Droning On

Last July, Coast Guard officials traveled from Edwards Air Force Base in California to Alaska, where they planned to test a remotely controlled surveillance plane. But before the officials and the Mariner drone they were accompanying landed in Alaska, their mission took an unexpected turn.

With millions of acres of forest burning in the worst wildfire season in decades, Alaska Gov. Frank Murkowski had declared a state of emergency. So the Coast Guard (whose motto is Semper Paratus-"Always Ready") shifted gears, deferring its planned pipeline and coastal surveillance missions. Within two hours of landing, thanks to some bureaucratic string-pulling from officials at the Federal Aviation Administration and the Defense Department, the Mariner was launched over the fires, where it began providing live video footage from 35,000 feet to land management officials in Fairbanks through a secure Internet link created for the mission.

"All of a sudden, we moved from an exercise into an operational mission. It showed a lot of flexibility," says Lt. Cmdr. Troy Beshears, the Coast Guard's unmanned aerial vehicle platform man-ager. The test flight also showed the tremendous capability UAVs may eventually bring to a host of federal missions. After several hours of fire surveillance, Coast Guard officials redirected the Mariner several hundred miles away to fly over the Alaska oil pipeline to Valdez Bay, and then over the bay itself in an effort to identify ships in the region. All the while, the aircraft piped data to the desk of the Coast Guard commandant in Washington and to allies in Australia and Britain.

The demonstration was remarkably successful, Beshears says. "You can imagine that if you had a network [of UAVs] tied in to multiple users, if they're operating hundreds of miles offshore and you combined all of their surveillance-gathering capabilities, those become a very powerful tool in securing our borders and maritime approaches."

If regulatory issues can be worked out, unmanned aerial vehicles could be sharing the national airspace with piloted commercial aircraft by the end of the decade. The government's demand for remotely controlled pilotless airplanes to carry out a variety of missions it deems "dull, dirty or dangerous" is growing, largely because of security concerns. The Homeland Security Department is sponsoring a number of demonstrations to test the drones' viability for duty in monitoring borders, tracking ships entering U.S. waters and keeping an eye on major events such as the Super Bowl.

But the few UAVs flying outside military test ranges today are under tight control to avoid conflicts with conventionally piloted aircraft. They must get FAA clearance weeks or months in advance through an arduous process that limits agencies' ability to react quickly to security concerns. It also reduces the UAVs' market appeal for developers who want to expand their use for everything from providing Internet service to delivering pizza.

Under pressure from the Defense Department and other operators that say the safety review process is too cumbersome, the FAA plans to streamline the clearance process with a standard set of rules so UAVs can have access to all six classes of airspace with the same degree of freedom as an aircraft with a pilot aboard.

"Because unmanned aerial vehicles don't have the capability to see and avoid other air traffic, you have to put procedures in place to be able to minimize the threat to general aviation," says Rob Smith, assistant chief of air operations for Border Patrol. The result is the exceedingly complex clearance system. But Smith credits FAA officials with going to great lengths to accommodate Border Patrol.

In late June, Border Patrol began a three-month test of UAVs in southern Arizona, operating in both commercial airspace controlled by the FAA and in the skies over three military installations. Each of the installations is controlled by a different military airspace manager, all of whom have to coordinate decisions with the Pentagon. "It seemed like the group of people we had to work with kept growing every week. Everybody had their own set of rules and requirements," Smith says.

But while federal officials wrestle with regulations governing the use of UAVs, aviation interest groups have fears of skies darkened with drones. "There is no doubt that UAVs are coming, and there is increased pressure on the FAA to approve their operation in the system. It is critical that these unmanned aircraft do not endanger other aircraft or result in restricting airspace," says Randy Kenagy, senior technology director for the 400,000-member Airplane Owners and Pilots Association in Frederick, Md.

