UAVs

Unmanned aerial vehicles UAV are a part of the future that is here to stay. There are lots of different uses for UAVs, especially in the military however they are now starting to impact civilian life, in many beneficial ways. Some of the different uses of UAVs that I found include; hurricane hunting, 3-D mapping, protecting wildlife, and search and rescue (Handwerk, 2013). Most all of these uses involve using a drone to fly over a certain area, in order too help. Whether it may be a search for someone they may be lost, too helping create better maps with better images.  Other use that I have seen is for real estate agents to use a UAV to take prospective buyers on an all around tour of the house from the air. The FAA has had to deal with the ever growing population of UAV users. In order to counteract what could be dangerous encounters with a UAV if used improperly, the FAA has released new guidance that must be followed.  According to the FAA website, “your aircraft must be registered if it weighs more than 0.55 lbs. FAA guidance also says that model aircraft should be flown a sufficient distance from populated areas and full scale aircraft, should be kept within visual line of sight of the operator, should weigh under 55 lbs. unless certified by an aero modeling community-based organization, and cannot be used for business purposes (Unmanned aircraft systems).” If you are going to fly a UAV for commercial purposes to you must file for a section 333 exemption and a certificate of waiver or authorization, COA (Unmanned aircraft systems). Overall I think that more guidance will be necessary as they become even more popular and we can probably expect more regulations and guidance toward the matter.

I think that UAVs are going to have to integrate into the national airspace system; I don’t see how they couldn’t. With the use of UAVs being so high and more companies are finding practical uses for them it will just be time until they can be fully flown in the NAS. Regulations would have to be created to allow these aircraft in to the system, because it has to be done in a safe matter. Aircraft collisions are a serious matter, small UAVs may not be seen by larger aircraft until it is too late. The small UAVs could end up in engines, are simply just getting in the way of the commercial ATC system.  Other problem I can see is how safe will the public feel about flying with theses aircraft in the sky, as well as them flying above them while on the ground. I would hate to see UAVs falling out of the sky an injuring people.

The military has taken full advantage of this new technology and has actually been using it longer than I thought. They began using unmanned aircraft back in 2005 overseas during the Iraqi war. Some of the different types of UAVs the military use our target and decoy, reconnaissance, combat, and research and development (The UAV). Whether it being spying on the enemy or using them to actually attack UAVs have been greatly beneficial to the military. The biggest advantage of using them in war is that an actually human is not flying it in the air. If something would to go wrong, there would be no loss of life to the operator. From a cost standpoint I would think that it would be cheaper to use UAVs because if they were destroyed in combat it would be a lot cheaper than a million dollar aircraft (The UAV). Overall I think that UAVs have greatly helped are military and has helped is some very risky missions with out the loss of one of our soldiers.

A simple search of UAV jobs came back with around 350 jobs available. UAVs are a new technology that is here to stay and that includes many new jobs in this sector. Some jobs included UAV test engineers, a UAV operator, photography, and even some companies currently hiring drone pilots. So matter what type of experience there is probably a job that most can do. I think that there are going to be a lot more jobs as the technology continues to advance as well as FAA regulations that could make this sector of aviation very interesting. The website that I used to find these jobs is http://uavcoach.com/uav-jobs/.

References

Handwerk, B. (2013, December 2). 5 Surprising Drone Uses (Besides Amazon Delivery). Retrieved from http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131202-drone-uav-uas-amazon-octocopter-bezos-science-aircraft-unmanned-robot/

The UAV - The Future Of The Sky. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.theuav.com/index.html#

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) Frequently Asked Questions. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.faa.gov/uas/faq/#qn1

