U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

96–926 PDF 2015

ENSURING AVIATION SAFETY IN THE ERA OF 

UNMANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS 

(114–28) 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

AVIATION 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON 

TRANSPORTATION AND 

INFRASTRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

OCTOBER 7, 2015 

Printed for the use of the 

Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure 

( 

Available online at: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/ 

committee.action?chamber=house&committee=transportation 

COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee, 

Vice Chair 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

ERIC A. ‘‘RICK’’ CRAWFORD, Arkansas 

LOU BARLETTA, Pennsylvania 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

BOB GIBBS, Ohio 

RICHARD L. HANNA, New York 

DANIEL WEBSTER, Florida 

JEFF DENHAM, California 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

TOM RICE, South Carolina 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois 

MARK SANFORD, South Carolina 

ROB WOODALL, Georgia 

TODD ROKITA, Indiana 

JOHN KATKO, New York 

BRIAN BABIN, Texas 

CRESENT HARDY, Nevada 

RYAN A. COSTELLO, Pennsylvania 

GARRET GRAVES, Louisiana 

MIMI WALTERS, California 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

CARLOS CURBELO, Florida 

DAVID ROUZER, North Carolina 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

JERROLD NADLER, New York 

CORRINE BROWN, Florida 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

GRACE F. NAPOLITANO, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

ANDRE ́ CARSON, Indiana 

JANICE HAHN, California 

RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota 

ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona 

DINA TITUS, Nevada 

SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois 

JARED HUFFMAN, California 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

(II) 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON AVIATION

FRANK A. LOBIONDO, New Jersey, Chairman 

DON YOUNG, Alaska 

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee 

JOHN L. MICA, Florida 

SAM GRAVES, Missouri 

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan 

BLAKE FARENTHOLD, Texas 

RICHARD L. HANNA, New York 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

RODNEY DAVIS, Illinois 

MARK SANFORD, South Carolina 

ROB WOODALL, Georgia 

TODD ROKITA, Indiana 

RYAN A. COSTELLO, Pennsylvania 

MIMI WALTERS, California 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

CARLOS CURBELO, Florida 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

BILL SHUSTER, Pennsylvania (Ex Officio) 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

ANDRE ́ CARSON, Indiana 

ANN KIRKPATRICK, Arizona 

DINA TITUS, Nevada 

SEAN PATRICK MALONEY, New York 

CHERI BUSTOS, Illinois 

JULIA BROWNLEY, California 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

STEVE COHEN, Tennessee 

RICHARD M. NOLAN, Minnesota 

JOHN GARAMENDI, California 

PETER A. DEFAZIO, Oregon (Ex Officio) 

(III) 

(V) 

CONTENTS Page 

Summary of Subject Matter .................................................................................... vi 

WITNESSES 

Michael G. Whitaker, Deputy Administrator, Federal Aviation Administration: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 44 

Responses to questions for the record from the following Representatives: 

Hon. Frank A. LoBiondo of New Jersey .................................................. 53 

Hon. Sam Graves of Missouri ................................................................... 53 

James Hubbard, Deputy Chief, State and Private Forestry, U.S. Forest Service: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 56 

Captain Tim Canoll, President, Air Line Pilots Association, International: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 61 

Richard Hanson, Director of Government and Regulatory Affairs, Academy 

of Model Aeronautics: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 73 

Mykel Kochenderfer, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics: 

Testimony .......................................................................................................... 5 

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 99 

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD 

Letter of October 30, 2015, from Denis J. Mulligan, General Manager, Golden 

Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District, to Chairman Frank 

A. LoBiondo and Ranking Member Rick Larsen, Subcommittee on Aviation . 103 

Written statement of the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies ........................................................................................................................ 107 

vi 


Insert offset folio 1 here 96926.001
vii 


Insert offset folio 2 here 96926.002
viii 


Insert offset folio 3 here 96926.003
ix 


Insert offset folio 4 here 96926.004
x 


Insert offset folio 5 here 96926.005
(1) 

ENSURING AVIATION SAFETY IN THE ERA OF 

UNMANNED AIRCRAFT SYSTEMS 

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7, 2015 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON AVIATION, COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE, Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m. in room 

2167, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Frank A. LoBiondo 

(Chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Good morning. The subcommittee will come to 

order. I would like to thank everyone for being here. I ask unanimous consent that Members not on the subcommittee be permitted 

to sit with the subcommittee at today’s hearing, offer testimony, 

and ask questions. 

[No response.] 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Without objection, so ordered. 

Today we look forward to hearing from various stakeholders on 

the very important topic to our country: aviation safety in the era 

of unmanned aircraft systems. 

Unmanned aircraft systems, or UAS, represent the latest frontier 

in aviation technology. While still a new industry, UAS are already 

contributing to our economy and changing how companies do business. Across the country, we already see UAS used for a myriad of 

operations, from surveying, photography, safety inspections, medical delivery, and search and rescue. With each new use, businesses 

and commercial users can save time, money, and even, in some 

cases, lives. 

But like any other new technology, UAS bring new challenges as 

well. In the past year, pilots have been reporting sightings of UAS 

near airports at an accelerating rate. In 2014, the FAA [Federal 

Aviation Administration] received 238 reports of drone sightings. 

In 2015, the number has already exceeded 600. Safety is paramount in aviation and the increased number of suspected sightings 

raises serious questions and concerns. 

Some of these reports involved airliners and occurred at low altitudes near the Nation’s busiest airports. Other reports involve pilots of general aviation aircraft in less busy airspace. The real possibility of a midair collision must be taken seriously in order to prevent tragic consequences. 

To be clear, it is also my understanding that some of these reported sightings may involve something other than a consumer unwisely operating their new gadget in busy controlled airspace or restricted airspace. In at least some cases, the reported UAS may 

2 

have been a Government-operated aircraft, lawfully operated UAS, 

or simply a bird in flight. To that end, we need to understand what 

precisely is going on in our airspace: what is the actual risk and 

how do we manage and mitigate it? With retailers readying for significant UAS purchases by American consumers this upcoming holiday season, this conversation and subsequent action cannot wait. 

There are real consequences if we are not cautious enough, though 

we must not go to the extreme which could unnecessarily restrict 

the UAS industry’s growth and innovation here in the United 

States because of the so-called false positives. 

The key is balance, and I believe that this committee, as well as 

the FAA and stakeholders, continue to strive for just that, balance. 

The answer to these questions will be complex, though I am confident that our country can and will address them. I look forward 

to hearing from our witnesses and thank them for joining us today. 

Before I recognize Mr. Larsen for his comments, I ask unanimous 

consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks, and include extraneous material for the record 

of this hearing. 

[No response.] 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Without objection, so ordered. 

I would now like to yield to Mr. Larsen for his opening remarks. 

Mr. LARSEN. Thank you, Chairman LoBiondo, for holding today’s 

hearing on ensuring aviation safety in an era of unmanned aircraft 

systems. 

I am pleased we are here this morning to address this important 

and timely topic of the safety of UAS in the national airspace. The 

number of unmanned aircraft being sold in the U.S. is staggering. 

According to one industry group, the number of UAS sold this year 

could reach 700,000. That is a 63-percent increase over last year. 

Other reports suggest that figure will soon reach 1 million, and it 

will continue to grow. 

So, the natural question becomes who are flying these millionplus unmanned aircraft? Many, as we are going to hear, are responsible and safe users. These include serious hobbyists, such as 

those represented by the Academy of Model Aeronautics, who are 

here today, and commercial users with a financial interest in safe, 

responsible operations. 

But, unfortunately, they also include people who are not familiar 

with the rules of aviation or concepts of aviation safety. There are 

600-plus reports of near misses between conventional aircraft and 

drones so far this year that tells us what we need to do more to 

reduce the likelihood of a drone ending up in the flight path of a 

commercial airliner with hundreds of people on board. 

These 600-plus pilot sightings suggest that allowing anyone to fly 

a drone on or near the Nation’s airways is like letting people drive 

remote-controlled model cars on the interstate. Unless more is 

done, it is not if an accident will happen, it is when. 

The committee staff found some pilot reports in NASA’s [National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s] Aviation Safety Reporting System of some pretty scary encounters. One pilot reported 

that he ‘‘encountered a drone that came close enough to hear the 

propeller noise from the drone from inside my cabin...The small 

3 

size of the drone made it impossible to see until it was too late to 

take any evasive action.’’ And the list continues. 

In addition to risks in the air, unmanned aircraft pose risks on 

the ground. This year an aerial vehicle crashed into parade-goers 

in Seattle, injuring one woman when it crashed into her head. I 

look forward to hearing from our witnesses today about what the 

FAA and stakeholders are doing to address the safety risks before 

it is too late. 

But we cannot deny the extensive public and commercial benefits 

of unmanned aircraft, as well. UAS can be used for search and rescue, wildfire mitigation, as well as the inspection of bridges and 

other critical transportation infrastructure. The UAS industry has 

great potential to drive growth and create jobs. One industry trade 

group estimates that, in just 10 years, unmanned aircraft will create 100,000 jobs, and add $82 billion in value to our economy. That 

is particularly important to States like my home State of Washington, a hub of aviation research and development. 

This committee has an enormous opportunity to be proactive, to 

listen to these experts today, to understand what Congress can do 

to help keep our Nation’s skies safe, and produce legislation about 

UAS that will reflect our safety agenda, while doing no harm to a 

promising industry. 

The FAA Act of 2012 directed FAA to safely integrate unmanned 

aircraft by 2015, and required the agency to issue regulations on 

small, unmanned aircraft. While FAA expects to issue this delayed 

rule next year, this action will provide regulation to safely implement primarily commercial operations. The question I hope we get 

at today is what should Congress do, and what can FAA do, as 

well, to ensure the safety of recreational UAS operations. 

Some have said that section 336 of the 2012 bill prohibits the 

agency from taking any meaningful action to regulate small recreational unmanned aircraft. I would caution against a broad interpretation of that provision, which is crafted to apply very narrowly. 

In fact, in light of all the safety events that have emerged this 

year, maybe it is time to revisit that provision. 

So, I look forward to hearing from all of our panelists today 

about what Congress, about what the FAA, and, importantly as 

well, what the industry can do to keep the integration of UAS on 

track, and to ensure safety. Thank you. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Rick. I would like to really thank 

Rick Larsen for the close working relationship, and also Bill Shuster and Peter DeFazio, on this very important issue that we spend 

a lot of time with. 

