UAV's

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are becoming more mainstream; they are often in the news not only for military operations but also for civil operations. Outside of military functions UAVs are becoming linked, with various civilian applications, such as aerial surveying of crops, acrobatic aerial footage in cinematography, search and rescue missions, power line and pipeline inspections, wildlife calculations, medical supplies delivery to isolated regions (PTFS). UAV’s have also been found to be use in such task as policing, forest fire detection, and firefighting (PTFS). Further uses include investigation tasks, environment monitoring, border patrol missions, surveillance, coordinating humanitarian aid, illegal hunting detection, land surveying, landslide measurement, and illegal landfill detection (PTFS).

Currently the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requires that all operators obtain approval to fly their UAVs. Permits are issued depending on the intended use.

Unmanned aircraft (UA) operator must be at least 17 years of age and able to pass an FAA knowledge exam.  Under the proposed rules set forth by the FAA a UA must weigh less than 55 pounds and remain close enough to the operator for the operator to be capable of seeing the aircraft with vision unaided by any device other than corrective lenses (Press Release, 2015). The UA’s can only be operated in the daylight (sunrise to sunset). A complete list of the rules and regulations for Unmanned aircraft can be found in the FAA’s Overview of Small UAS Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FAA).

I think UAV’s will be integrated into the National Air Space (NAS). I believe they will be used by many US agencies for surveillance purposes. The FAA will must determine how to make UAV’s safe and practical for use in the National Air Space. I anticipate there will be some issues with the implementation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in the NAS.  Some issues that will arise are safety, mishandling of the UAVs by individuals and companies with Unmanned Aerial Vehicle approval and abuse by individuals who are not approval to operate them. The only potential perception problem I can see that the general public would have about UAV is privacy issues. Most people would think that the government is spying on them and with the civil operation of UAV people would feel that their right to privacy has been taken away

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have transformed military strategy by allowing them to conduct an entire military operation without using any military personnel.  UAV’s have give the military the ability to make more educated decision, helped save the lives of our military personnel as well as resources. In 2005, tactical and theater level unmanned aircraft (UA) alone, flew more than 100,000 flight hours in support of Operation ENDURING FREEDOM (OEF) and Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF) (The UAV). This has encouraged enormous expansion in the number of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems  (SUAS) that are being utilized on the frontline of military operations. The military does not only use UAV for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions, even though this still remains to be the main function (Gertler, 2012). The unmanned aerial vehicles roles have increased to include areas such as electronic attack strike missions, suppression and/or destruction of enemy air defense, network node or communications relay, combat search and rescue (CSAR), and derivations of these themes (Arizona).

Using unmanned aerial vehicles in the military seems to be cost efficient in the long term.  When UAV technology is analyzed from the standpoint of how much each UAV cost and the training required to operate then it looks like it’s not worth it. But when you think about all the equipment, time and supplies that would be needed for the military to deploy one team to complete the task that the UAV could have completed.  It even seems to be cost efficient when you think about how much money the military will have to spend of medical treatment if someone was injured while trying to complete the mission.   

Now the question is asked, is the use of UAV’s ethical? This depends on whom you ask.  Everyone definition of ethical is not the same. Is choosing your life over another ethical? So I’m not sure if I feel it’s ethical or not. 

With the invention of new and promising technology come employment opportunities. A few job positions that I found being advertised for civilians were for operators, engineers, pilots, systems specialist, trainers, salesperson, software support, managers, avionics, coordinators and repair technicians. The list for UAV job go on and on, but any and every job you can think of has a position that needs to be filled.  UAV employment opportunities can be found on

http://www.indeed.com/q-Uav-jobs.html

http://jobs.uavjobbank.com/a/jobs/list/

http://www.careerbuilder.com/Jobs/Keyword/Uav/

http://www.simplyhired.com/k-uav-jobs.html

Reference

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). (n.d.). Overview of Small UAS Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. Retrieved from http://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/rulemaking/media/021515_sUAS_Summary.pdf

Gertler, J. (2012, January 3). U.S. Unmanned Aerial Systems. Retrieved from https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R42136.pdf

Press Release – DOT and FAA Propose New Rules for Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems. (2015, February 15). Retrieved from http://www.faa.gov/news/press_releases/news_story.cfm?newsId=18295

PTFS Content Managemetn and Library Soultion. (n.d.). The Emergence of Commercial Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Retrieved from http://www.ptfs.com/library/public/ArchivalWare-Literature/The-Emergence-of-Commercial-Unmanned-Aerial-Vehicles-UAVs-.pdf

The UAV - The Future Of The Sky. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.theuav.com/

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV/UAS). (2012, August 31). Retrieved from http://arizonaexperience.org/innovate/unmanned-aerial-vehicles