FAA approves more Drone Contractors – How to use Drones for Journalism in Jamaica the coming Trend after smartphones in 2017

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 12^th 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 3^rd 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 24^th 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 4^th 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.