Chairman Shuster is not here yet. Mr. DeFazio, some opening remarks? 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Appreciate the opportunity, appreciate the fact of you convening the committee on this 

important topic today. 

Yes, there is tremendous potential in commercial application of 

drone technology. But, first and foremost, we have to establish the 

rules that absolutely ensure the integrity and the safety of our 

aviation system today. We have seen instances mentioned by the 

ranking member earlier of these toy drones in critical airspace. At 

this point we don’t really know what happens when you suck a 

4 

quadcopter into a jet engine. And, at my request, the FAA is moving forward with an evaluation. 

We did, after an investigation in 2009 for Pittsburgh—or 1994, 

Pittsburgh, possible bird strike, they calculated a 4-pound bird hits 

an airplane moving at 260 miles an hour, generates a force equal 

to 14 tons. Well, you have some of these toys up there in the air 

that weigh that much. And so, what could that do, if ingested? So 

we need to know. 

What are the solutions? Well, clearly, there are commercial applications, which the FAA is moving forward with. The issue, I believe, can be kind of drawn between toys and commercial applications. And the toys need to be restricted, in terms of where they 

can operate. That is, they should be programmed before they can 

be sold, so that they can’t fly in restricted airspace, they can’t fly 

over 400 feet. And anybody who is found to have hacked that 

should be subject—and operates irresponsibly—should be subject to 

serious penalties and fines. 

I think we might also have to look at registration. I had an instance in my hometown of Springfield. Somebody, a Peeping Tom, 

was using a little drone, looking with a camera, looking in people’s 

windows. It was sighted by the neighbors, and ultimately it 

crashed. Well, the police have no idea who was operating that 

thing. We have no way to track it back. There should be a way to 

track these things back to irresponsible operators, people who are 

using them illegally, improperly, and endangering both personal 

privacy and, potentially, safety of the traveling public. 

So, I think there is a lot of work to be done. We are going to hear 

today from the Forest Service. We had interruption in critical firefighting activities this summer because of idiots flying their toy 

drones into areas where we wanted to operate aircraft to fight the 

fire, and they had to suspend operations. 

There needs to be consequences for people who do those sorts of 

things, and I expect this committee to work with the FAA to see 

if they have the authority to take proper action against these sort 

of people, or whether they need new authorities, and we need new 

regulations, so that we can divide between people who are using 

them responsibly, whether for recreation, or those who are using 

them responsibly and commercially, and those who are the minority, who are using them irresponsibly. 

I was called by a reporter last week. They said they expect 1 million of these toy drones to sell for Christmas this year, 1 million. 

How many of those million people have any idea—obviously, a lot 

of them live in restricted airspace—what restricted airspace is, and 

whether or not they can operate the drone there? I don’t think they 

know. So there also has to be a massive educational campaign, in 

part, which should be pushed forward and paid for by the manufacturers of these toys, who are profiting from their sale. With that, 

Mr. Chairman, I look forward to the testimony. Thank you. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Mr. DeFazio. I want to thank our 

witnesses for being here today. They are Michael Whitaker, Deputy 

Administrator for the Federal Aviation Administration; James 

Hubbard, Deputy Chief of State and Private Forestry for the 

United States Forest Service; Captain Tim Canoll, president of the 

Air Line Pilots Association, International; Richard Hanson, director 

5 

of government and regulatory affairs for the Academy of Model 

Aeronautics; Dr. Mykel Kochenderfer—am I correct there, Doctor? 

Thank you. Assistant professor of aeronautics and astronautics at 

Stanford University. 

Deputy Administrator Whitaker, you are now recognized for your 

statement. 

TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL G. WHITAKER, DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION; JAMES 

HUBBARD, DEPUTY CHIEF, STATE AND PRIVATE FORESTRY, 

U.S. FOREST SERVICE; CAPTAIN TIM CANOLL, PRESIDENT, 

AIR LINE PILOTS ASSOCIATION, INTERNATIONAL; RICHARD 

HANSON, DIRECTOR OF GOVERNMENT AND REGULATORY 

AFFAIRS, ACADEMY OF MODEL AERONAUTICS; AND MYKEL 

KOCHENDERFER, PH.D., ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF AERONAUTICS AND ASTRONAUTICS 

Mr. WHITAKER. Chairman LoBiondo, Ranking Member Larsen, 

members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss—— 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Excuse me, could you pull your mic a little closer? 

Mr. WHITAKER. I will scoot closer. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you. 

Mr. WHITAKER. OK. To discuss the safe operation of unmanned 

aircraft. 

The popularity and variety of unmanned aircraft have increased 

dramatically in recent years. Many commercial uses are becoming 

commonplace today, including infrastructure inspection, surveying 

agriculture, and evaluating damage caused by natural disasters. 

UAS play an increasingly important role in law enforcement, firefighting, and border protection. 

At the same time, the demand for recreational drones has exceeded anyone’s expectations. This demand is driven, in large part, 

by individuals who are completely new to the aviation experience. 

They are not necessarily the traditional model airplane operators, 

members of local clubs who follow safety guidelines and rules. 

These new entrants are often unaware that they are operating in 

shared airspace. The proliferation of small and relatively inexpensive UAS presents a real challenge. 

To successfully integrate unmanned aircraft into our airspace, we 

must integrate these new operators into our aviation safety culture. 

We want people to enjoy this new technology, but we want to make 

sure they do it safely. This requires education, as well as creative 

and collaborative public outreach. 

This is why we have joined with our industry partners, including 

several seated at the table today, to launch the Know Before You 

Fly campaign. This effort provides UAS operators with the guidance they need to fly safely, and is raising awareness of where they 

can and cannot fly. 

We also have an ongoing No Drone Zone campaign. This campaign reminds people to leave their unmanned aircraft at home 

during public events, such as football games and, most recently, 

the Pope’s visit to several major U.S. cities. 

6 

However, we firmly believe that education and enforcement must 

go hand in hand. Our preference is for people to voluntarily comply 

with regulations, but we won’t hesitate to take strong enforcement 

action against anyone who flies an unmanned aircraft in an unsafe 

or illegal manner. When we identify an operator who endangers 

other aircraft, or people and property on the ground, we will work 

with our local law enforcement partners to prosecute these activities. 

To date, the FAA has investigated hundreds of incidents of UAS 

operating outside of existing regulations. Earlier this week the 

FAA proposed a $1.9 million civil penalty against a company that 

knowingly conducted dozens of unauthorized flights over Chicago 

and New York. This sends a clear message to others who might 

pose a safety risk: Operate within the law, or we will take action. 

We recognize that the technology associated with unmanned aircraft is continuing to evolve. This is also true for the many technologies that could further advance the safety and capabilities of 

these aircraft. Earlier today we announced a research agreement to 

evaluate technology that identifies unmanned aircraft near airports. Working with our Government and industry partners, we 

will assess this capability in an operational environment without 

compromising safety. 

We recognize, too, that our regulatory framework needs to keep 

pace with technology. The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 

2012 laid out a framework for the safe integration of unmanned 

aircraft into our airspace. The FAA has taken a number of concrete 

steps toward accomplishing this goal. 

A key component of these efforts is finalizing regulations for the 

use of small, unmanned aircraft. Earlier this year, we proposed a 

rule that would allow small UAS operations that we know are safe. 

The rule also meets the majority of current commercial demand. 

The FAA received more than 4,500 public comments on this proposal, and we are working to address those as we finalize the rule. 

The rulemaking approach we are using seeks to find that balance 

that you referred to, Mr. Chairman, that allows manufacturers to 

innovate while mitigating safety risks. We also recognize the need 

to be flexible and nimble in how we respond to the emerging UAS 

community. As technologies develop, and as operations like beyond 

line of sight are researched, we want to be able to move quickly to 

safely integrate these capabilities. 

While we have made substantial progress on UAS in recent 

months, we still have more work to do. Recently, the FAA elevated 

the importance of unmanned aircraft issues within the agency by 

selecting two seasoned executives to oversee our internal and external integration efforts. Major General Marke Gibson, U.S. Air 

Force (Retired), and Earl Lawrence, who most recently served as 

manager of FAA’s Small Airplane Directorate. Both of these gentlemen are seated behind me with me today. 

The FAA has a long history of integrating new users and capabilities into our airspace, and we are well equipped to apply this 

experience in the area of unmanned aircraft. I am proud of the 

team we brought together to accomplish this, and of the approach 

we are taking to ensure America’s aviation system remains the 

safest in the world. 

7 

Thank you, and I am happy to answer any questions you may 

have. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Mr. Whitaker. 

Mr. Hubbard, you are now recognized. 

Mr. HUBBARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the committee. The Forest Service, just as a little bit of background of how 

we get into this, our latest fire season we responded to 47,000 fires. 

We had 9 million acres of affected territory. We mobilized 27,000 

people, with another 5,000 in reserve for initial attack. 

The future of wildland fire, especially in the West, is probably 

not going to be much different than that. It—the vegetative conditions, the drought, and the nature of our forests is going to be 

prone to this kind of fire for some time to come. 

Our primary initial attack firefighting tool is aviation. We send 

air tankers as fast as we can. They don’t put fires out, ground 

troops do, but they are an initial attack response. They also support large fire, and our priority is always life and property, so that 

gets the most attention. 

Unmanned aviation systems are also useful to us. In firefighting 

they help us with situational awareness, they help us with communication, they help us with monitoring and tracking fire behavior, 

all safety issues that are valuable. 

Our challenge is the incursions. I wouldn’t say that our statistics 

are significant compared to everybody else’s, but the trend is a little bit worrisome. In 2014, we only had four incursions. In 2015 we 

had 21 incursions. So it is on the rise. Twelve of those incursions 

stopped those initial attack operations. That is not something that 

we welcome. 

And it is further complicated because we are talking about aircraft that operate in a complex environment. We are talking about 

rotary aircraft, as well as fixed-wing aircraft over the fire at the 

same time. We are talking about 150 feet of operational altitude. 

We are talking about, prior to, temporary flight restriction. So it 

is not a simple matter. 

We don’t presume to know how to address this. We rely on the 

FAA. But the Department of the Interior and the Forest Service 

and the State firefighting organizations all worked together with 

FAA and the Department of Homeland Security on the technology 

and how to work our way through this. 

In the meantime, public education is important. When we have 

fire, flames, and smoke in the air, we do get some media attention, 

and we incorporate into that as a regular message that, if you fly, 

we can’t. So, trying to get that kind of a word out so people understand. A lot of this is from those who don’t understand. 

