Hello everyone.
I hope all of you are doing well and keeping safe.
If I read the history of aviation correctly, the biggest jump wasn’t bonfires to beacons
or pistons to jets.
It was convincing the public to become the flying public.
And that involved changing the perception of flying from something done by barnstormers
like Orville and Wilbur – to a safe method of transportation that everyone could take
part in.
The key word is “safe.”
The transportation industry had to prove it was safe.
When it comes to drones, we are now at the same precipice.
American ingenuity is showing us that drones bring significant commercial value to America,
by revolutionizing activities like package delivery, pipeline inspection, emergency response,
and countless others.
The revolution is already here, and we expect that by 2024, we could have as many as 800,000
registered commercial drones.
That’s about twice the number of commercial drones we had last year.
But if we’re going to realize the vision of expanded drone operations, just like traditional
aviation, this industry must show that it can be safely integrated into the national
airspace.
Safety is the FAA’s mission.
And as a drone community, it must be your mission too.
If you operate a drone, you are a pilot, just like I am.
And just one clueless, careless, or reckless drone pilot, in the wrong place at the wrong
time, could threaten others in the airspace or on the ground.
I’ll give you an example: when helicopters are responding to wildfires, if an unauthorized
drone enters their airspace, it poses a direct threat to the pilot who must stop the mission
and land.
As we say, “if you fly, emergency responders can’t.”
At this event, let’s keep safety at the forefront of the discussion.
And let’s consider how we can collaborate in more ways to safely share the skies.
Through the FAA’s UAS Integration Pilot Program, which we call the IPP, we have been
collaborating with state, local, and tribal communities across the United States to conduct
and evaluate real world drone operations for wide-ranging purposes.
Through the IPP, UPS and Wing became America’s first FAA-certified air carrier operators
for drone package deliveries.
Wing is partnering with local businesses to deliver products to people’s homes in Christiansburg,
Virginia.
They also partnered with a school this past summer to deliver library books to kids staying
at home.
And UPS Flight Forward is delivering prescription medications to residents of a large retirement
community in central Florida, so that residents with a high risk of contracting COVID-19 do
not have to go out.
Flight Forward is also showing it can significantly reduce the time it takes to conduct routine
medical deliveries in Raleigh, North Carolina and near Charlotte.
In 2018, State Farm, a member of the Virginia IPP team, operated over people and beyond
the operator’s visual line of sight to conduct damage assessments following Hurricanes Florence
and Michael.
These successful operations led to a nationwide waiver to conduct pre-damage assessments.
As part of the San Diego IPP team, the Chula Vista Police Department is using drones to
enhance the safety of its police officers and the community by providing a pre-arrival
assessment of the situation when they respond to 9-1-1 calls.
For the first 1,000 missions, average on-scene response time was reduced from 6 minutes to
2.2 minutes for priority calls.
The responding drones also provided information so dispatchers could determine the number
of units to deploy, pinpoint the location of suspects’ discarded firearms, and follow
vehicles under pursuit throughout the city.
Also, at Memphis International Airport, FedEx has enhanced its aircraft inspection process
by replacing manual visual inspections with drone inspections.
Using drones reduced aircraft inspection times from three hours to 20 minutes and improved
data collection and employee safety.
And in the middle of the COVID-19 public health emergency, drones are helping people by delivering
medical equipment and PPE to frontline workers.
Companies operating under Part 107 also joined the fight.
For example, Flytrex and Zipline are using their IPP experience to support COVID response
efforts in North Dakota and North Carolina.
We were able to approve these drone operations within our existing regulations using emergency
procedures.
From our IPP operations, we’re seeing drones deliver value to the lives of everyday citizens.
And the FAA is learning a great deal about how we can safely enable drone use and integrate
these aircraft into the national airspace system.
Tomorrow, Erik Amend, Executive Office Manager of the FAA’s UAS Integration Office, will
lead a panel discussion about lessons we’ve learned from the IPP and how these lessons
will inform our drone integration efforts.
We evaluated a wide-range of operations under the IPP program.
Based on what we’ve seen so far, we now need to refine our approach to address specific
technical, safety, and security challenges.
We’re working to establish a Remote ID requirement so that drones will provide identification
and location information that can be received by the FAA, law enforcement, and anyone with
a smart phone.
We received more than 53,000 comments on the proposed rule, and we’re considering these
comments carefully.
We’re in the process of finalizing the rule now, which we expect to publish by the end
of the year.
The Remote ID rule, which requires an electronic license plate for UAS, will support the finalization
of other UAS rules, including the Operations Over People final rule, which will allow remote
pilots to operate small unmanned aircraft over people and at night on a routine basis.
We plan to complete these rule changes by the end of this year as well.
What’s becoming clear is that anyone can do part 107, but that’s not enough.
We’re seeing its limits now.
When we talk about integration, the future of expanded business opportunities will be
in repeatable, scalable, and economically viable Beyond Visual Line of Sight Operations
– what we call BVLOS.
