The White House released a new flurry of executive orders on the 6th of June, including “Unleashing American Drone Dominance” and “Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty”. This way of rulemaking is unusual and it comes with a peculiarity: deadlines are short, often set in days – and those two orders are no exception.
The first order requires, amongst others:
- “A proposed rule enabling routine Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations for UAS for commercial and public safety purposes” in 30 days, and a final rule published in 240 days.
- The establishment of metrics for assessing the performance and safety of BVLOS operations within 30 days and the identification and description of additional regulatory barriers and challenges to BVLOS implementation within 180 days.
- The initiation of “the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to assist in and expedite the review of UAS waiver applications” within 120 days.
The objectives all make sense, go in the direction of easing BVLOS flights and this is needed. The deadlines are extremely short and this could mean two things: either the administration is very close to establishing the required rules and would be there nevertheless, or the numbers are arbitrary, defined at political level and not at technical level.
As a comparison, international organisations like the Joint Authorities for Rulemaking of Unmanned Systems (JARUS) published the first version of their Specific Operations Risk Assessment (SORA) methodology in 2017 and has continued working on it ever since. The commenting phase of the last version alone lasted for 90 days and now an AI tool should be ready to validate waiver requests within 120 days? That is super ambitious, to say the least.
Rules for the US only?
The current US administration focuses almost exclusively on the US and this is seen in the letter (d) of section 4 of the “Unleashing American Drone Dominance” executive order: “The Secretary of Transportation, acting through the Administrator of the FAA, shall immediately explore options to ensure that UAS flights beginning and ending in United States airspace, or United States-owned facilities in the high seas, can operate without being subject to the onerous requirements applicable to manned aircraft engaging in international navigation as referenced in the Convention on International Civil Aviation.”
In simpler words: a simplified requirements set for drones flying exclusively in the US – so long international collaboration. This is not just a detail. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is far reaching – the only countries which did not sign its convention are the Holly See (Vatican City) and Lichtenstein, whose airspaces are too small and managed by Italy and Switzerland, respectively. Deciding to develop US-specific, non-ICAO rules is against the very spirit of ICAO and is not a good precedent.
On a side note, the wording is a bit strange too, mentioning specific requirements for “UAS flights beginning and ending in United States airspace”. Technically, a flight from Buffalo to Detroit, for example, starts and ends in US airspace but flies via Canadian airspace, making it subject to Canadian regulations.
Digital NOTAMs in 180 days
The “Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty” executive order contains, on top of many drone related elements, a requirement to “within 180 days of the date of this order, make freely available online Notices to Airmen (NOTAMs) and Temporary Flight Restrictions (TFRs) in an open format easily accepted for drone geofencing and Aircraft Navigation and Guidance system purposes. This online availability should supplement, but not replace, existing NOTAMs and TFR promulgation methods.”
An overhaul of the NOTAM system is long overdue and this is not a US specific problem. The objective of this requirement is very noble and its timeline is clearly not realistic. International working groups like the OPSGROUP have started working on this years ago and while there is progress, it is slow. Changing NOTAMs impacts airspace users and airspace managers all over the world and can’t be done quickly.
Drone production and counter-drone systems
The two executive orders also contain a lot of measures for “Strengthening the American Drone Industrial Base”, and “Promoting the Export of American-Made Civil Unmanned Aircraft Systems”, accelerate the development of electric Vertical Take Off and Landing (eVTOL) vehicles, create systems to track drones and drone operators, and also protect critical infrastructure against drone attacks.
Philip Butterworth-Hayes published a great article over at unmannedairspace.info, summarising all the vehicle and counter systems aspects of the two executive orders.
A reaction to Operation Spiderweb?
The timing of those executive orders is interesting. They got signed five days after Operation Spiderweb, the low-cost drone attack of Russian airbases by Ukraine, deep in Russian territory. Is this timing the result of a long awakening process and therefore a simple coincidence, or did Operation Spiderweb serve a brutal and much needed wake-up call? People outside of the administration will never know – everything else would be speculation.
A much needed sign – with an unrealistic deadline
The two executive orders are a good sign for the drone industry. Many challenges like an easy integration of BVLOS flights, the provision of digital geozones, and a lot of regulatory uncertainty have been hampering the development of viable business models for too long. Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) needs a shock and a good push forward.
The deadlines are likely unrealistic and the Federal Aviation Administration has other urgent things to do, but like for the modernisation of Air Traffic Control, the most important thing is to set the cogs in motion.
Hopefully, the deviations from international standards will not be too significant and maybe what will happen in the US will set the standard for the rest of the world – assuming that no corners will be cut – because too much corner cutting could be damaging to a starting industry.