So, our risks are significant, we believe, if something were to 

happen in the air with a drone and our aircraft. Our frequency is 

not that much, but the trend would—is worrisome. We worry about 

the risk of identification and avoidance, so a few problems to solve. 

We also recognize that this is—UAS is a valuable tool that we 

also take advantage of. Be happy to answer any questions. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. OK, thank you, Mr. Hubbard. 

Captain Canoll, your statement, please. 

8 

Mr. CANOLL. Thank you, Chairman LoBiondo, Ranking Member 

Larsen, and the subcommittee, for the opportunity to be here 

today. 

ALPA [Air Line Pilots Association, International] recognizes that 

unmanned aircraft systems, or UAS, can allow us to perform certain tasks more efficiently and safely than conventional aircraft. 

We also understand the value of advancing America’s competitiveness in these technologies. That said, ALPA’s overarching concern 

is one of safety. 

This summer the FAA released hundreds of pilot reports on UAS 

sightings. The FAA numbers show more encounters are happening 

more often. Noncommercial and recreational UAS operations appear to be the primary source. Here are a few examples: pilots operating an all-cargo flight near San Jose reported a close encounter 

with a UAS flying 60 to 70 feet to the left of the aircraft. They subsequently described it as four-bladed and X-shaped. As an airline 

captain, I can tell you if a pilot is able to report this level of detail, 

the UAS is way too close. 

Also, multiple UAS were recently reported by three airliners on 

final approach to Newark Liberty International Airport. In April, 

a pilot reported a blue metallic drone pass about 100 to 200 feet 

under the left wing of the airliner arriving at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. 

For pilots, these UAS literally appear out of the blue. They are 

much smaller than other aircraft. Some UAS do not have lights. 

They have limited contrast against visual background, and they 

move much more slowly than airliners. As a result, these UAS are 

extremely difficult to see in flight. 

[Video shown.] 

Mr. CANOLL. In this example, you can see how the white color 

of the UAS blends in with the sky. Imagine trying to detect this 

UAS while flying at 280 miles an hour. 

The number of near-miss events that have occurred in such a 

short period of time demonstrate the risk. The growth in the use 

of these systems shows the hazards will only increase. The United 

States must put safety first. The FAA is making progress, but we 

need to do more. While work on the final rule regarding small commercial UAS operations is encouraging, the agency must immediately address all UAS operations, including recreational and noncommercial. 

ALPA’s recommended plan, action plan, has four elements. Number one, education. Anyone who plans to fly these UAS must understand the aircraft, the airspace, and the other aircraft that 

share it. For those who want to do the right thing, there are resources such as the Know Before You Fly campaign, of which 

ALPA is a supporter. But we also need to reach, at the point of 

sale, those individuals who may not yet appreciate the danger. Individuals flying these UAS for recreation must adhere to the FAA 

guidelines, including any minimum age requirements, maintaining 

line of sight, and flying under 400 feet. 

Number two, registration. Gathering contact information about 

the UAS purchaser will not only allow authorities to immediately 

identify the owner, but it will also drive home the serious nature 

of operating these vehicles. 

9 

Number three, technology. If these UAS operate in the airspace 

intended for airliners, or they could unintentionally end up there, 

airline pilots need to be able to see them on their cockpit displays, 

controllers need to be able to see them on their radar scopes, and 

the UAS must be equipped with active technologies to ensure it is 

capable of avoiding a collision with manned aircraft. If regulations 

restrict the UAS from operating in a particular location, the UAS 

must have technology that cannot be overriden to limit its operations. Penalties for those who deliberately bypass this technology 

must be significant. 

Number four, penalties and enforcement. UAS pilots must be 

properly trained and understand the consequences of exceeding the 

operating limitations and the possibility of malfunctions. Anyone 

deliberately flying a UAS recklessly should be subject to criminal 

prosecution. Anyone who is operating a UAS and unintentionally 

deviates from rules and limits should be subject to civil penalty. 

ALPA welcomes the FAA’s recent proposed civil penalty against a 

UAS operator for endangering the safety of the airspace around 

New York City and Chicago. 

With this four-part action plan, our country can capitalize on the 

economic opportunities offered by these UAS while maintaining 

safety. Given the safety risks highlighted by the FAA’s recent release of pilot reports, ALPA urges Congress to direct the FAA to 

regulate UAS operated for recreation and hobby. ALPA stands 

ready to help the FAA develop these regulations as part of realizing our shared goal of ensuring the safety of air transportation 

for all who depend on it. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Captain. 

Mr. Hanson, you are recognized. 

Mr. HANSON. Thank you for the opportunity to participate in today’s hearing. I am speaking on behalf of the Academy of Model 

Aeronautics, the world’s largest organization representing more 

than 180,000 members who fly small, unmanned aircraft systems, 

or model aircraft, as we call them, for recreational and educational 

purposes. 

For nearly 80 years, AMA has been dedicated to promoting and 

preserving the hobby of flying model aircraft, while ensuring our 

members adhere to a strict set of community-based safety guidelines. Our National Model Aircraft Safety Code has been recognized 

by Congress and State legislatures as a safe and effective means 

of managing hobbyists. These guidelines have evolved to accommodate new technologies, new modeling disciplines, and, most recently, address the personal use of small UAS. Our membership is 

a cross-section of America. It is a diverse community of youth and 

adults that range from the ages of 6 to 96. 

As you know, there is an unprecedented growth in the industry. 

According to the Consumer Electronics Association, sales in the 

U.S. this year will reach 700,000 units. The growth of the technology and the supporting industry is exciting, and is beneficial to 

our economy and to our society. But, as with any emerging technology, there are policy considerations, such as balancing safety, 

sustaining industry growth, and capturing the public benefits. 

Before I touch on these points, I want to take a step back and 

discuss the current landscape. We have been very concerned about 

10 

recent headlines that portray drones as clogging U.S. airspace, 

snarling air traffic, and giving the FAA fits. That is why the AMA 

[Academy of Model Aeronautics] closely analyzed the 764 records of 

drone sightings released by the FAA this summer. Our analysis reveals a more complex picture than headlines would suggest. 

Indisputably, there are some records of near misses that represent actual safety concerns. And more needs to be done to address those. But we found that the number of near misses appears 

to be in the dozens, not in the hundreds, based on explicit notations in the FAA records. 

So, the most serious incidents include two actual crashes involving Government-authorized military drones. There are also 

sightings of public entities and commercial operators that may be 

flying with or without authorization. And the most recent sighting 

or incident where the FAA has assessed a fine to a commercial operator indicates that the operations occurring in our airspace go 

well beyond hobbyist activity. And others may not even be drones, 

but rather, balloons, birds, model rockets, and mini blimps. 

There is some useful information in the FAA’s data set, but this 

data is only helpful if the FAA, the media, and others take the time 

to analyze and accurately categorize it. AMA has worked closely 

with the FAA for many years, and we are committed to a continued 

partnership to promote model aircraft and consumer drone safety. 

And while the FAA needs to do a better job of presenting the data, 

AMA has several recommendations to ensure the safety of our Nation’s airspace. 

One of the most immediate and helpful things the FAA can do 

to increase safety is to finalize and implement the small UAS rules. 

As they are currently written, the proposed rule will enhance safety by requiring everyone who wants to fly to either participate in 

the safety programming of a community-based organization like 

AMA, or follow new FAA rules for operators for commercial purposes. Once implemented, the new rules will help provide oversight 

and education for the UAS operators. 

At the same time, the FAA should step up enforcement as they 

have currently demonstrated, and work more closely with local law 

enforcement to pursue bad actors. There are existing Federal prohibitions against careless and reckless operations, and many jurisdictions have criminal laws in place. 

In addition, promoting safety through education is another important step we can all take. AMA members know where and 

where not to fly, and do so safely and responsibly. Unfortunately, 

many newcomers to UAS may not be aware of these safety considerations. 

That is why the AMA, in partnership with the Association for 

Unmanned Vehicle Systems International and the FAA, launched 

the Know Before You Fly campaign during the last holiday season. 

Unmanned aircraft systems are going to be a reality within our 

communities, and it is a community approach that is going to best 

address that. This new campaign works to put important safety information and flying tips in the hands of the newcomers. Many organizations from the manned and unmanned communities have 

joined the campaign, including the Air Line Pilots Association that 

is here with us today. 

11 

Finally, it has been suggested that technology itself can be the 

solution. And, to the industry’s credit, many of the leading companies that manufacture UAS for both commercial and recreational 

purposes have developed and implemented technologies that address some of the concerns. While technology can be a useful tool 

for situational awareness, it is no substitute for education. 

In the aviation world, there is a longstanding tradition of putting 

the responsibility for safety in the hands of the pilot and the person operating the aircraft. 

I thank you again for this opportunity to participate, and I look 

forward to answering any questions you might have. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Mr. Hanson. 

Dr. Kochenderfer? 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. Chairman LoBiondo, Ranking Member 

Larsen, and members of the subcommittee, I am a professor in the 

Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University, and I am a third-generation pilot. My research for nearly 10 

years has involved statistical estimation of risk and the development of technology for enhancing aviation safety. 

Personally, I find the rapid acceleration of unmanned aircraft 

technology to be the most exciting recent development in the field 

of aeronautics. The proliferation of unmanned aircraft has made 

aviation accessible, and has inspired a generation of eager university students in a way that we haven’t seen for a long time. The 

growing popularity of these vehicles has also raised concern about 

safety. 

So how do we go about measuring and analyzing these risks? To 

answer this, we must understand that risk is determined by both 

the likelihood and the severity of different hazards. 

First, let us consider severity. A sufficiently large drone can damage any part of an aircraft. But one of the most severe hazards is 

engine ingestion. The US Airways flight in 2009 was struck by 

multiple Canada geese. Of course, a flock of sufficiently large 

drones could cause similar damage. However, flocks of drones are 

rare, and most consumer drones, just like the DJI Phantom, are 

less than one-third of the weight of a Canada goose. 

I am not aware of any engine ingestion testing of the Phantom, 

but it is certainly conceivable that it would cause some degree of 

damage to an engine, but probably not of the severity that occurred 

with the US Airways flight. 

What is the likelihood of a midair collision involving a drone? In 

order for a collision to occur, the drone has to be at the same altitude and the same geographic location as another aircraft. An analysis of radar data indicates that there are large areas of the country where the risk of encountering another aircraft is negligible. 

However, there are portions of the airspace where the likelihood of 

a collision is orders of magnitude more significant. 

