U.S. takes a new step toward commercial drones

Jason Cannon
Unit 5
12/31/13

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/30/politics/drones-faa/index.html?hpt=po_c2
http://www.faa.gov/about/initiatives/uas/

The initial news article I read was on CNN.  I then went to the Federal Aviation Administration website to learn more about drones and the new research cites.  Within the faa.gov link there are several links to pdfs that have great information.

Synopsis:

Six drone (or unmanned aircraft) research locations have been revealed by the Federal Aviation Administration.  There are several purposes behind the research centers, some of which include safety testing, finding regulation standards, testing the influence on the environment, and performance testing.  Michael Huerta, the FAA administrator, said, "The important thing about today's announcement is it provides the platform for this research to really be carried out [on] a very large scale across the entire country."  The FAA's actions are in accordance with the request of Congress for private drones to be safely flying in the US by 2015.  There are drones in use right now, some of which are used in law enforcement and border control.  To fly a drone in the airspace of the United States, one must get specific permission.  Many states/groups wanted to house a research center, but only Alaska, Nevada, New York, North Dakota, Texas, and Virginia will contain a research center.  Several of the centers will be located at Universities.  Drones are becoming a big thing in the commercial world.  Amazon is looking into getting drones called "octocopters" to deliver packages, but has not got permission from the FAA yet.

Comments:

I think that this whole idea of unmanned aircraft is amazing and also very useful.  The article mentioned that drones are already being used in foreign lands to help fight the terrorists.  The amount of money these military drones cost is probably tremendous.  Military policy is probably to just get the best equipment even if it costs a ton.  It is hard to find the right balance between cutting our military spending and improving our military.  I think these drones are probably necessary in the war on terror, and improving the technology associated with them is important.  But at what point does it become to expensive to improve the technology?  I don't know if the costs of these new research centers will be categorized under military spending, but if they are, they will add a significant cost.  Wherever the money is coming from for these research centers, there will need to be a lot of it.

On the FAA website it mentioned that drones "may have a wingspan as large as a Boeing 737 or smaller than a radio-controlled model airplane."  I would love to order something on Amazon and have it get to my house in 30 minutes on a small drone.  That would be awesome.  This idea of Amazon will probably make them a lot of money because it will cost us a lot of money.  I bet the cost of getting a drone to fly my package to me would be more than the cost of my package.