Routine BVLOS and operations over people will need to meet the higher standards of part
91 and part 135, where type certification is required.
In fact, we recently approved Amazon Prime Air’s Part 135 certification to conduct
drone delivery operations.
And we’re encouraging manufacturers to pursue FAA type certification for their unmanned
aircraft.
We specifically developed a process that utilizes demonstrations of Durability and Reliability
to enable a UAS manufacturer to obtain a type certificate for their vehicle in less time
than our traditional process, while nonetheless ensuring an equivalent level of safety.
Expanded drone operations will also require detect and avoid capability.
Manned aircraft have always operated under the principle of “see and avoid” to remain
clear of other manned aircraft and now, in some cases, to remain clear of unmanned aircraft
as well.
Thus far, unmanned aircraft can’t do this.
The FAA is working with industry to research detect and avoid technology.
Reliable detect and avoid systems, either onboard, ground based, or from a third party
provider, will enable us to integrate more complex unmanned operations with traditional
manned operations.
This will be a game changer.
And as part of our Unmanned Aircraft Systems Detection and Mitigation Research Program,
we’re going to evaluate technologies and systems that could detect safety and security
risk posed by unmanned aircraft.
We plan to test and evaluate at least 10 technologies or systems.
The evaluations are expected to begin later this year and will initially occur at the
FAA’s William J. Hughes Technical Center, located adjacent to the Atlantic City International
Airport in New Jersey.
We have issued a solicitation for interested manufacturers, vendors, and integrators of
drone detection and/or mitigation technologies and systems to support this effort.
After the initial testing and evaluation at Atlantic City International Airport, we’ll
expand the effort to four additional U.S. airports.
The FAA also issued another solicitation for airport operators interested in hosting this
research and testing.
The solicitations are out for 45 days and posted on beta.SAM.gov.
Even as technology advances and changes, aviation remains a people oriented business.
We have to effectively connect drone pilots with the information they need to operate
safely.
So we’re taking steps in this area as well.
In 2019, we had more than 162,000 certified remote pilots.
And we expect that number to more than double in the next five years.
These pilots will increasingly share the airspace with other users, and the safety of everyone
in the national airspace system hinges upon them understanding the rules of the sky and
having critical aeronautical information.
Toward that end, we’re modernizing the FAA’s Notice to Airmen – or NOTAM – system to
more efficiently and effectively communicate aeronautical information to drone pilots.
For example, drone pilots need to have access to information about Temporary Flight Restrictions,
Airspace and National Security Restrictions, and Special Use Airspace.
We’re working to provide a single digital data source for drone pilots that is sortable
and machine readable.
The easier it is for drone pilots to access and use the data, the safer all NAS operators
will be.
We just completed a virtual series on Aeronautical Information and NOTAMs, and I encourage all
of you to check it out on FAA’s YouTube channel.
All of this work is foundational to realizing the potential of Advanced Air Mobility, where
a highly automated unmanned aircraft could transport a person or cargo across town or
even between cities.
Over the past two years, this new sector of the aerospace industry has witnessed a great
deal of growth – going from just over 70 AAM aircraft manufacturers in December 2017
to nearly 200 today.
AAM aircraft are not scaled-up drones.
The regulations and infrastructure must provide a higher level of safety that applies to any
operation that engages in the carriage of people.
Integrating AAM aircraft is a huge challenge.
This developing sector crosses multiple domains—regulations, infrastructure, technology, operations, and
society.
The FAA is including AAM into our future implementation plans and efforts.
We have published an initial Concept of Operations for Urban Air Mobility, which is a subset
of AAM, that describes the envisioned operational environment that supports the expected growth
of UAM flight operations in and around urban areas.
We need to figure out how AAM will fit into, and interact with, our existing air traffic
management system, the types of facilities and equipment needed to support AAM aircraft,
and what role automation will play in enabling these operations.
We are actively working with stakeholders to collectively identify challenges, gaps,
and areas for potential harmonization.
We’re working with NASA on its Advanced Air Mobility National Campaign to help communities
learn about AAM and develop confidence in AAM safety.
And just as we’ve done with our UAS IPP program, we will engage with stakeholders
early and often about AAM.
This will help us to address safety concerns and barriers to integration, so that the general
public and local policy makers are onboard with AAM operations in their cities and towns.
In closing, the FAA is working to facilitate the great innovation in the commercial UAS
sector.
But this industry can only succeed if it is safe.
Safety is a journey, not a destination.
We have to continue to monitor, evaluate, and improve our safety approach to drones.
Industry and government must continue to work together in this effort.
Over the last few years, we’ve accomplished a great deal together.
What more can we do that will add even greater value?
How can we collaborate in more ways so that our society can safely reap the many benefits
drones have to offer?
This conference will help us answer these questions.
Thank you, and I hope you have a productive conference.