There are several technologies that can help mitigate risk. Altitude limits can be implemented fairly reliably, and only require a 

barometric altimeter. Implementing geofencing is more difficult, because it relies on an up-to-date database of geofence locations and 

accurate GPS location. But the safety risks can be significantly reduced with such technology. 

12 

I am not a policymaker, but I believe that it would be wise to 

set altitude limits for drones capable of flying above 400 feet. The 

cost to add this safety feature, if it doesn’t already exist, is fairly 

negligible. Most drones capable of flying above 400 feet already 

have an altimeter. 

One of the first things a new user might do after opening the box 

is to see how high the drone can go. This altitude limit would not 

ensure safety or prevent interference with firefighting on its own, 

but it will certainly help naive users and discourage reckless users. 

Preventing a conscientious user like a firefighter from overriding 

an altitude limit is problematic. The exact approach for overriding 

limits is still being thought through by industry, and I believe it 

is too early to mandate a particular mechanism. 

Altitude limitations in geofences are near-term risk mitigation 

measures, but it is becoming clear that some kind of infrastructure 

is needed to facilitate the integration of commercial drones into the 

airspace. NASA Ames, in collaboration with industry and academia, has been pursuing the development of the UAS traffic management system. However, there is still tremendous research to be 

done. 

When flying in the same airspace as manned aircraft, a senseand-avoid system is likely to be necessary to help prevent collision. 

The FAA has successfully flight-tested the ACAS X system [Airborne Collision Avoidance System X] for large drones, and some of 

the technology may extend to smaller drones. 

In conclusion, the growing popularity of commercially available 

drones presents a risk that should not be ignored. Education 

should play a major role in risk reduction. In addition, there are 

technologies that can be easily implemented by manufacturers to 

help prevent inadvertent airspace violations. It is in the interest of 

the drone industry to implement these safety measures. It is in the 

interest of our Nation to support the research needed to ensure 

aviation safety as our technology evolves. 

Thank you for the opportunity. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Doctor. 

Mr. Whitaker, in addressing illegal UAS flights, do you feel there 

are any additional authorities that the FAA believes Congress can 

or should provide to curtail or penalize wrongful operation of UAS? 

Mr. WHITAKER. We are currently doing a review of our authorities internally, with DOT, and also with other agencies. But one of 

the challenges with this issue is actually locating the UAS operators. It is less a question of authority or magnitude of penalties as 

it is actually locating the operators. 

If you look at these pilot reports, they tell us where the UAS is, 

but they don’t tell us where the operator is. If you contrast that 

with laser strikes, the pilot usually knows exactly where that 

strike is coming from. So one of the biggest challenges we are having is locating the operators in the first place, which is why our 

emphasis has been on education and beefing up that methodology. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. And also for you, Mr. Whitaker, according to new 

reports, Government agencies and private companies have acquired 

and deployed drone detection systems that utilize some combination of radio frequency, thermal detection, video, and audio technology that can immediately locate the UAS and its operator. 

13 

Is the FAA considering similar detection technologies as part of 

the agency’s efforts to mitigate the risk of a midair collision between a UAS and manned aircraft? 

Mr. WHITAKER. We announced today a new research partnership 

that goes just to that issue, that deploys a technology at airports 

that allows you to survey the area within 5 miles of the airport and 

detect radio signals from UAS. So that technology is going into 

testing, and it is one of a variety of technologies that we are looking for to detect drones in the airport environment. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. So you will assess the two testing programs to 

determine how you proceed from there? 

Mr. WHITAKER. We will assess the results of that technology, as 

well as geofencing and some other technologies, to try to develop 

an approach, again, in conjunction with other agencies that have 

a security issue involved here, as well. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. So the pilot programs that you announce today, 

can you give us any timelines on these, of when they will be operational at those locations? 

Mr. WHITAKER. The technology is an existing technology, so we— 

there hasn’t been an announcement of location or timeframe yet, 

but that should be coming shortly. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. OK. Mr. Larsen? 

Mr. LARSEN. Mr. Whitaker, in previous meetings I have had 

within the office, private industry technology folks have suggested 

to me to—that they require registration of the product that individuals purchase, and then share that information with the FAA as 

a way to track or have a database where you can track use, in the 

event of a violation. Have you heard that from private industry? 

Mr. WHITAKER. We have a number of initiatives that private industry has put forth to help in this effort, including informational 

paperwork in the packaging itself. The Secretary himself has indicated that he thinks registration may be one of the answers to part 

of this problem, and we are evaluating that as an option for all 

UAS. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yes, in conjunction with private industry, because 

most times, when you buy a piece of technology these days—or if 

you buy a toaster—you register your product online for warranty 

purposes, as a for instance, so people do this all the time. But—— 

Mr. WHITAKER. Yes. 

Mr. LARSEN [continuing]. The concept that you would then share 

that—that would be shared, though, with an agency might cause 

some caution. But this is an idea that has come out of private industry. 

Mr. WHITAKER. And I think we would have to work closely with 

industry to decide the best way forward for that. We would not be 

set up to take this level of registration data, and we would want 

to make sure—— 

Mr. LARSEN. Yes. 

Mr. WHITAKER [continuing]. It is accessible, if we do that, and 

also that it can be used for law enforcement purposes. 

Mr. LARSEN. Right, right. Can you talk a little more about coordination between agencies, maybe with USFS [U.S. Forest Service]? 

Or an example that happened in my district, we have orca pods 

in the Puget Sound and near the San Juan Islands. They are a big 

14 

driver of tourism, of the tourism economy up there. But people 

have to comply with the Marine Mammal Protection Act. U.S. Fish 

and Wildlife fined an aerial photographer for violating the 

MMPA—that is, getting too close to the orca pods, which then—he 

put this aerial photography and video up on his Web site to advertise himself, basically showing everyone how he violated MMPA, 

and then was fined for that. 

Is that something that runs across your desk at FAA, or can you 

talk a little bit about how you coordinate with agencies? 

Mr. WHITAKER. We have a large number of ways that we coordinate. Under the DOD [Department of Defense] authorization, there 

is an EXCOM [executive committee] that meets on UAS that includes DHS [Department of Homeland Security], DOD, FAA, and 

NASA. We have an interagency group that meets quarterly that includes those agencies plus Commerce [Department of Commerce] 

and others to talk about NextGen, as well as UAS. We have a facility that we run at headquarters that is a 24/7 monitoring of events 

in the NAS [National Airspace System], and we coordinate with 

law enforcement agencies through that. And DHS has taken the 

lead on security issues focused on the Capital, but also airport environments. And they run that, and we participate in that. So there 

are really a huge number of fora that we participate in to have that 

interagency coordination. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yes, good. 

Mr. Hanson, I have had a chance to meet a couple of your members. Your district XI vice president is Chuck Bower and then Ken 

Woblick is the president of the Whidbey Island Radio Control Society there, and they have attended a few town halls. So I want to 

commend you on your grassroots organizing on this issue. 

Mr. HANSON. Thank you. 

Mr. LARSEN. But on that perspective, from a local perspective, 

how would your members look at or—look at registration of UAS 

purchases, and using that as a database for enforcement, in the 

event of an incursion, a potential violation? 

Mr. HANSON. Well, I believe our members understand that registration at some level certainly makes sense. And I think it needs 

to be understood that there is a broad spectrum of platforms that 

are being called drones. 

Mr. LARSEN. Right. 

Mr. HANSON. And the vast majority—I am going to guess somewhere around two-thirds—of the numbers that we have been hearing today are really what we would put in the toy category. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yes. 

Mr. HANSON. They have a very short lifespan, and they have limited ability to accommodate the type of technology that we are talking about. So, as long as we are identifying the proper threshold 

where registration starts to make sense, I think they would be very 

acceptant of that. 

It is also important to know that they are used to a similar type 

of process within our community. Every member is required to put 

their AMA number or their name and address within their aircraft. 

That is for a number of reasons. Hopefully, if it gets lost, we are 

hoping somebody will return it to us. But, beyond that, it also helps 

identify the owner-operator for accountability purposes. 

15 

Mr. LARSEN. Yes, I will just—and on that point, I was noting yesterday with staff that the crabbing industry is big in Washington 

State, as well, and you have got to put your name and address and 

a contact number on your crab pot buoy, in case it gets loose, or 

in case someone steals it. But you have to do this, because you 

need to be held accountable. And so it is the same kind of deal? 

Yes, Mr. LoBiondo, did you have a question for me? 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. LOBIONDO. You could have drones monitor the crab pots. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. LARSEN. That is next. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. That is next. Thank you, Mr. Larsen. 

Mr. Young? 

Mr. YOUNG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the ranking member, 

for holding this hearing. You know, the University of Alaska in 

Fairbanks is named one of the designated area test sites for the 

UAS. But the frustration they have is the certification of authority 

process, Mr. Whitaker. 

Is the FAA doing anything to shorten this process? They have 

been granted, but it takes a long, long time. Why does it take that 

long? Are you improving that time factor? 

Mr. WHITAKER. We are, sir. We have taken several steps. 

With respect to the test sites, we initially issued a blanket certificate of authorization for operations up to 200 feet. We recently, last 

month, increased that to 400 feet. So that really streamlines the 

paperwork process pretty dramatically. There may still be some exemption requirements, but they should be much fewer now. And 

the exemption process itself we have streamlined, but we do a safety analysis on each of the applications, so that does take some 

time. But it should be much more streamlined now. 

Mr. YOUNG. Well, they are very complimentary to your efforts, 

but they just want to expedite the process. Now it is taking 1 year, 

2 years sometimes. And we need to solve that problem. That is 

number one. 

Mr. WHITAKER. Yes, most of the applications have been eliminated now for the test sites. But when they do come, they should 

be measured in days, certainly, not months or years. 

Mr. YOUNG. Captain, what kind of equipment do you have on 

your aircraft for collision avoidance? You say you can’t—you know, 

if you have to look for this drone, don’t you have equipment in the 

airplane that can identify an object in front of you quicker than 

just by eyesight? 

Mr. CANOLL. So, as demonstrated by the video, visual acquisition 

is very, very difficult in any aircraft. 

Mr. YOUNG. Even with the radar system, the collision avoidance—— 

Mr. CANOLL. Well, we do have terminal collision avoidance systems in the aircraft, commonly referred to as TCAS. But they are 

equipped to operate to highlight other aircraft who are similarly 

equipped. So if the unmanned aerial system does not have a transponder on it, S-coded transponder, or isn’t ADS–B [Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast] equipped, it will not show up on 

our displays in the cockpit at all. 

