Domestic-Drone Industry Prepares for Big Battle With Regulators

For a day, a sandy-haired Virginian named Jeremy Novara was the hero of the nascent domestic drone industry.

Novara went to the microphone at a ballroom in a Ritz-Carlton outside Washington, D.C. on Wednesday and did something many in his business want to do: tenaciously challenge the drone regulators at the Federal Aviation Administration to loosen restrictions on unmanned planes over the United States. Judging from the reaction he received, and from the stated intentions of the drone advocates who convened the forum, the domestic-drone industry expects to do a lot more of that in the coming months.

There's been a lot of hype around unmanned drones becoming a fixture over U.S. airspace, both for law enforcement use and for operations by businesses as varied as farmers and filmmakers. All have big implications for traditional conceptions of privacy, as unmanned planes can loiter over people's backyards and snap pictures for far longer than piloted aircraft. The government is anticipating that drone makers could generate a windfall of cash as drones move from a military to a civilian role: Jim Williams of the Federal Aviation Administration told the Wednesday conclave of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) that the potential market for government and commercial drones could generate 'nearly $90 billion in economic activity' over the next decade. $90 billion.

But there's an obstacle: the Federal Aviation Administration.

The FAA has been reluctant to grant licenses to drone makers, out of the fear that the drones ' which maneuver poorly, have alarming crash rates, are spoofable, and don't have the sensing capacity to spot approaching aircraft ' will complicate and endanger U.S. airspace. (Nor has it been transparent about the licenses it grants: The Electronic Frontier Foundation had to file a Freedom of Information Act request to learn who's operating drones in America.) A push last year by Congress and the Obama administration directing the FAA to fully integrate unmanned aircraft into American skies hasn't been nearly enough for the drone makers: The FAA is months late in designating six test sites for drones around the country.

'When will the test site selection begin? I'm sure that's what all of you are asking now,' Williams, the head of the FAA's drone integration department, told the AUVSI crowd. (It'll start at the end of the month.)

Drone makers are also frustrated by the logic of existing FAA regulations. Currently, a drone weighing under 55 pounds, flying below 400 feet within an operator's line of sight and away from an airport is considered a model airplane, and cleared to fly without a license. That is, if it's not engaging in any for-profit activity ' sort of. 'A farmer can be a modeller if they operate their aircraft as a hobby or for recreational purposes,' Williams said.

Enter Novara, a 31-year old who owns a small drone business in Falls Church, Va. called Vanilla Aircraft. 'If a farmer, who hopefully is profit-minded, can fly as a hobbyist an unmanned aircraft,' Novara challenged Williams, 'why can't I, as the owner of an unmanned aircraft company, fly as a hobbyist my own unmanned aircraft over property that I own? The guidelines before this [2012 legislation] were that any commercial intent is prohibited, but''

'I didn't change any guidelines,' Williams interrupted. 'I didn't say that any guidelines changed. I said that if a farmer as an individual wants to operate an unmanned aircraft according to the modeling rules, they can do that. The FAA rules are very clear about for-compensation and hire. If you're going to operate an aircraft for compensation or hire, there's a different set of rules that apply. So, you know, I'm not gonna split hairs over whether the farmer is making a profit or not, nor are we going to go look for him, but the bottom line is the rules are the rules and we have to enforce them until they're changed.'

'So unmanned aircraft companies can operate R&D as long as they're within the modeling guidelines?' Novara continued. Laughter and applause broke out among the hundreds of drone enthusiasts inside the Tyson's Corner Ritz-Carlton.

'That's why we have experimental certificates, to allow manufacturers''

'The farmer doesn't need an experimental certificate,' Novara pressed, 'and everyone knows the experimental certificate process is available but not actually functional.'

Williams conceded that the current FAA rules 'need to change,' since they were written for manned aircraft, 'and that's why we're working hard to get the small unmanned aircraft rule out that will help resolve these issues. Until such time, we have to enforce the rules that are in place.'

'Is everyone else clear on this?' Novara asked, to bales of laughter. Some in the crowd shouted 'No!' It felt like pent-up frustrations were being taken out on Williams, to the point where Novara added, apologetically, 'I'm not trying to put this on you.'

But to the crowd at AUVSI, Novara was a hero. Outside the hall as he walked by, an older man slapped him on the shoulder and laughed, 'Hey, troublemaker! I need to talk to you later!'

Expect a lot more troublemaking over the coming months. And if the domestic drone industry doesn't succeed in getting the FAA to move fast enough for it, it's prepared to pressure Congress to kick the FAA into gear. 'Every company needs to call their Congressman,' said Peter Bale, the chairman of the board of AUVSI. April 9 is the organization's 'Day on The Hill,' when the drone industry intends to put the screws to legislators and their staff.

Novara says that he's pessimistic that the lobbying will do any good for him: he expects it to benefit the aviation giants with established drone businesses with the government instead. (Especially as they're the ones that make the campaign contributions.) He's sympathetic to the FAA's commitment to aviation safety: 'I'm not advocating anarchy in the skies,' he says. But Novara sees a potential for the commercial domestic drone sector to get regulated out of business before a domestic drone boom actually starts.

'If we were all smart guys, we'd be in consumer products, right?' Novara tells Danger Room. 'It's what I like doing. There's just no money in it.'

As the domestic-drone industry gets ready to press the FAA and Congress to loosen regulations on unmanned planes in U.S. airspace, there's something to keep in mind. The FAA's mandate is to protect the safety of air travel ' not the privacy rights of Americans.