binoculars and piddle packs.  Some estimates peg 
operating cost at six times a manned  aircraft like the Cessna, while UAV 
advocates prefer to  compare the price of their wares with a Lockheed P-3, a  
four-engine Navy antisubmarine patrol aircraft, or a Sikorsky  Black Hawk. That 
argument won't be settled here, though. The  issue of concern to business aviation 
is how the introduction  of UAVs may affect our operations, particularly at the 
lower  and middle altitudes where the civil versions are likely to  fly. 
Law-enforcement agencies conduct a lot of airborne  surveillance missions, 
but within the last 30 to 40 years,  eyeballs have concentrated along the 
borders, particularly the  2,062-mile-long one dividing the United States and 
Mexico. And  there's lot to watch for, from smugglers running illegals  across at 
night to drug couriers moving their goods north to  urban markets. The former 
Customs Service ranged far and wide  in its drug-interdiction missions, even 
employing  sensor-equipped Cessna Citations to pursue blacked-out  aircraft 
headed for landing strips and drop zones. The Border  Patrol spent its days and 
nights in low-flying airplanes and  helicopters "cutting sign" -- their term for 
tracking -- in  the desert. Now the two agencies have been combined to form  
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) under the Department  of Homeland 
Security. A 2005 report counted some 10,000 agents  on duty on the southern border 
alone; the figure is sure to  have risen. 
With the exception of aerostats, simple tethered balloons  mounting sensors 
that scan wide areas, aerial surveillance has  been conducted mainly in piloted 
aircraft by these agencies  and others. And throughout these efforts, the 
presence of  pilots on the aircraft has ensured the safety of their  operation in 
the NAS. In addition to the see-and-avoid  doctrine governing visual flight, 
pilots flying surveillance  could interact with ATC. Perhaps a science payload 
might fly  IFR, but surveillance, by its very nature, connotes visual  
conditions. And for the most part, such flights were ordinary  in every sense. 
Aerostats present the same issues as tall broadcast towers  and appear on 
charts and in NOTAMs. Impromptu deployments are  a cause for concern, however. In 
November 2007, a Honolulu  police helicopter collided with a balloon being 
flown above a  department store and was forced to make an emergency landing  
with its tail rotor inoperable. 
Advocates of UAVs argue that aircraft like the Predator B,  operating today 
as the MQ-9 Unmanned Aircraft System for the  CBP's Air and Marine division 
from a center in Riverside,  Calif., fly at altitudes of up to 50,000 feet and 
are well  above commercial and business traffic. However, the sensors  deliver 
better images from altitudes lower than that, and  operators are likely to go 
for the best pictures. The  aircraft, manufactured by General Atomics 
Aeronautical Systems  in San Diego, is operated remotely from the Air and Marine  
Operations Center by either line-of-sight direct link or  Ku-band links via 
satellite when the horizon intervenes. Most  of the General Atomics Predator family 
is also said to be  capable of autonomous flight: programmed flight plans flown 
 without a remote link. 
When a Predator B surveillance aircraft crashed near  Nogales, Ariz., in 
April 2006, a subsequent investigation  revealed that the fuel supply to the 
aircraft's engine had  been inadvertently shut down during a mix-up as two remote  
operators changed controls. The aircraft continued to descend,  giving no 
indication of the problem, until it struck the  ground. Although there were no 
casualties or property damage,  the incident put the spotlight on a serious 
operational flaw.  A news report at the time cited the value of the aircraft at  
$6.5 million (another said $14 million) and stated that it was  generally 
operated at 15,000 feet. Another recent accident in  Kinshasa, capital of the Congo, 
involving a European  Union-operated Belgian-built UAV, reportedly killed one 
person  and injured two others. 
According to a CRS estimate, the UAV accident rate is 100  times that of 
manned aircraft, a factor that is seldom  considered when system costs are 
reckoned. 
Surveillance flights by UAVs are one thing when they're  operating along the 
southern border far from congested  airspace. But it's another matter to 
envision them performing  surveillance over the major port cities on both coasts,  
although there is considerable enthusiasm among their  advocates for employing 
them in just that role. 