UAVs Come Home

The military pioneered unmanned aerial technology as a way to conduct reconnaissance without putting troops in harm's way. But the utility of the vehicles quickly expanded. In November 2002, the CIA reportedly used a Predator drone carrying a Hellfire missile-an armed version of the same aircraft flown by the Coast Guard over Alaska in July-to kill several men believed to be senior al Qaeda operatives who were traveling in a vehicle in Yemen.

Last year, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge asked the department's bureaus to assess how UAVs might enhance their capabilities. The department's Directorate of Science and Technology chairs the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Executive Steering Group, which also includes members from the Defense Department and FAA. Charles McQueary, undersecretary for science and technology at Homeland Security, told the Senate Commerce Committee in June that the department was developing the operational requirements for UAVs and related technology for domestic security missions.

But there is a big difference between using UAVs in domestic airspace and using them in combat or in places like the back country of Yemen. "A lot of people are saying UAVs should quickly enter the [Homeland Security] inventory because they've been proven in combat," says Beshears. "Well, when you prosecute a target in combat, you destroy that target. When you prosecute a target in law enforcement, you do that in front of a federal court and judge. There's a big difference in how you use the data."

Even so, most officials expect UAVs will play a growing role in security. Robert Bonner, commissioner of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection division, told a House Ways and Means panel in June that UAVs are "an essential element of the Border Patrol's revised national strategy." The benefits of UAV technology quickly became evident to Border Patrol officials testing a Hermes 450 drone over Arizona this summer. As a result of surveillance conducted from late June through late August, Border Patrol agents arrested more than 600 undocumented immigrants, seized more than 500 pounds of marijuana and recovered two stolen vehicles.

Next winter, the Border Patrol plans another UAV demonstration in North Dakota, followed by a test next spring in Puerto Rico, conducting surveillance in the Caribbean. By testing different drones under different environmental conditions, the agency hopes to clarify the role they might one day play in border security.

A 21-day test in the fall of 2003 by another Homeland Security agency, the Office of Air and Marine Operations, also showed the promise of UAV technology. Using a leased Air Force Predator, the office was able to gather evidence for a drug-smuggling prosecution that would not have been possible without the drone, says Dennis Lindsay, deputy assistant director for operations at AMO.

Flying a quiet, high-altitude UAV with a high-resolution video camera allowed officials to observe and document a cross-border smuggling operation. "We had a continuous trail from the south side of the border of the suspects until they crossed the north side of the border and up until apprehension," Lindsay says.

File and Fly

For the past 10 years, UAV flights have been handled on a case-by-case basis by the FAA, whose mission is to ensure both the airworthiness and safety of UAVs and their integration into complex national airspace operations. The time-consuming process of obtaining a certificate of authorization for flights from the FAA prevents UAVs from operating like conventional aircraft, which typically can simply submit a flight plan and go-"file and fly" in aviation parlance.

In the case of the Coast Guard flights over Alaska in July, ground observers were deployed to make sure the UAV could take off and land safely. Once aloft, the aircraft did a "circling climb/descent maneuver" in a predetermined position to establish radar contact, after which the FAA allowed it to fly as a piloted plane would. UAV operations along the Arizona border were conducted using the Air and Marine Operations Center in Riverside, Calif., to maintain radar contact, Lindsay says. The center, which is staffed by law enforcement personnel from various agencies, can receive feeds from hundreds of radar facilities throughout the United States, allowing observers to view all airspace activity in a given region.

UAV flight requests generally must be made at least 60 days in advance. After the FAA checks out the vehicle and its components, along with the operator and the flight plan, the agency issues a certificate for a specified period of time, typically a year. During that period, an operator usually can fly at will as long as FAA requirements-which often include a piloted escort plane-are met. Currently, about 32 certificates of authorization are in effect in the United States.

When remotely or autonomously operated aircraft are allowed to mix with conventionally controlled ones, the primary concern is safety. UAV proponents will need to demonstrate that they can see and avoid other aircraft, fit into the traffic pattern, communicate intentions to other pilots, and deal with emergencies such as an engine failure without endangering other aircraft. UAVs do this through the use of an electronic sense-and-avoid system. In the event of a conflict with other air traffic, a UAV can either propose a course of action to its operator or fly itself out of the way to maintain a minimum 500-foot separation.

