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