16 

Mr. YOUNG. Mr. Hanson, how did you get in such a good position, 

as far as model airplanes? I mean, for a while, you were under attack, because I remember that when I was chairman of this committee. And now, how did you achieve that? What can they do in 

this unmanned aircraft to make that same strides forward? 

Mr. HANSON. I think the significant differentiation between our 

community and this newer community of users is the approach 

that we take to the hobby. I mean people get into this hobby, at 

least traditionally, because of their interest in aviation and their 

interest in learning how to build, fly, and operate their aircraft. 

The newer communities are attracted more by the technology 

and the functionality of the aircraft, something it can do, such as 

taking pictures. In some cases it is not different from the smart 

phone. I mean they look at it as just an extension of your camera. 

So we have a different mindset within this community, but, in 

our opinion, it does all boil down to an educational process that, 

as long as they understand the means by which they can operate 

safely and responsibly, we believe that the American citizen will do 

that. Not to say there aren’t those individuals out there that would 

deliberately act irresponsibly, but until we can assuredly say that 

the consumer has that information in hand, it is a little hard to 

assess the mentality and the deliberate acts of the others. 

Mr. YOUNG. Doctor, technology. You are an expert in that arena, 

a pilot. What would happen if we required the manufacturers to 

put a kill button in the unmanned aircraft if they got within a certain many feet of an airport? That is really what we are here for, 

the danger to the airplane that is flying, and the pilot who is flying. Could there be technology that way? 

Because it is—most of these are battery-operated, correct? Very 

few of them are run by fossil fuels. 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. Yes, I would say the majority of the 700,000 

or so that will be coming out are battery powered. 

Mr. YOUNG. Sort of like electric fences—I drive my golf cart the 

other day, and you can’t go close to the green because they have 

this communication that stops the golf cart. So why couldn’t the 

technology be applied to any of these hobby drones where the thing 

dies? 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. I think that is what they are aiming at with 

geofencing. But you probably don’t want it to die completely, because then it will fall out of the air and maybe hurt someone. 

Mr. YOUNG. Well, you lose your drone, you won’t do it again, I 

guarantee it. 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. Yes. 

Mr. YOUNG. But I am just looking—the technology. 

And, Mr. Chairman, if I may say, you at this table help us write 

this legislation. Because when we write legislation, 99 percent of 

the time it is screwed up. They don’t really understand the problem 

unless we get input from those people directly—the airline, the 

FAA, the Government agencies, and those that have knowledge on 

how it works. So we have to use your input, Mr. Chairman. And 

I say this from experience of 44 years, that most of this legislation 

we have written doesn’t work. And then, when the regulations 

come in, then we are all screwed up. 

17 

So I am just suggesting we use this expertise. Either solve this 

problem—a danger. That is really what we are here for. Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you. 

Mr. DeFazio? 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was pleased to read 

that the FAA is going ahead with CACI [Conditions AMEs Can 

Issue]. I met with them earlier, and they were going to test their 

technology in Virginia this summer. It has been used in military 

applications. As they explained it to me, they can pinpoint the operator. That is good. They can do numerous things. They can force 

the drone to land, they can force it to go back to the operator. Or, 

in the case of hostiles, they deliver something to the operator. 

So, the question, you know, would be, you know, how quickly are 

we going to move ahead with this? I am very disturbed at the 24 

incursions on fires. How many of those people were prosecuted, or 

were even identified? 

Mr. WHITAKER. I don’t have statistics on how many. But, as I 

said before, it is very, very difficult to track them down, just by the 

nature of the UAS operation. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Right. So—and what about registration? You have 

heard that mentioned. You said you couldn’t handle the volume. I 

mean were you just talking about an online database or something? 

What is the barrier to requiring registration? 

Mr. WHITAKER. Well, there is interagency discussion going on 

about how that would be used, and what the logistics of it would 

be, what would be the best tool for that, whether it is at point of 

sale, how you verify ID, things of that nature. So there is some 

digging into the technicalities of that that is going on now. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. Well, I would hope that doesn’t take too long. I 

mean I already identified that one case in my hometown, where the 

police would really like to know who the person—the Peeping Tom 

was operating that drone, but we will never know. 

So—and Mr. Young mentioned the idea that just—I mean you 

wouldn’t want to necessarily disable them and have them drop out 

of the sky, but they can also direct them to another place. And if 

we have designated safe sites around airports or critical airspace, 

and we use this technology, we could direct the drones there and 

say, ‘‘Oh, come get your drone. We will be waiting.’’ 

So, I mean, this is a very, very—you know, I have been through 

almost 29 years in this committee, and we used to talk about the 

tombstone mentality at the FAA. And you know, I am very concerned about what this means to the safe operation of civil aviation 

in this country. 

And beyond that, I am particularly concerned that it will also 

bring to a halt the legitimate commercial development of drones. 

I mean we take down one plane with one of these toys that someone is operating irresponsibly, or a terrorist uses, we are going to— 

this industry is going to grind to a halt altogether. We need to get 

a handle on this quickly. 

Captain, do you have anything you want to add? Because, I 

mean, it was—Mr. Hanson, I—you know, I am sympathetic to the 

model folks. I used to build those things out of balsa wood with the 

little piston engines that didn’t work very well, and all that stuff. 

18 

So I know that whole area. But we are talking about a whole new 

generation of people, the same people for whom the words ‘‘cell 

phone’’ and ‘‘etiquette’’ don’t go together are now getting their 

hands on these drones, and I am worried about responsible operation. Captain? 

Mr. CANOLL. No, I agree. And to differentiate, I thought it was 

an important point Mr. Hanson made about his members, who I 

generally believe are responsible operators, and those who are not 

part of his community who are operating these vehicles. They do 

have batteries in them, and these are dense, heavy metal pieces 

that will wreak havoc on aircraft. 

When it hits a transport category aircraft, when it hits one, there 

is going to be a significant event. A significant event. Whether it 

hits the windscreen, some piece of the flight control system, or is 

ingested in the engine, this is going to be a significant event. And 

for the flightcrew, it is going to be a very challenging event to save 

the aircraft. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. OK. Anybody want to comment on that? 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. CANOLL. It is not my intent to scare anybody here today—— 

Mr. DEFAZIO. No—— 

Mr. CANOLL [continuing]. But it is a significant event. OK, so an 

accident is never the result of a single episode. You can’t point to 

any particular accident and say, ‘‘That was the sole cause of that 

accident,’’ and I believe this is the same thing. 

When we look at all the risks that we deal with in commercial 

aviation on a day-to-day basis, and we have to assign risks to each 

element of it—weather, traffic, communications, security within the 

cockpit, cybersecurity—we look for mitigations on every single element of that risk. This is another element to the risk chain. 

And should it happen at a time when something else is going 

wrong, we are already dealing with a possible flight control malfunction, or a challenging communications or weather situation, 

and then we hit the drone, in some sort of—and always in a critical 

phase of flight, down below 10,000 feet, which is the highest likelihood of contact, that is when we have the highest risk of an actual 

accident. 

And, you know, I think if you can’t point to a single solution to 

this problem, it has to be a layered effect. 

Mr. DEFAZIO. OK, thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you, Peter. 

Mr. Mica? 

Mr. MICA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding 

this hearing. 

Mr. Whitaker, what is today’s date? 

Mr. WHITAKER. Sir, it is the 7th of October. 

Mr. MICA. What year? 

Mr. WHITAKER. 2015. 

Mr. MICA. And the legislation that we passed in 2012, the FAA 

Modernization Reform Act, had a directive to FAA. And what deadline did it set for you to finish the work that was assigned in the 

law on drones? 

Mr. WHITAKER. September 2015, sir. 

19 

Mr. MICA. So we are behind schedule, obviously. If you review 

the record, when we passed this in 2012—and I believe that was 

February. Was it, staff? Yes. By the next year, 2013, you had completed the plan that is also required under the law, which was a 

good step. 

You didn’t propose the rule until January 20th of this year, 

right? 

Mr. WHITAKER. That is correct, sir. 

Mr. MICA. And you have had—the rule came out in February, so 

you have had February, March, April, May, June, July, August, 

September. We are just into October, so you have had 8 months to 

finalize that rule, and now you are saying that—and the rule—does 

the real rule just deal with the small aircraft? 

Mr. WHITAKER. Small UAS under 55 pounds. 

Mr. MICA. Under 55 pounds. Because I think we allowed a differentiation between small and large. 

And you—at least the testimony I have heard is some time in 

2016. Can you be more specific with ‘‘some time’’? 

Mr. WHITAKER. So the comment period was open until April of 

this year. We have had over 4,500 comments. 

Mr. MICA. But the ‘‘some time’’ in 2016—— 

Mr. WHITAKER. And we are adjudicating those comments, and 

our internal objective is to get the rule out of FAA by the end of 

this year, and it will go through the review process at DOT and 

OMB [Office of Management and Budget]. And last time you and 

I discussed this—— 

Mr. MICA. February, March, April? 

Mr. WHITAKER. Last time you and I discussed the point, we 

agreed on the date of June 17th, and I think that is still a solid 

date, and we should be able to beat that. 

Mr. MICA. So not until next June? 

Mr. WHITAKER. It should be in the first half of next year. 

Mr. MICA. What about large? 

Mr. WHITAKER. So the development of large UAS integration is 

going to depend, in large part, on commercial demand, and also, in 

large part, on technology. So that will develop as the technology develops and the demand develops. 

Mr. MICA. Well, again, I am disappointed. What will probably 

propel this—maybe actually propel your schedule—is going to be a 

very serious accident, an incident. I can almost predict there will 

be one. There are just so many of these now flying, that it is almost 

inevitable that we have a drone hit an aircraft, and there will be, 

probably, injuries and hopefully not fatalities. 

And this—these drones are up to 55 pounds. I remember going 

to a testing center when they would throw, like, a 40-pound frozen 

bird or something into an aircraft engine, and I saw what that did. 

These can do as much damage. And, you know, I don’t need another test to show what would happen. But it probably will happen. 

Maybe that will speed things up. 

You have had how many incidents? You said aircraft with drones 

that were somewhat serious, is it 200, 400? Captain Canoll, do you 

know? 

Mr. CANOLL. So we don’t keep the records that the airline—— 

20 

Mr. MICA. OK. FAA, do you know how many have you had reported? 