From a 2003 CRS document: "Additional roles for UAVs in the  near future may 
include homeland security and medical  resupply. The Coast Guard and Border 
Patrol, parts of the  newly formed Department of Homeland Security, already have 
 plans to deploy UAVs to watch coastal waters, patrol the  nation's borders, 
and protect major oil and gas pipelines.  Congressional support exists for 
using UAVs like the Predator  for border security." Military operation would be  
inappropriate for such duties, the report said, so domestic  agencies would 
carry out the missions. Still . . . medical  resupply? Watch coastal waters? 
From another CRS paper: "The  longer flight times of UAVs means that sustained 
coverage over  a previously exposed area may improve border security." 
But if the purpose is to stare at one spot for a very long  time, why not 
install an aerostat or a camera tower? And the  language justifying use of these 
vehicles invariably rolls out  the "T" word. Has there been one proven 
instance of a  terrorist entering the United States by overland crossing of  the 
border in a remote area? Would a terrorist choose that  route to, say, a crowded 
railroad terminal? So far, only  government agencies have been seated around 
the tables where  such questions are debated, and the FAA has been the sole  
guardian of NAS integrity. 
Setting aside the unsettling feeling that the UAV movement  is at least 
partly fueled by overwrought enthusiasm, there are  the practicalities of their 
operation, and that's what moved  the AOPA to ask for formation of a Special 
Committee under the  Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics (RTCA) to 
formulate  the operational specifications of UAVs to operate in civilian  airspace. 
The creation of SC-203 under the RTCA effectively  blocks helpful suggestions 
from UAV advocates that the best  solution to NAS flights was to revise the FARs 
or create  semi-permanent temporary flight restrictions. The AOPA pointed  
out that a restricted area in a swath painted along the  southern border would 
affect more than 100 airports. 
In medicine, physicians adhere to the tenet "Do no harm."  Heidi Williams, 
AOPA director of Air Traffic Services, states  flatly, "We have gone on record 
to the FAA that any [UAV]  integration into the NAS should be done without any 
harm to  the existing civil airspace user." In expanding upon that, she  says, 
the organization believes UAVs in the NAS should be  regulated and equipped 
like other aircraft. At the heart of  the discussion within circles such as 
SC-203 is the concept of  "sense and avoid" and what that will mean. Obviously 
rooted in  the concept of "see and avoid," the execution of an automated  
equivalent adds considerable complexity to the current  architecture of the UAV, 
which is focused on surveillance  below, not the airspace surrounding it. And the 
AOPA is  rightly focused on keeping attention on the low- and  mid-altitude 
vehicles with enough mass to create a hazard.  Williams also emphasizes that 
the AOPA is not opposed to the  introduction of UAVs into the NAS. 
Envisioning actual operations leads to looming questions.  How will UAVs in 
climb and descent phases of their missions  manage encounters with other 
aircraft? If you instinctively  think, "Light that sucker up so I can avoid him," 
you're not  alone. Both visual and electronic beacons are needed even in  
daylight VMC because UAVs can be difficult to spot. But the  current thinking would 
provide the UAV itself with an  electronic awareness of its surroundings and 
automate its  responses. That means programming relatively complicated  
scenarios such as the Right of Way Rule (FAR Part 91.113)  governing overtaking, 
intersecting courses and head-on  encounters. If you put yourself into any of 
those situations  while driving your Learjet on an arrival profile, you would  
wish for an automated maneuver that would take the UAV out of  the play 
completely. 
The AOPA's Williams characterizes the present level of  discussions as 
"concept and philosophy." Spokesman Chris Dancy  adds, "The immediate concern the 
AOPA has is potential civil  end users. They're getting ahead of the game but 
are not  looking at the regulatory environment." He's talking about  
law-enforcement agencies, of course, in small towns everywhere  who are thinking about 
how cool it would be to have their own  little mini-Predator. 

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