Agency Still Has A Lot Of Work To Do, Administrator Says…

In several recent speeches, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta has said that the agency has tackled "the easy stuff" as it has created regulations governing drones, and their eventual integration in the National Air Space.

In an interview with ANN CEO and Editor in Chief Jim Campbell on the sidelines of the 2017 UAS summit in Washington, D.C., the Administrator said that now, the agency has to take on some of the more challenging issues.

Among those are flights over people, flights beyond visual line of sight, which raises questions that the agency has not yet had to consider, such as what sort of identification technology to make it easier for law enforcement and national security can better understand if an unmanned aircraft is there because it should be there, or is it being operated by someone with "nefarious intent."

The challenge, he said, is finding the right balance between people who want to use the technology and the potential pitfalls of how they are integrated and kept "safe and secure."

All of the issues on the horizon are solvable, Huerta said. What has to be determined is if those issues will be solved through technology, operations, education, or a combination of those three.

The interview was conducted before the Appeals Court Ruling vacating the FAA's drone registration rule, so that question remains unanswered.

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