Mr. WHITAKER. We are at a rate of about 100 a month of pilotreported—— 

Mr. MICA. One hundred a month? That is 1,200 a year. And so 

far you have sighted about—there has been about 20 enforcement 

actions. Did I hear that? 

Mr. WHITAKER. That involve civil penalties, yes. 

Mr. MICA. That seems very low. 

The other thing, too, is in your plan—and I haven’t reviewed the 

pending rule—do you have a provision for requiring—and maybe 

you can’t do this, maybe we have to do it by law, but hundreds of 

thousands of these are being sold. A simple warning that says that 

you can’t fly this within so close to an airport at such a height, that 

is not on the—required now on the sale of the unit. Is it in your 

proposal? 

And can you do that, and—or should we do that by law? Because 

I think just letting people know when they purchase one of these 

what their obligations are is important. 

Mr. WHITAKER. We have been working with manufacturers to 

have information put in the package—— 

Mr. MICA. Is it in your rule, proposed rule? 

Mr. WHITAKER. The proposed rule deals with commercial operations. 

Mr. MICA. Yes. 

Mr. WHITAKER. And the issue is, really, the amateur operators. 

So we have been working with manufacturers to have the information voluntarily included, and an increasing number are doing that 

now. But we would have to have a rule to mandate it, which, A, 

we are not authorized to do, and, B, would take too long. So our 

focus—— 

Mr. MICA. So possibly—— 

Mr. WHITAKER [continuing]. Is the voluntary—— 

Mr. MICA [continuing]. A law. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yield 

back. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Mrs. Kirkpatrick? 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My first question 

is for Mr. Hanson. 

In your statement you disagree with the FAA regarding the number of UAS near-miss reports with the FAA, that are received by 

the FAA. Does AMA have a data collection and analysis program 

underway to collect near-miss reports from UAS users or airline pilots? And how does AMA substantiate your statement, that the 

number of reports are actually much lower? 

Mr. HANSON. No, ma’am. AMA does not collect that data. We use 

FAA’s list of pilot-reported and individually reported sightings of 

unmanned aircraft. And I think it is important to note that they 

didn’t classify all of those as being what is termed ‘‘near misses,’’ 

or ‘‘near midair collision.’’ They were termed a very subjective 

term, as being ‘‘close calls.’’ And, again, that is subjective and undefined. And, to my knowledge, the FAA currently does not have 

a defined definition or a definitive definition of a near miss of a 

manned aircraft with an unmanned aircraft. 

21 

So what we did in our analysis was to go strictly to the language 

in the sighting itself, and only pull out those ones, or looked at 

those ones where the person reporting the sighting, in their determination, called it either a near miss or indicated they had to take 

some type of evasive action. 

Quite honestly, there is a large number of the sightings in there 

that couldn’t even be termed a ‘‘near encounter’’ of any kind, because it wasn’t even identified clearly as being an aircraft. 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. Do you have a suggestion for a definition of 

‘‘near miss,’’ then, that should be standardized? 

Mr. HANSON. Well, if we are talking about a near miss between 

an unmanned aircraft and a manned aircraft, I believe that, before 

you create that definition, you will need to do some analysis of the 

environment that they operate in, and the types of vehicles that we 

are talking about. 

As the captain cited, we are talking about very slow moving, very 

small objects, that, when seen from the cockpit, it is very difficult 

to give it any type of relative value, in terms of size, speed, and 

even its intentions, in terms of where it is going to fly. So I think 

there needs to be some study done in terms of what actually would 

constitute a near miss, and that is probably more from the perspective of the pilot, in terms of when and where and how he would 

be able to identify that object and to appropriately take action to 

make sure there is not any type of airspace conflict. 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. I would agree with you. If we are going to develop some commonsense policy out of this committee, we need to 

have good data upon which to do that. So thank you for your suggestion. 

My next question is for Mr. Hubbard. Mr. Hubbard, I represent 

one of the most forested districts in the country, although it is in 

Arizona. People don’t think of Arizona as having that much forest. 

I am sure you are very familiar with the horrific wildfires we 

have, and we are really trying to do something with prevention. 

And so my question is a little bit different from just suppression. 

You know, how—what is the opportunity to use drones in fire prevention, and in healthy forests? 

Mr. HUBBARD. They are very useful, in terms of collecting the information and what we are dealing with on the land. So that kind 

of overflight to give us a good assessment of what is out there, 

without taking all the time and expense to go find out on the 

ground, is very helpful to us. 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. And then, specifically, back to suppression, 

how do you intend to use UAS in fire suppression efforts? 

Mr. HUBBARD. Well, primarily, the situational awareness, keeping track of what is going on, where our crews are on the ground, 

how the fire is behaving, and making sure that nobody is in harm’s 

way unnecessarily, and that we can have the right kind of communications with those crews, in case they need to move, and move 

quickly. It gives us a lot of advance warning. 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. You know, we had a tragic situation with the 

Yarnell fire, where our firefighting crew did not know the direction 

of that fire, and it changed dramatically from what was being expected. Would UAS have been helpful to prevent that tragedy? 

22 

Mr. HUBBARD. That is a difficult one to say. I would have liked 

to have had it available. 

Mrs. KIRKPATRICK. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Mr. Farenthold? 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Canoll, you were talking about the need to register drones 

and enforcement and all. Would that be all drones, or are you 

just—is there some size limit, or some cutoff point at which you 

ought to be able to have a toy drone without having to turn your 

identity over to the Federal Government? 

Mr. CANOLL. So it is an interesting question. And the way we approach it is more or less analyzing the capabilities of the vehicle, 

vis-a-vis altitude, range, speed, to see if they could actually end up 

in airspace shared with airliners. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. Like I can go on Amazon, and this is the best 

selling UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle], I guess, they have. It is 

$45.90. I can have it by Friday, because I am an Amazon Prime 

member, for free shipping. But the shipping weight is 1.1 pound. 

Mr. CANOLL. Right. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And it has a range of 50 meters. I mean that 

is 165 feet. You are surely not saying that needs to be registered. 

Mr. CANOLL. If it can fly to 1,500, 2,000 feet, yes, sir. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. But if it only has a range of 50 meters, it is 

only going to get, what, 165 feet. So you are only—— 

Mr. CANOLL. I am not sure if that range is being expressed as 

a lateral range, or if that is the transmitter range or the actual 

physical capability. Following lost link at full throttle, would it just 

continue to climb to 2,000, 3,000 feet? 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. OK, and let’s go over to the FAA. 

Mr. Whitaker, I have spoken to some folks in the UAV industry 

who have actually expressed an interest in working with you all on 

geofencing. Is there any way right now a UAV manufacturer can 

get a list of restricted airspace in a machine-readable format that 

they could integrate into their system? 

Mr. WHITAKER. All of the information about airport airspace and 

restricted airspace is publicly available, and it is pushed out as 

part of the data that comes from FAA. And some of the manufacturers have already started to include geofencing technology in 

their products. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. So is there—so you are saying there is a standardized database that is updated regularly? I guess it is your Notice to Airmen? 

Mr. WHITAKER. Yes, the charts are updated about every 2 

months, sort of in a formal structure, and then, in the interim, 

there are NOTAMs [Notices to Airmen] that are put out to give interim updates. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. And do you have any idea—so you all are able 

to get that computerized, yet you are talking about the inability to 

keep a database of registered owners. I mean that seems pretty 

simple: name, address, manufacturer, model, and serial number. I 

mean I could probably code that, you know, before we finish lunch. 

Mr. WHITAKER. Yes, sir. And then we need to verify that the person’s name is the person who is actually registering it, which creates some of the complication. 

23 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. All right. And let’s talk a little bit about—is 

there a way to integrate these affordably into the air traffic control 

system by putting some transponder or something on there where 

the air traffic controllers or the ADS–B and moving aircraft can see 

them? 

Again, as this technology moves, it seems like you ought to be 

able to get that, basically, on a chip. 

Mr. WHITAKER. So, with respect to amateur use, we really want 

to keep them out of the controlled airspace, if you will. So we want 

to keep them away from airports and under 400 feet, or, with the 

case of the small UAS rule, under 500 feet. I think there still is 

a question whether they shouldn’t also be equipped with something 

that has a radio signal that allows us to track them otherwise. 

When you get to the larger UAS, anything that operates in the 

controlled airspace would have to be equipped with ADS–B, the 

same as an aircraft would after 2020. But certainly that is going 

to be necessary to have any kind of integration in the larger UAS. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. All right. So, finally, let’s talk for just one second about the difference between recreational users and commercial users. A lot of the recreational users like to stick a GoPro or 

some sort of camera on their drone. You then upload that to 

YouTube, and YouTube sells ads on them. And where do you cross 

the line into commercial use and private use? 

Mr. WHITAKER. Well, I don’t think the example you raised indicates commercial use. I think that is a pretty common use of recreational drones. Commercial use is if you are being paid to operate, or if it is being operated as part of your business model. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. I can just see there being, you know, being 

some potential gray areas there, you know. My—— 

Mr. WHITAKER. Always are, yes. 

Mr. FARENTHOLD. My kids put a lemonade stand up and they 

post a video, a shot with the UAV of them selling lemonade at their 

lemonade stand, you potentially cross that line. 

So I would just—my point is—and I would urge a light touch 

there for recreational users who really aren’t being reckless. And, 

obviously, a lot of details there, and hopefully that is what some 

of your test centers that you are partnering with—universities, and 

the rulemaking processes are—but we have got to find the right 

balance between moving quickly, but not overregulating and killing 

a future industry. 

I see my time has expired. Thank you. 

Mr. WHITAKER. Thank you. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Ms. Brownley? 

Ms. BROWNLEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Whitaker, in my 

congressional district, in Ventura County in California, the sheriff’s 

department is the only public agency that currently uses UAS, 

aside from the Navy—we have a big naval base there, and future 

home of the Triton on the west coast. But the sheriff’s department 

has received a certificate of authorization to operate the device. 

They use it primarily for search and rescue. We have mountains 

in the district, so it is very helpful, from that perspective. 

But every time the sheriff’s office operates, they notify the nearby FAA air traffic control towers, and they also file a Notice to Airmen. And, as I understand it, that it not required, but they do it, 

24 

they take the step out of an abundance of caution. Is that something that you, the FAA, might consider in their rule, in terms of 

a requirement that people who are operating UAS would have to 

do—on a commercial basis, obviously? 

