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January 13, 2014 10:00 am GMT
Original Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/ISI4BXiPMK4/
Why Commercial Drones Wont Deliver Tacos Anytime Soon
Amazon scored one of the greatest tech PR coups in recent history when it got CBS to put its quadcopter-powered delivery service on air the day before Cyber Monday. Sadly, CBS pretty much ignored that this was a pretty unrealistic proposal for the time being, not in the least because commercial drone flights will remain illegal in the U.S. for the next few years. If journalists aren’t even allowed to use a standard quadcopter to take images of people on a beach, having autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) deliver the latest Stephen King tome to your door is obviously still a while out, too. With the hype around Amazon’s drone dying down, let’s take a look at what’s holding commercial drones back and what we can expect once they take flight. The technology for drones is here, no doubt, but government regulation isn’tand there are good reasons why the FAA is taking things slow. By 2015, the FAA is supposed to create rules for integrating unmanned planes, quadcopters and other flying contraptions into the regular airspace. That’s quite a challenge. For a human to start flying around in a small Cessna, it takes an average of 60 hours of instructions and a written and practical exam before they are allowed to start puttering around in U.S. airspace. And that’s just for the most basic of pilots’ licenses. Even today, pilots mostly use old-fashioned radio to talk to each other and air traffic control (ATC). Controllers can watch them through radar or, if the plane is equipped for this, by using GPS and digital transmissions to get even more accurate readings. Pilots generally don’t see all of this information, though – it’s ATC that relays the info that’s relevant to them. Even in this system, some older general aviation aircraft are permitted to fly without radio. How are pilots supposed to talk to ATC? How could ATC talk to drones? How would the drones talk to ATC? Who gets to pilot these drones and what license do they need? What about autonomous ones? Now imagine all of these drones flying around in this airspace, too. That sounds like a recipe for disaster. Regular pilots scan the sky for other planes whenever possible, but how are they going to spot a small drone, especially during stressful times like take-offs and landings? What happens when a drone suddenly goes haywire and starts doingOriginal Link: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/ISI4BXiPMK4/
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