US considers opening airspace to drones

Arlington County, Virginia With a growing fleet of combat drones in its arsenal, the Pentagon is working with the Federal Aviation Administration to open US airspace to its robotic aircraft.

As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan wind down, the military says the drones it has acquired over the past decade need to return to the United States.

When the nation first went to war after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the military had around 50 drones. Now it has nearly 7,500.

The military then hopes to station them at various military bases and use them for many purposes. But the FAA doesn't allow drones in US airspace without special certification.

The aircraft would be used to help train and retrain the pilots who fly the drones remotely, but they also could be used in emergencies, helping firefighters see hot spots during wildfires or possibly even dropping water to combat the blaze.

At a recent conference about robotic technology in Washington, a number of military members spoke about the importance of integrating drones with manned aircraft.

"The stuff from Afghanistan is going to come back," Steve Pennington, the Air Force's director of ranges, bases and airspace, said at the conference.

The Defence Department "doesn't want a segregated environment," he said. "We want a fully integrated environment."

That means the Pentagon wants the same rules for drones as for any other military aircraft in the US.

The FAA has said that remotely piloted aircraft aren't widely allowed in national airspace because they don't have an adequate "detect, sense and avoid" technology to prevent midair collisions.

Patrolling borders

The FAA does allow exceptions. Unarmed Predator drones are used to patrol the nation's borders through special certifications. The FAA said it issued 313 such certificates last year. The vast majority of the military's drones are small, the size of hobby aircraft. The FAA is working on proposed rules for integrating these drones, which are being considered by law enforcement agencies and private business to provide aerial surveillance.

The FAA expects to release the proposal on small drones this spring. But the Pentagon is concerned about flying hundreds of larger drones, including Global Hawks, MQ-1 Predators and MQ-9 Reapers.

And last week Congress approved legislation that requires the FAA to have a plan to integrate drones of all kinds into national airspace on a wide scale by 2015.

The US army will conduct a demonstration this summer in Utah, testing ground-based radar and other sense-and-avoid technology, Mary Ottman, the army's deputy product director.