Mr. WHITAKER. Yes, the public-use UAS are really quite mature, 

and operated in several ways that the small UAS won’t be able to 

initially operate. The NOTAM system, I think, is an interim step 

to getting us to a more real-time ability to notify other users of the 

system. But that is, I think, the appropriate procedures at this 

time. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. So, I wanted to ask a little bit more on the COAs 

[Certificates of Waiver or Authorization]. I think I read in the documents that there is close to 1,700 or so COAs that have been given. 

So what is the sort of—what is your backlog right now? What is 

the current demand? 

Mr. WHITAKER. I am not sure what the actual backlog is. I can 

get that information for you. We have increased our throughput 

fairly dramatically, so that we are doing over 100 a week now. So 

we have cleared a lot of the backlog, but they are also coming in 

at a pretty good clip. So we can get those numbers to you. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. So do you have any idea of how many UAS are 

being operated without a COA? Again, commercial applications. 

Mr. WHITAKER. We don’t have a way of knowing that, exactly. 

The indications that we are getting from pilot reports gives us 

some glimpse into what is happening without authorization. But 

the numbers are too big for us to track, and we don’t have those 

resources. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. And you said that there—you have now—for 

UAS over 400 feet, or I guess over 400 feet or under 400 feet—— 

Mr. WHITAKER. So for the—— 

Ms. BROWNLEY. It is a standard contract? 

Mr. WHITAKER. For the model it is 400 feet, and under the small 

rule it will be 500 feet and below. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. And so, can you give me a sense of how many 

of these COAs that you are involved in negotiating a special contract for specific use? 

Mr. WHITAKER. So we try to group these COAs as much as possible, to expedite the processing. There have been 1,800 so far on 

the commercial side, and, literally, thousands on the public-use 

side. So these vehicles are actually in pretty widespread use now. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. And you said only 20 or so civil penalties have 

been—— 

Mr. WHITAKER. We have had several hundred investigations. 

Under our compliance policy, our first preference is to get people 

operating in accordance with the rules. And if we don’t have to use 

enforcement, we don’t use enforcement. 

There have been over 20 cases now that have required us to 

issue civil—— 

Ms. BROWNLEY. And what do those civil penalties look like? I 

mean what—can you describe what it—— 

Mr. WHITAKER. So the baseline is up to $25,000 per incident. In the case of the penalty that went out yesterday, it was $1.9 million. 

It involved dozens and dozens of flights over a heavily populated 

area. 

25 

Ms. BROWNLEY. So, in terms of wildfire suppression and the use 

of UAS, does the FAA have any specific legislative recommendations to improve the FAA enforcement authority, or to increase 

criminal or civil penalties for interference with wildfires? 

Mr. WHITAKER. We are evaluating with other agencies the level 

of the penalties involved. Right now it is $25,000 on the civil side, 

up to $250,000 and 20 years in prison on the criminal side. That 

level is being evaluated, interagency. 

The biggest challenge we have, we think the most bang for the 

buck comes from education, because a lot of the operations are inadvertent. And on the enforcement side, the real challenge is how 

we locate the operators of the vehicle. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. And on the education piece, in terms of Know 

Before You Fly, the educational program, materials, is there any 

legal barrier that prevents the FAA from requiring manufacturers 

to include this safety information in packaging? 

Mr. WHITAKER. We are prohibited from regulating for recreational-use drones. It is possible that we could do a rulemaking 

around that, but the timeframe of rulemakings is such it is not a 

particularly viable tool for us. So we are very much focused on voluntary compliance at this point. 

Ms. BROWNLEY. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Thank you. Mr. Hanna? 

Mr. HANNA. Thank you. As a pilot and someone who represents 

Griffiss Air Force Base, one of the six sites selected, I would suggest that there is more unanimity amongst you today than I have 

heard in a long time. 

One of the problems is that we are probably a severe accident 

away from a public cry over why haven’t we done something. 

Whereas, as Mr. Mica kind of implied, or said directly, Mr. 

Whitaker is off schedule, to be polite. And I would suggest there 

is urgency to this, as you know. 

Mr. Canoll, you would have to agree that we are one accident 

away, I imagine, from something that people can’t imagine that 

would create havoc, and be a rush to judgment about a whole lot 

of things that would affect Mr. Hanson’s people. I have an 8-yearold son who owns three of these. If I bought him four more tomorrow, they would be wrecked by tomorrow night. They don’t survive 

well, they are small. 

But—and I don’t see—I would say the Notice to Airmen is really—give the assumption that people have perfect information, that 

people call, investigate, do their homework. And I know, as a pilot, 

people do not. 

I just—I wanted to ask you, Mr. Canoll, it is my kind of unconsidered opinion that these things do not belong near airports. And 

to that end, Mr. Hanson and Mr. Canoll, what kind of—and you 

have talked a lot about this in your statement, Mr. Canoll—is what 

kind of training do you think is appropriate that would—for the 

people that are flying these larger ones, or any one, if you will, that 

you would like to see? 

Mr. CANOLL. Well, if the vehicle is intended to be operated in 

shared airspace, then I think the standard is very close to established, if not already established. And it exists for us, as a pilot, 

26 

to complete our training, recurrent training, and maintain all our 

qualifications. 

If the vehicle isn’t intended to operate in the airspace, then it is 

a matter of putting proper mitigations to keep it out of the airspace, be it from lost links, so the vehicle just doesn’t fly off, or 

from unintentional blunders into the airspace. And that is the importance of the educational campaign that we all agree on up here. 

One element of the educational campaign is we should consider 

testing, where someone goes online, reads the materials, and takes 

a little test. That satisfies the parents that the child knows how 

to operate the vehicle. 

Mr. HANNA. What do you think about that, Mr. Hanson? I mean 

would you rather just stay out of airspace, pick a distance for different A, B, C, or whatever—you are not going to be in A airspace, 

but C or B airspace—do you accept what Mr. Canoll said, that you 

don’t have—you should be in—you should have commercial training, or training as if a pilot, to fly in airspace that may have low 

ground levels near an airport? 

Mr. HANSON. I think we take a little different approach to it. I 

mean we consider all airspace shared airspace. I mean the FAA 

claims their authority down to within 1 inch of the ground. So we 

instruct our pilots, and our educational program is based upon the 

fact that you—there is always the possibility of encountering a 

manned aircraft in that airspace. And we are to take every step 

necessary to not interfere with manned—— 

Mr. HANNA. But you have to admit that there is a lot more likelihood if you are on an airport than if you are not. 

Mr. HANSON. Sure. And as we talk about flying in closer proximity to an airport, then we have other procedures that we put in 

place. But the primary safety tenets is to not interfere and to see 

and avoid at all times, and we have a very instructional document 

that talks about how a model aircraft operator should see and 

avoid. 

And to the credit to the model aircraft community, there have 

not been significant airspace conflicts between true model aircraft 

and—— 

Mr. HANNA. Let me ask you this, though. Why is it important 

that you operate in the same airspace that would be an airport? 

Why does that—what drives you to think that? I am not saying you 

don’t have a right to that, I am just curious why that is important. 

Mr. HANSON. Well, I think it goes to the point that not all airports are created equal. We have a lot of very rural airports that 

have low traffic counts that are in communities where they are 

welcome to operate. We actually have clubs that are collocated on 

airports. 

Mr. HANNA. I have seen many of them, yes. 

Mr. HANSON. And they have—coordinating procedures allowing 

them to operate—— 

Mr. HANNA. So then, implying from that, you might—that would 

suggest to me that there are places where you would say you 

shouldn’t be—maybe C and B space to the ground—and places 

where you could, where it is just general space in a grass strip in 

the middle of Cooperstown, New York, where I happen to fly out 

of once in a while. 

27 

Mr. HANSON. Well, there is no doubt there are locations where 

these types of devices shouldn’t be flown. 

Mr. HANNA. Yes, yes. 

Mr. HANSON. It is not as easy an answer to say that you can’t 

fly C, B—— 

Mr. HANNA. I guess what I am suggesting is that you have a lot 

in common here. And, rather than fight for something that is not 

reasonable, you may want to think about what is really important 

to the people who operate these things for agriculture and recreation at the types of airports that you just described. 

Thank you, my time has expired. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. The gentleman from California, Mr. Garamendi. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, thank you for the hearing, a very, very important one. 

Mr. Larsen, you opened the issue of registration, and Mr. 

Farenthold picked it up, and I am—he mentioned picking up his 

smart phone at Amazon. It is registered. And most everything you 

buy today is registered, at least back to the manufacturer, in some 

way or another. It seems to me we don’t need a Government registration program, but we need the Government to be able to access 

the registration program that the manufacturers probably already 

have. 

It would be very simple to do that. Of course, we could spend 

several years trying to write a regulation to accomplish that, which 

is probably what we will do, because that is our specialty. Why 

don’t we just simply say, ‘‘All of these UAS must be registered, held 

by the manufacturer or the seller of that, and the Government has 

the ability to access that under circumstances relating to an accident or some other incident’’? Fairly simple, but probably far too 

simple for our normal workaround here. 

The question was just raised about airspace at an airport. You 

know, we can go back and forth with trying to find what geofencing 

is, and wait 20 years for some sort of technology to actually work, 

or we can simply say, ‘‘Hey, if you are flying this UAS near a significant airport, a hub airport or a sub-hub airport, you are violating the law, and you are subject to a fine or even jail time. And, 

by the way, if you are flying near an active fire, you are subject 

to a fine and jail time.’’ Now, that would immediately educate everybody involved in this sport or commercial activity. 

Now, the other way around is study, study, study, which is the 

specialty of the Government, or those who don’t want any interference by anybody. 

So, anyway, I propose legislation introduced now, today—actually, yesterday—that simply says if you are flying a UAS within 2 

miles of a significant airport, you are breaking the law, and you are 

subject to 1 year in jail and a significant fine. And if you are flying 

near an active fire, you are breaking the law and you are subject 

to 1 year in jail. Now, that is a pretty clear message. 

So, Mr. Hubbard, what do you think of that, since you tend to 

fight fires? 

Mr. HUBBARD. I think we need some help of some kind, because 

when we are fighting fire, we are at very low altitudes, and in very 

complex situations with a lot of distractions, not the least of which 

is smoke. So it is—the sense-and-avoid is very difficult. And if the 

28 

technology isn’t there for the sense-and-avoid, then we have to turn 

to the education or to the regulation. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Canoll, Captain? 

Mr. CANOLL. Yes, sir. I would love to see—I can’t wait to read 

it, because I think it is a step in the right direction. 

