The
FAA (Federal Aviation Authority) is moving ponderously slowly to develop New
Guidelines and Regulations from the fledgling Drone industry in the US of
A.
However,
they're still open to innovation in the field and are willing to experiment.
They granted a special exemption on Monday January 12th 2015 to CNN
(Cable News Network) to work with GTRI (Georgia Tech Research Institute) to
develop Drones for usage in Journalism as per my blog article
entitled “CNN
and Georgia Tech Research Institute Drones for Journalism - Drones in US
Journalism while USA waits on the FAA”.
Now,
some three (3) weeks later on Tuesday February 3rd 2015, they
granted another eight (8) special
exemptions to contractors for the commercial use of small Drones as reported in
the article “U.S.
FAA grants 8 more exemptions for commercial use of Drones”, published Tue
Feb 3, 2015 1:06pm EST, Reuters.
342
requests for commercial exemptions have been submitted by various contractors.
Of that amount, only twenty four (24) contractors in the USA have been allowed
to operate Drones commercially as noted in the article “Hollywood's
go-to helicopter pilot can now fly Drones instead”, published February 3,
2015 02:22 pm by Kwame Opam, The Verge.
So
who are the lucky devils? And why is this needed?
FAA Grants exemptions
for Commercial Drone usage – Innovation creeps along as Drone Pilots Wanted
Well,
that list includes the following companies:
1.
Total Safety U.S. Inc for flare stack
inspections
2.
Slugwear Inc for aerial photography and
surveys
3.
Team 5 LLC
4.
Shotover Camera Systems LP
5.
Helinet Aviation Services LLC
6.
Alan D. Purwin for film and television
production
Jamaica
currently has no clear guidelines on Drone usage. We recently had a major News
organization, the Jamaica Gleaner
on Monday November 24th 2014, used a Drone to film footage without
complaint from the JCAA or the
Authorities.
This
was a point I brought up during an interview on CVM
TV’s morning program CVM at Sunrise on
Wednesday February 4th 2014 while being quizzed on the topic of Drones
in Journalism.
I
had explained that Drones, which are UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), are
defined by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) as an aircraft
without a human pilot onboard.
Under
ICAO Circular 328 AN/190, two (2) broad categories are defined:
1.
Autonomous aircraft e.g. Google X Labs
Project Wing as described in my blog article
entitled “Google
X Labs Project Wing - How to own a Global Satellite based Semi-Autonomous VTOL Drone
Delivery Service”
2.
Remotely piloted aircraft, for which
remote pilots are needed as explained in my blog article
entitled “FAA
to allow Commercial Drones in 2015 - US$100,000 per year for 100,000 Drone
Pilot jobs for the next five years”
Drones
as they're more commonly called come in two (2) basic form factors:
1.
Helicopters
2.
Model Airplanes
Typically
a Drone, which you can actually build yourself if you have an understanding of
microcontroller and avionics, consists of the following:
1.
Microcontroller – Control flight
2.
Camera – Allow for Visual Images
3.
Radio – Transmit Data back to NOC
4.
Transponder – identify aircraft to ATC
With
Drones already in the pipeline from Amazon with their plans for Amazon Prime
Air to DHL’s usage in Germany for deliveries to the most recent planned usage
by Alibaba to deliver Green Leaf Tea in Shanghai, China as described in my blog article
entitled “Alibaba
and Drones Deliveries – Three day Ginger Tea Taobao Drone Delivery Test of AI Drones
in Beijing”, Shanghai and Guangzhou, Drones being used for Courier Delivery
Services are taking being researched and tested Worldwide
Drones in Journalism in
Jamaica – Guidelines needed as by 2017, they’ll become smartphones
Currently
there are no clear guidelines on the use of Drones for Commercial Drones in
Jamaica from the JCAA (Jamaica Civil Aviation
Authority).
Potential
Commercial usages of Drones can include Postage Delivery, despite the
proliferation of Drone-related services as noted in my Geezam blog article entitled “Skycam Jamaica
Aerial Photography marks possible Revival of Package Delivery in the Jamaica
Postal Service”:
Instead,
basic guidelines exist for Local Drone Operators such as Skycam Jamaica and Jamaica UAV:
1.
Transponder to identify aircraft to ATC
2.
10-foot radius clear air for take-off
3.
Fly no more than 3 miles of Commercial
Airport
4.
500 feet Ceiling
With
Journalism being the most obvious usage, especially when Journalism needs to
get access to a place to which he may be barred from entering e.g. a courtroom
of a Political party meeting.
It
would also reduce the number of personnel that a News Organization would have
to send to cover a story from a three (3) man crew, including cameraman and
driver to a single person with a Drone as a Camera to create Action shots.
Even
more interesting, it could give the journalist or any Blogger, armed with a
Tablet or smartphone, the ability to report on multiple News events
simultaneously, even providing live aerial feeds for an event while reporting
on another event.
The
possibilities are endless, especially given their small size, like the pocket
sized US$275 Anura Pocket Drone as detailed in my blog article
entitled “US$275
Anura Pocket Drone - Why Mini-Drones getting smaller and inexpensive in the
Year of the Robot Sheep”.
Not
only that, but Bloggers could use the footage from their own personal Drones to
add more interest to a story that they may be covering, making them as
competitive with mainstream Traditional Media when it comes to covering News
events such as Fires or Police Shootouts for their Blogs,
Hopefully,
as the FAA moves towards regulation of Drones and their usage in Jamaica, our
local JCAA will also move to regulate Drone
usage.
This
as it's my prediction that Drones, after the launch of Digicel’s 4G LTE Network
later in 2015 thanks to their nearly complete Underground Fiber Optic Network
as noted in my blog
article entitled “Digicel's
First Phase of Underground Fiber Optic Network completed - How Digicel's Tier
III Data Center, FTTH, VoIP and Streaming possible in Year of the Sheep 2015”,
will become as common as smartphones by 2017.
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