Designation Will Continue Until 2023

The just-passed five-year FAA Reauthorization bill includes language that would extend the designation for the New York UAS Test Site located at Griffiss International Airport until 2023. The designations for the seven unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) test sites around the country were set to expire in 2019 without congressional action. This extension will ensure that the New York UAS Test Site at Griffiss International Airport, which is led by Oneida County and the NUAIR Alliance, remains at the forefront of public policy development, commercialization, and safe integration of UAS into the global airspace. Since the New York Test Site’s inception in 2014, it has worked with over 200 partners to advance UAS research and to accelerate UAS industry economic development in the region.

“With this critical test site extension at Griffiss, we have delivered to NUAIR and Oneida County another critical win to keep it at the cutting edge of this new technology. In just a few years, the New York Test Site has brought droves of clients to Griffiss, from global corporations and premier academic institutions to partners in government like the FBI, NASA, and FAA. All of which are choosing New York to test technologies that will safely and efficiently integrate UAS into the national airspace,” said Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) in a news release. “The unparalleled work being done in Central New York and Mohawk Valley is exactly what we envisioned when we sought and secured the FAA Test Site in Rome in 2014 and this extension will ensure that continues for years to come.”

Schumer cited important work currently being conducted by NUAIR and Oneida County as one of the reasons an extension was so important. In response to current challenges faced by the UAS industry, the FAA assigned a topic for each site to focus on. For Griffiss and the NUAIR alliance, they are tasked with concentrating on the UAS industry’s inability to comply with “see and avoid” flight requirements because of the lack of an on-board pilot. This has spurred state and private investment that has allowed NUAIR and its alliance partners to deploy state-of-the-art range instrumentation which can track UAS in the air and provide safety-enhancing sense and avoid capabilities. This testing capability, which spans a 50-mile corridor from Rome to Syracuse, was the first of its kind at any UAS test site in the country and has made Griffiss International Airport a strategic location for the emerging UAS industry.

(Source: Senator Schumer news release. Image from the Oneida County official website)

FMI: ocgov.net/airport