Why Don't We Have More Drones Monitoring Wildfires? Remote-controlled drones are much better at flying through smoke than human pilots: their infrared eyes can track the edge of a fire even through the thickest air. When the Forest Service asked the Federal Aviation Administration for permission to use unmanned aerial systems to monitor wildfires the FAA said no but offered an exemption: the Forest Service could fly the drone so long as an operator on board another aircraft could see it at all times.That undermines the whole reason for using a drone of course but such is the curious state of drone regulation today. In 2015 the FAA will pass new rules opening airspace to far more unmanned vehicles and should have guidelines in place for how firefighters and law enforcement officials use drones.Until then organizations have to get authorization from the FAA to fly drones domestically. There's a growing list (and accompanying map) of groups that have FAA permission to fly drones. Groups not on that list have to request permission from the FAA to operate drones on a case by case basis a process that can take days and has limited applicability in emergency situations. And even if an organization like the Forest Service gets timely permission that permission often comes with the stipulation that drones be followed with a manned chase plane. Flying through smoke is a great task for a drone but requiring another plane to follow along behind it defeats the whole point of using an unmanned plane in the first place.Flying tracking the edges of forest fires should be one of the least controversial uses of drones ever. Congress has to approve of the FAA rules before they can take effect in 2015. It remains to be seen whether Congress will respect the difference between drones that save lives and drones that violate privacy. [New York Times]F.A.A. s Concerns Hold Up Use of Wildfire Drones.
Greg Walker the director of the Alaska Center for Unmanned Aerial Systems Integration preparing a drone for launching.
By FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: May 21 2013 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/22/us/faas-concerns-hold-up-use-of-wildfire-drones.html?_r=0.....................................SAN FRANCISCO   As wildfire season begins in Western landscapes that were covered in smoky haze for weeks at a time last summer the federal government s firefighters are exploring the use of small remote-controlled drones with infrared cameras that could map a fire s size and speed and identify hot spots a particular danger. Multimedia
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.With a maximum wingspan of about 52 inches the drones would supplement and perhaps replace manned surveillance aircraft potentially reducing the risk to both pilots and firefighters. But the effort is being slowed by Federal Aviation Administration regulations. The use of drones in open airspace is regulated by the F.A.A. and its safety requirements effectively preclude unmanned aerial systems or U.A.S. s from operating out of sight of a ground-based pilot. If distance or the smoke of a wildfire obscures a drone from observers on the ground a piloted aircraft must be sent aloft to keep an eye on it. “In terms of federal regulations right now we can t use U.A.S. s out there except on a very limited basis” said Ron Hanks the aviation safety and training officer at the federal Forest Service. Rusty Warbis the flight operations manager at the Bureau of Land Management said the process of approving individual trial flights was “cumbersome” though improving. The evaluations by wildfire experts are part of larger questions on how to incorporate these aircraft originally used for military purposes into civilian missions. The drones could complicate the main mission of the F.A.A. ensuring the safety of the country s airspace. And observers in Congress believe that inherent distrust of government and privacy concerns are also slowing the introduction of firefighting drones. Their potential usefulness particularly their ability to pinpoint hot spots and fly in thick smoke that would ground other aircraft was shown in an Alaskan fire nearly four years ago. The fire which burned over 447000 acres   roughly half the size of Rhode Island   northeast of Fairbanks was generating so much smoke that no planes were permitted to fly overhead. But a drone belonging to the University of Alaska Fairbanks was launched and easily identified the extent of the blaze and its varying levels of heat. “The smoke was so thick no one was flying   that s why they came to us” said Rosanne Bailey a retired Air Force brigadier general who is the deputy director of the Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration at the university. “We could fly and see the borders of the fire using infrared.” Kent Slaughter the acting manager of the Bureau of Land Management s Alaska Fire Service said it took four days to get the F.A.A. s approval for that flight in 2009; the process is now down to about 24 hours. But privacy concerns are slowing the integration of unmanned vehicles into the firefighters  tool kit said Senator Mark Begich a freshman Democrat from Alaska. “Firefighting is a great example of how unmanned aircraft” are able “to determine the range of a fire the intensity of a fire without jeopardizing lives” he said. “That s a unique application especially in my state in Colorado in California.” He called the delays in getting approvals for testing the craft “frustrating.” The reason cited most often by firefighting experts is the requirement that the aircraft be followed and monitored by a chase plane if ground observers cannot see them through smoke or because they are flying into canyons in steep and rugged terrain. Les Dorr an F.A.A. spokesman said that safety in the air and on the ground is paramount and that the issue of line-of-sight requirements for drone use was being carefully studied. The Army has lent the Interior Department 41 small drone aircraft that have been used for environmental monitoring including tracking migratory wildfowl. The Forest Service part of the Department of Agriculture has also been studying drone use for years. Mr. Hanks of the Bureau of Land Management said one question was how much value drones would bring to existing firefighting methods. “We are still developing policies internally what the cost benefit would be” he said. The drones Mr. Hanks added “would be competing against what we could do aerially against a helicopter or a light fixed-wing airplane.” John Gould the aviation chief at the B.L.M. who along with Mr. Hanks is based at the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise Idaho had a similarly cautious perspective. “We re trying to get them in the mix and put them out in the field to see the potential” he said.