Luftrommets struktur for nye flytyper og droner - Under lupen - AVweb

 Norge er i gang med å kikke på Airspace Management for å kontrollere/overvåke luftrommets struktur for eVTOL maskinene som lenge har vært på trappene. Det har tatt sin tid og mange har falt fra av økonomiske årsaker. Dette skyldes sertifiseringsforskrifter og ikke minst luftrommet alle disse nye typene skal dele. Veldig kompliserte greier, men man jobber med saken. Det tar tid. Artikkelen peker på amerikanske forhold, men vi ser det samme i Europa over visse baser i UK. (Red.)

Chaos In The Skies Or Just Bad Management?

The current drone “crisis” may be a shot across the bow.

 

Russ Niles

Updated Dec 16, 2024 1:53 AM EST

 

Credit: Wikipedia

I remember thinking how cool it was. Some students at an exalted university whose name I forget had taken what looked like kids' toys and thrown chips and software and logic and all the other stuff that nerds in the early part of this century were consumed by and created an aerial dance choreographed by a million keystrokes and performed in the still air of a gymnasium.

The little buzzing things with four upward pointing propellers moved in precise unison before splitting into little solo acts before rejoining the main formation and making shapes and even music of sorts.

I was mesmerized and being the grumpy old guy that I was perfecting at the time my next thought was: "This is going to be trouble."

If a bunch of students with time (who knows what they were really supposed to be studying) could come up with that using the few bytes available to them at the time, what would happen to aviation when people with excess horsepower got hold of this? My next thought was that the FAA had better get a handle on this tech so they could lead from the front. Well, I said I was grumpy but not completely without hope.

Here we are about 25 years later with politicians talking about 19th Century solutions to a crisis that, if it is even a crisis, is a glimpse at the future. In fact, I wonder if former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie won't be among those eyeing up that trusty 12 gauge over the mantel to join the other "drone vigilantes" in making it rain metal and plastic.

It would be funny except he might be right. Drone skeet shooting could become a new sport in the absence of some kind of leadership to address the plethora of "drone sightings" mostly over the Northeast. Why do I care? When buckshot starts flying, chances are it won't be aimed at drones. As can be plainly seen by the videos, at least some of those "drones" are light aircraft. That virtually all of these sightings are at night is a big clue.

The FAA, FBI, Homeland Security and even the CIA have tried to assure a deeply suspicious public that, indeed, there is little threat from the Pipers and Cessnas putting over their homes, brilliantly proclaiming their right to occupy that patch of sky with a show of red, green and flashing white. Of course, it's unlikely Buddy Buckshot shining up the Remington down below has any idea what those lights mean. As far as he's concerned that "drone" is in his airspace.

Of course, not all those lights in the sky are airplanes. Some of them really are drones. Our own staff have seen them and they know the difference. A lot of them are likely going about their lawful business as we take the first tentative steps into the integration of uncrewed aircraft into the National Airspace System. Actually, when you say it like that it actually sounds pretty impressive, in contrast to the ***t show playing out.

And just to make things worse, those bent on creating mischief and maybe even a few with nefarious intentions are taking advantage of the chaos and launching their own missions of mayhem. Meantime, there are more and more lights in the sky and I think Christie is right. The lead's going to start flying, too.

I do have some sympathy for the FAA et al. There probably is no big threat so they really have no tools to handle it other than the strangely vacuous Sunday morning show platitudes. In that sense, it would be easier to deal with mayhem pouring from the sky. The airspace would be closed, law enforcement would be activated and stuff would get done.

Right now, all we have is kind of a low-level mass hysteria that is one mishap away from getting truly out of control. And when we finally do get things settled down, it will be aviation in general and general aviation in particular that pays the price, with increased regulation, more restrictions and a few more of those thousand cuts.

Now that the politicians are involved and behaving predictably, it's hard to tell what will come of all this. It's possible that people will get bored and it will fizzle on its own, which I think was the FAA's Plan A.

But with rapidly expanding commercial drone use and the imminent prospect of eVTOLs finding their market, more confusion is inevitable without a plan to bring the public along for the ride.

In the meantime, it might be a good idea to put off that night rating or recurrency.