The Australian Certified UAV Operators Inc. (ACUO) have issued a petition to their members against the notice of proposed rule-making by Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority.

This is the summary of that NPRM (my emphasis):

The AUCO concern seems to be amateur RPAS conflicting with aircraft and gives examples of recent Australian incidents.  They are particularly worried about people with no experience in aviation or model aircraft going down to Harvey’s and buying a Parrot or similar then popping it up near an airport - a well justified fear.  There is no doubt that the emergence of cheap, ready to fly aircraft with capabilities far beyond ‘model aircraft’ of the past is a growing worry.

A quick search on YouTube will show the current capabilities of small UAVs, how about an 80km solar-assisted flight with video downlink all the way?  Or an electric model aircraft flying at 16,000 feet?

All very worrying but what is hard to see is how the NPRM would increase the risk of this happening as the AUCO suggests.  The incidents referred to by the ACUO are illegal now and will continue to be illegal.  The people doing this are either ignorant of or don’t care about the regulations so whatever the regulations contain is unlikely to change their behaviour.  The recent CASA brochure, to be distributed to retailers, will help with the ignorant ones but the deliberate rule-breakers won’t be deterred by NPRM 1309OS.

The NPRM won’t legalise flying near aircraft.  It doesn’t weaken the standard RPA operating conditions that non-commercial craft must follow.  

It lessens the rules for small commercial craft but also removes the ability for those craft to do things that licences commercial craft can do - FPV, controlled airspace, publish NOTAMs etc.  An official CASA licenced operator can fly down the middle of 16R at Sydney airport with the right approvals.  There’s no way a commercial UAV operating under the new exemption can legally do that.

What it does propose to allow is commercial sub-2KG RPAS.  CASA see sub 2KG craft flown within current RPA regulations on a commercial basis as being a low risk policy not requiring the costly burden of regulation.

Instead the AUCO proposes greater regulation, enforcement and penalties however this is an area that would be very difficult to police.  You may as well add children’s helium balloons while you’re at it.

It appears that the AUCO has missed the point as the NPRM proposes, amongst other things, to exclude commercial UAVs under 2KG flying from CASA oversight.  So commercial sub-2kg UAVs would be under the same rules as non-commercial.  Unlikely to reduce incursions by amateur craft.

Chances are that the proposed change would affect the  ACUO members financially..  many commercial jobs can easily be done by a craft weighing less than 2 kilograms - think real estate photography, infrastructure inspection and so on.

"This would only apply in the standard operating conditions, which includes operations in visual line of sight, less than 400 feet above ground level, non-populous areas, more than 30 metres from people and outside controlled airspace," said Director of Aviation Safety John McCormick.

I hope that CASA don’t cave in to preserve the turf of the ACUO.

The advice was originally given to Dustin Hoffman’s character, Benjamin in The Graduate but whereas Benjamin immediately took to the bottom of the family swimming pool in his new scuba gear to escape his parents’ frightful friends it looks like Chad Kapper has taken the advice onboard.

Perusing my YouTube subscription feed there was a new one from FT, always welcome and perhaps less frequent than I would like.

They’re busy people.

They have FliteFest coming up.  As well there’s their road trip to the South of France sponsored by ImmersionRC.  (As a mad Francophile and ‘RCophile’ so it’s agonising that I can’t go - even if I’ll only be not far away in Greece at the time.

When I watched the video it was all business, just Josh and Chad and no planes.. ominous... then Josh said “you need to listen up” so I put down my coffee and sat up straight.  When Josh says “jump!” I say “how high?”.

The news was that FliteTest and StoneKap Productions have been sold to a group called Lauren International (LI).  LI’s web site proclaims themselves as… oh sorry I went to sleep reading what looks like copy written by one of those buzzword generators.  I even slept through the audio that started up when I hit the home page.  Audio on web pages - the blink tag of the new millenium!

LI seems to make plastic extrusions and tubing, lighting, pet products and NaviGate™ some sort of regulation compliance web app.

I knew the comments on the video would be special with plenty of prophecies about the sky falling.

I read a few then commented that I thought that LI didn’t buy FT because they wanted in on the cheap foamboard kit market (hardly a path to riches I would think) but because they wanted FT/StoneKap’s savvy in video and social media.  To my great surprise FliteTest even replied to my comment, and it’s in the ‘Top Comments’ section.  FT’s reply essentially confirmed my suspicion.

It remains to be seen how this pans out - the main risk to the avid FLiteTest viewership would probably be FT losing the skills of people like Chad because he’s got a big job ahead of him: Nurtured Pets have a link to a non-existent channel on their home page, Lauren Manufacturing seem to make about one video a year.. this is a big win for LI, hopefully it will be for FT too.
 

A video report from the Guardian Australia has some interviews worth watching for anyone interested in the current state of play in Australia.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2014/may/28/keeping-up-with-the-dronses-part-1-video

Local UAV merchants UAS International, David Vaile from the CyberSpace Law and Policy Centre, Mark Pearson from Animal Liberation NSW and others talk about where the industry is going.

What interests me is the concern about what "drones" do such as kill people, invade privacy, kill kittens etc. but there's very little concern for the same actions by manned aircraft.  Are errant factory farmers worried about a Cessna flying overhead at 500ft?  Where are the demonstrations about attacks from manned military aircraft?  I guess manned aviation is just too old-hat to be news.  The media like to infer that "drones" don't have pilots, that they kill people all by themselves - this is probably due more to ignorance than deliberate (I work for a news organisation and believe me journalism ain't what it used to be).

There will be a Part 2 to the video which will be posted here once it appears.

Edit: Part 2 has now gone live.

Amazing, an American report on "drones" that is actually positive - it has a very nice showreel video and a basic how to get started blurb with no mentions of Yemen, drones killing US citizens, the FAA or privacy - all that stuff is in the comments of course.

http://edition.cnn.com/2014/05/22/tech/innovation/drone-uav-photography/

The Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority has published a proposal to remove commercial remotely piloted aircraft from CASA oversight.

The NPRM states that it "relates to Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) used for commercial operations" 

It goes on to say "a key part of this amendment acknowledges the existence of a "low risk" class of RPA operations, which are determined as small RPA with a gross weight of 2 kilograms and below while they are being operated under the standard RPA operating conditions as defined and discussed in this NPRM"

"For these RPA operations, CASA proposes that the requirements for a Remote Pilot (RP) Certificate or an Unmanned Aircraft System Operator’s Certificate (UOC) will not apply."

This would be pretty revolutionary given the number of useful tasks a lightweight UAV can perform.  A farmer can freely use a Bixler to survey not only his or her crops but also also the crops of neighbours and charge a fee.

"Safe skies for all" is CASA's motto, leading to some huffing and puffing by some who believe this will lead to nation's airliners sucking in "drones.  I think not having to have a UAS operators' certificate won't lead to an increase of idiots, possibly the reverse.  It may be a sensible way to ultimately increase public knowledge and responsibility regarding remotely piloted aircraft.