How Do You build SA in a Trailer?

Huntsville, AL, is home to the US Army's Redstone Arsenal. It's a big R&D site for the Army and deals with everything from rockets (it is in Huntsville) to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). A recent Huntsville Times article on al.com discusses the need for more UAV airspace. All branches of the military have UAVs and they all need room to train operators. Beyond that, many other government agencies such as police and disaster relief departments want UAVs.

Unfortunately, the only place they can fly right now is in restrictred airspace. No pilot wants more of that airspace, so the only other option is to find a way to give UAV operators enough situational awareness to operate safely in normal civil airspace. That leads many to ask: how can we give UAV operators enough SA to safely operate in this airspace?

You might think that TCAS, or even the future ADS-B system, will be enough to let them operate safely, but you would be mistaken. It would be a sad day if we turned our backs on classic aviation and abandoned all aircraft without this equipment. Even if we took that step and made all aircraft visible on TCAS, this system is not enough to give UAV operators the level of SA they need.

The Huntsville Times article mentioned some type of moblie, ground-based equipment for detecting traffic. Though it may be possible to add some SA with such equipment, I doubt the cost and time for development will be worth the marginal increase in SA it would afford.

This will be an interesting problem for people to try to solve, but make no mistake: we are a long way from UAV operators being able to operate safely alongside manned aircraft. I've mentioned it before and I'll say it again...UAVs as currently equipped are hazards to other aircraft. Even when equipped with SA building systems, the operators are too far removed from the airspace they fly in to effectively use those systems to minimize the hazard they present.

If we can get them enough SA, I'd be ok having them fly around. It will still be less safe than I like, but I know that I can at least train my students to watch out for themselves. In the meantime, why not make this easy on ourselves and fly our UAVs over our vast, empty oceans? We have military bases on the coasts. We could launch and recover at coastal bases or, better yet, put barges out to act as UAV aircraft carriers. We could even potentially house trainees on those boats if we wanted. If the US Air Force operates drones in Iraq from trailers in Nevada, they can also operate drones 100 miles off the coast of California from those trailers. Why pay a lowest bidder millions to equip UAVs with the absolute minimum level of SA-building equipment needed to fly in civil airspace when we could get them all the airspace they need without having to share our skies with them at all?