Cargo Duty Regulations

After the crash of Colgan Air 3407 in 2009 there has been sweeping changes in the aviation field when it comes too flight and duty regulations. These new regulations were required following the accident, due to the cause of the accident being caused by fatigue. According to Jeffery Joyner of first media, flight duty is now defined as “flight duty begins the moment a pilot reports for duty with the expectation of conducting a flight and does not end until he has parked the plane used on his last flight. Unless the pilot has a rest break meeting FAA standards, activities such as standing by at the airport, training and traveling as a passenger to take over a flight at a different airport count as flight duty (Joyner).” Therefore almost every action the flight crew does, it takes away from their time allowed on duty. Before pilots would only be on duty when they were actually flying the aircraft. Now flight duty times are based on the first flight of the day, number of legs on the flight and other various reasons. Therefore a single flight crews new limits will fall between 9 and 14 hours (Joyner). This may still seem like a lot of hours for pilots to be flying, but when you take in a normal work day is about 8 hours, I think that the new time schedule is quite fitting. “Under the old rules, rest breaks were to be at least nine hours, but unforeseen circumstances allowed airlines to reduce the breaks to eight hours. The new rules extend the minimum rest period to 10 hours with no allowable reduction. Pilots must have the opportunity to have eight hours of sleep during the rest break” also Joyner said (Joyner). I personally think that this is the big rule, because we are all humans and we need sleep, good uninterrupted sleep at that in order to properly function. I kind of feel that minimum rest needs to be upped a little more, maybe 12 hours, because I know lots of pilots who don’t go right to sleep when they get to their rooms. They eat meals, explore cities, and hangout out with the other crew members therefore, are the pilots actually getting the required amount of sleep, probably not.

One of the most noted parts of the new regulations that were released is that cargo operations were removed. Therefore the new duty and flight time requirements do not apply to pilots who fly for a cargo operation. Currently according to James Carroll of USA Today, “Cargo pilots fly under older rules that do not require as much rest, permit longer times on duty and allow them to fly beyond eight hours in certain conditions. And those rules do not impose any special limits on flight time at night, when cargo carriers do much of their flying (Carroll, 2014).” Which I personally don’t understand why they would be excluded, because they practically do the same job as an airline pilot. They fly the routes, use the same runways they are only carrying different types of things. Something interesting I read from this article by Carroll is that it sounds like the union representing UPS is strongly against and new rules for cargo pilots. They believe that there pilots make shorter trips, not as many takeoffs and landings, and they have way more rest period (Carroll, 2014). However almost all of cargo operations take place during night time, which is not a normal time for humans to be awake. It is going against each person’s circadian rhythm, by making these pilots fly when your body is to perform the worst.  

The biggest reason that the new duty requirements were not implemented to the cargo airlines is because of the cost. In order to make changes to the current way of operating it would certainly cost a lot of money, as it did to the commercial airlines (Carey, 2011). However cargo airlines are not just dependent on their aircraft, they use them to move packages quicker, unlike commercial airlines who are most likely making revenue off of each fight. Therefore they are not flying the flight for revenue essentially it is just like equipment for them. So in order for them to change the current way of operating it would probably end up costing the cargo carriers more than they would want to pay and could potentially make them loose money or potentially out of business.

Yes I do think that cargo carriers should be including in the new pilot regulations. Besides the fact of what these pilots are carrying there is not much difference between them and airline pilots. They are still flying a metal object through the sky using a lot of the same airports as the airlines. Therefore the pilots are not very different so why shouldn't they be regulated the same. Due to the fact cargo carriers were excluded these pilots should be re-examined because new regulations would probably reduce the cases of fatigue and overall make the skies safer. 

If new regulations were imposed on the cargo airlines there would obviously things that would have to change, just as the airline industry did. Management would initially have to begin reorganizing the flight crews, and possibly hire more. Management would also have to create a new system to ensure that they are keeping the flight crews within in regulation limits. Mostly I would see having management a bigger role in the beginning of the change over, but once the changeover is completed I think that management would have a lessor role in the field. 

References

Carey, B. (2011, December 21). FAA Issues New Rule on Pilot Duty Time. Retrieved from, http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/air-transport/2011-12-21/faa-issues-new-rule-pilot-duty-time

Carroll, J. R. (2014, March 13). UPS pilots urge more rest for cargo crews. Retrieved from, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/03/13/ups-pilots-urge-more-rest-for-cargo-crews/6402615/#

Joyner, J. (n.d.). Duty Limitations of an FAA Pilot. Retrieved from, http://work.chron.com/duty-limitations-faa-pilot-17646.html