Until proponents can demonstrate that UAVs can be flown with an equivalent level of safety as planes flown by on-board pilots, FAA regulators are likely to resist easing restrictions on their use. "The challenge for us is, really, how do you certify these things?" says Tony Fazio, the agency's director of rule-making. "Where concerns arise is, how are we going to accommodate those folks without harming anyone else who is a user of that system?"

High Anxiety

NASA, Defense, the FAA and six aerospace firms are working together to establish routine high-altitude, long-endurance drone access to national airspace within six years. NASA, which has extensive experience with UAVs, is leading the project, Access 5. In September 2002, the space agency made news by equipping its experimental Pathfinder-Plus UAV with high-resolution cameras and conducting a survey of Hawaiian coffee fields.

NASA will help define the requirements that will ensure UAVs operate as safely as other routine users of national airspace. "Because we're not trying to make a profit on the decision that gets made, we bring a balance to the issues," says NASA project manager Jeff Bauer. The project is expected to cost $360 million, but so far, the group has come up with less than half. NASA is supplying $103 million through 2008 and industry team members have promised to chip in at least $25 million.

Access 5 will address the foremost safety concern-seeing and avoiding other aircraft-in four discrete steps of increasing complexity and capability. UAVs will be certified first at altitudes above most commercial air traffic and gradually be allowed to fly lower as confidence in them develops. First-year funding of $8.4 million paid for establishing detailed requirements for the first phase, above 40,000 feet. In it, a range of high-altitude, long-endurance UAVs, including NASA's Pathfinder-Plus and the Defense Department's autonomously operated Global Hawk, will be put to the test.

Even if Access 5 succeeds, it will not address lingering concerns about UAV reliability. The June 26, 2003, crash of NASA's solar-powered Helios Prototype shows that there is a lot more to learn about UAVs before the skies are opened wide to them. Built and operated for the space agency by AeroVironment Inc. of Monrovia, Calif., Helios was a flying wing with 14 motors and a wingspan of 247 feet, almost as long as a football field. A high-altitude version of the ungainly aircraft flew to a world-record 96,863 feet in August 2001. A version built for long-duration flight ditched in the Pacific Ocean off Hawaii during a test last year.

In an accident report released Sept. 3, 2004, investigators concluded that the aircraft encountered turbulence, pitched uncontrollably and made a high-speed dive into the sea. They blamed structural alterations that made Helios unstable and sensitive to disturbances. The report noted, "This class of vehicle is orders of magnitude more complex than it appears." But it said that the AeroVironment-NASA team has identified and solved the toughest problems and has built a knowledge base that is adequate to design, develop and deploy high-altitude, long-endurance UAVs.

UAVs are 10 to 100 times less reliable than manned aircraft, according to the Transportation Department's Volpe National Transportation Systems Center in Cambridge, Mass. The Pentagon's UAV road map released in 2002 says, "Improving reliability is key to winning the confidence of the general public, the acceptance of other aviation constituencies . . . and the willingness of the Federal Aviation Administration to regulate UAV flight." The road map recommended a departmentwide effort to lower the annual mishap rate of larger UAVs to fewer than 25 per 100,000 flight hours by fiscal 2009 and fewer than 15 per 100,000 flight hours by 2015, while minimizing cost growth.

The failure rates are a large part of the reason so many pilot groups are against letting UAVs into the national airspace. Yet, as the Defense road map notes, "A UAV will never be lost because a pilot experiences vertigo." It points out that robotic aircraft are not programmed to take chances, mishaps from failed life-support systems will not occur and, with no pilots to distract, the presence of smoke in on-board systems is less threatening.

Opponents of UAVs in civil airspace aren't convinced. "We are totally opposed," says Gail Dunham, a spokeswoman for the Washington-based National Air Disaster Alliance/Foundation. "The potential for problems is too great. They are experimental aircraft, and they do not belong in the U.S. commercial airspace."