On Sun, 25 Jun 2006 09:02:33 -0400, "Morgans"
wrote in ::


http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercu...a/14875403.htm

If the sheriff has any balls, he will tell the FAA to pound salt.

Perhaps this quote from the article has sheriff Baca exercising
prudence and restraint:

The FAA won't authorize the county to use drones until it
investigates the incident to determine whether the sheriff's
Department should face disciplinary action, Brown said.

It begs the question, what sort of disciplinary action is the FAA
authorized to apply in this case? I seriously doubt the FAA can
suspend the airmans certificate of the officer who controlled the
drone.

As long as the RC plane is flown in view of the pilot, and can see the plane, or any
possible conflict to full scale planes, there is nothing wrong with him
flying his "toy airplane."

First, I seriously doubt the sheriff assigned an airman to operate the
drone, so it is unlikely there was any real pilot involved its
operation.

Secondly, if I'm not mistaken, the FAA would require a second person
whose sole duty it would be to observe the drone's operation to assure
there would be no conflict with full-size manned aircraft, as is
mentioned in this 25 year old Advisory Circular:

http://www.eoss.org/faa/ac91-57.pdf
ADVISORY CIRCULAR AC 91-57
MODEL AIRCRAFT OPERATING STANDARDS

The sheriff's department intends to operate their drones over
congested urban areas, not at a designated RC field as is usual for RC
model aircraft. If an engine out incident, loss of control, or
structural failure should occur in a densely populated area, citizens
could be injured by the drone.

That said, I wonder if the FAA will share culpability if they should
actually issue a certificate of authorization to the sheriff's
department.

It would also be interesting to know how big a role the firms below
are playing in this drama:

http://www.ga.com/
www.aerovironment.com
www.aurora.aero
www.auvsi.org
www.boeing.com/phantom
www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Research/Erast/erast.html
www.erast.com
www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/ERAST
www.jpdo.aero
www.lmaeronautics.com
www.is.northropgrumman.com
www.psl.nmsu.edu/uav
www.uav.com/home
www.uav-info.com
www.uavforum.com/
www.uavworld.com
www.ucare-network.org
www.unitealliance.com/
www.uvonline.com www.uvs-international.org