One concern would be with the limitation of 2 miles, assuming 

the reference point is in the middle of the airport, the threshold is 

1 mile from that point, the vehicles could be well above me on approach to that airport at that point. Two miles, I am approximately 

900 feet off the ground from the end of the runway. So I think it 

should be a little larger than that, especially at some of our larger 

airports. If you look at Class B airspace around Atlanta and in 

Miami, it drops all the way down to the surface as far as 6, 7 miles 

from the airport. We don’t want anyone operating off the surface 

at all inside Class B airspace, unless they are talking to air traffic 

control and being controlled by air traffic control. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. How about our little hobbyist? 

Mr. HANSON. Well, it has been a long time since I have been 

called little, but the devil, I think, is always in the details. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Referring to the machines. 

Mr. HANSON. I think the devil is always in the details. And, as 

the captain pointed out, at some airports 2 miles certainly might 

not be far enough. Other airports, it may be adequate or may be 

even too far. 

I mean, if you were a homeowner within that distance, and you 

want to buy your—in my case—grandson one of these toys that can 

be flown in the backyard, I would hate to see him subject to a 1- 

year-in-jail penalty for flying it in his backyard. So I, like the captain, would be very interested in seeing the language of the proposed bill, and having an opportunity to comment on it. 

Mr. GARAMENDI. Well, I will see that you have it in a few moments. 

You know, we get really tied up in details here. And, in the 

meantime, as one or two of my colleagues have said, a time is going 

to pass, and the accident is going to happen. I will say the incident 

is going to happen; not sure it is an accident. But the incident is 

going to happen. We know that, in California, we have had numerous fires. We have also known in California that we are now facing 

a situation where those fires have expanded, as a result of drones 

shutting down the aerial operations. And we also had more than 

enough incidents in the airspace around airports, as was testified 

to. 

So, I think it is time for us simply to lay down a marker here, 

and say, ‘‘If you are operating a UAS in these spaces, you are violating the law, and you are subject to a severe penalty.’’ Now, that 

is the kind of education program that somebody might pay attention to. And if your grandchildren happen to be near that runway, 

and they are flying their little UAS that you kindly bought them 

that is somehow interfering with the approach of the captain into 

Atlanta airport, I am sorry, but the kid is breaking the law. And, 

as the responsible adult, you should also be held accountable, because we are talking about serious, very serious potential problems. 

29 

Yield back my time, and I will deliver a copy of the legislation 

to you. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Mr. Rokita? 

Mr. ROKITA. Thank you, Chairman. Good morning, everyone. I 

appreciate your testimony. 

Mr. Whitaker, it seems to me that folks in general aviation could 

work closely with drone operators and owners to help educate and 

train on these rules that are forthcoming, and different best practices for operations. Have you, as the FAA, reached out to any GA 

[general aviation] organizations or associations? 

Mr. WHITAKER. I don’t have specific examples of that. I agree, 

that that is an important aspect to this. 

I think one of the things that we are looking at is this question 

of airspace, and how it is defined. Because right now the law—— 

Mr. ROKITA. That is not my question. 

Mr. WHITAKER. I am sorry. 

Mr. ROKITA. So you think it is a good idea. So will you—you will 

commit to reach out? 

Mr. WHITAKER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ROKITA. OK. To who? 

Mr. WHITAKER. To general aviation community—— 

Mr. ROKITA. Like who? 

Mr. WHITAKER. Well, we usually work through AOPA [Aircraft 

Owners and Pilots Association] and small airport associations. 

Mr. ROKITA. Would it—it is in your authority to reach out to 

them? 

Mr. WHITAKER. Absolutely. 

Mr. ROKITA. OK. So we will do that by what date, do you think? 

It doesn’t necessarily have to be AOPA, but you say it is a good 

idea, I just want to get you on record when we can start moving 

to build partnerships where they make most sense. When can you 

do that by? 

Mr. WHITAKER. If you would like, I can report back to you within 

30 days on what—our plan to do that. 

Mr. ROKITA. No, I—just tell us now when—you know, when you 

can make a phone call, when you can write a letter. When can you 

get these guys involved? 

Mr. WHITAKER. Yes, in the next 4 weeks. 

Mr. ROKITA. Great, thank you very much. Depending on the time 

of year, farmers may be out in the fields, wanting to use these machines. And I have—in Indiana there is farm operations 24/7, probably starting right now. And I think the proposed rule, 107.29, only 

allows day operations. Are you considering modifying that at all, or 

are you going to be strict on the day operations? 

Mr. WHITAKER. The rule—— 

Mr. ROKITA. Because I could see, in a farm field, where it could 

be—these machines can be used all around the clock. 

Mr. WHITAKER. So night operations is one of the areas that is 

being researched, and it could be allowed by exemption. But as 

soon as we can find ways to do that safely, that is something we 

would like to allow. 

Mr. ROKITA. OK. I appreciate that. 

Captain, thanks for your testimony, as well. How do your members know—when you talk about these near-miss sightings, and 

30 

these reports of UAS, how do you know it is what they saw versus, 

you know, a balloon that a kid let go a while ago, which I see in 

my aircraft from time to time—try to do a circle around it—safely, 

of course. Or even a UFO [unidentified flying object]. You can go 

on cable at night, anywhere from 11 o’clock to 3 o’clock in the 

morning, and hear all these pilots’ stories about UFOs. How do we 

know we saw a UAS, and what specifically does ALPA do to verify 

the sightings? 

Mr. CANOLL. So there is a redundant set of eyes in the cockpit. 

And, hopefully, both pilots can lay their eyes on the—— 

Mr. ROKITA. So all these reports are double sightings? 

Mr. CANOLL. Not always, especially if the aircraft was only down 

one side of the aircraft for—— 

Mr. ROKITA. Right. 

Mr. CANOLL. You may only get the captain or the first officer’s—— 

Mr. ROKITA. Right. 

Mr. CANOLL. And they are small vehicles, and they are moving 

quickly, we are moving quickly, they—— 

Mr. ROKITA. As your video depicts, it is hard to see these things. 

So how are we so sure—I mean, Mr. Whitaker, you were picked on 

by my good friend, John Mica, for only having 20 civil penalty 

cases. But, in all fairness, couldn’t it be that you couldn’t verify 

that these were even UAS to begin with? 

Mr. CANOLL. You have to rely on the pilot’s opinion of what he 

saw. We do see a lot of balloons. 

Mr. ROKITA. But pilots aren’t God. 

Mr. CANOLL. No, sir. No one is asserting—— 

Mr. ROKITA. Right, so we shouldn’t even necessarily on this panel 

or in America accept the premise that all these sightings or nearmiss UAS sightings are really, in fact, UAS to begin with, should 

we? 

Mr. CANOLL. No, sir, not all of them. 

Mr. ROKITA. Right. 

Mr. CANOLL. But many of them are in the—— 

Mr. ROKITA. How do you know how many, though? That is 

my—— 

Mr. CANOLL. I don’t know how many, sir. 

Mr. ROKITA. So we don’t even know how many. 

Mr. CANOLL. Quite a few more, and with the proliferation of the 

expansion to 1 million more of these, potentially, next year, even 

if a small percentage of them were UAS, I think we have a problem. 

Mr. ROKITA. Well, that may be, but we don’t know what we are 

talking about, because we can’t even quantify it. There’s millions 

of birds, too. Right? 

Mr. CANOLL. I agree, that the fidelity—— 

Mr. ROKITA. That reminds me, Dr. Kochenderfer, you talk about 

Canadian geese being so much heavier. And the assumption in 

your testimony—at least something I took—is that birds are still 

certainly, or at least potentially, more dangerous. Yet the captain 

says, ‘‘Well, you know, there’s metal batteries in these things, and 

they are dangerous, too.’’ Can you elaborate on your testimony? 

31 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. Yes, definitely. It depends entirely on the 

platform. I mean there are some drones that—there is one drone 

that came out last week that can fit on your fingertips, and weighs 

the same as three pennies. There are others, like the Phantom, 

that is one-third the weight of a Canada goose. There are others 

that have, like, a 10-foot wing span and weigh 30 pounds. So it 

really depends. 

Mr. ROKITA. Yes, so you can’t quantify it. 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. That is right. 

Mr. ROKITA. And in the time I have remaining, I want to go into 

the commercial licensing structure, Captain Canoll. Your organization is recommending a commercial pilot’s license, yet the flight 

characteristics of these drones, the stall characteristics, are completely different. 

I have a commercial license, and it is basically a VFR ticket that 

is met with higher specifications. I don’t understand why we need 

a commercial license. I am not getting that, and I am wanting to 

assume it is simply because you are worried about job protection, 

you are worried about the one day that these operators might—or 

these unmanned vehicles might take away a pilot’s job. 

Mr. CANOLL. No, sir, that is not the concern with the commercial 

operations. Operations for remuneration on all modes of transportation, be it a taxicab, an airplane, a sea-going vessel, all require 

commercial operations—— 

Mr. ROKITA. Right. 

Mr. CANOLL [continuing]. And that is the basis of—— 

Mr. ROKITA. Because it is revenue-generating. 

Mr. CANOLL. Correct. 

Mr. ROKITA. So, in fact, you are worried about the revenue-generating impact of this, not necessarily the safety impact of this—— 

Mr. CANOLL. There is a higher expectation of safety when you 

pay for a service. Yes, sir. There is a safety element, as well. 

Mr. ROKITA. Thank you. My time has expired. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Mr. Capuano? 

Mr. CAPUANO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, gentlemen. 

I am not going to say anything you don’t already know, so you can 

go to sleep, it doesn’t much matter. 

But to be perfectly honest, I just got off a plane. If a drone pulls 

down a plane that I am on, I guarantee you everybody you represent is going to get sued. And if you put me on a jury on a case 

like that, you are all going to lose. Because we can do something. 

Maybe it is not perfect yet. I am sure it is not, because this is a 

new and evolving technology. 

But doing nothing in the face of a clear danger is not an excuse, 

to be perfectly honest. Getting it right over time, fine. But we 

should be doing stuff. Putting an educational packet—look, I own 

two drones. Not really big ones. I haven’t got a clue what the heck 

I am doing with them, either. I really stink at it, which, of course, 

is a danger. 

Now, I don’t know about the 2-mile limit on the airport, I live 

within 2 miles of an airport, and probably a lot of my constituents 

live a lot closer than that. I don’t know. I wouldn’t intentionally try 

to bring down a plane, but Christmas presents, Christmas Day, 

32 

some kid doing something on a drone you can get out of 

Brookstone, nothing special. This is crazy. 

We can do it on automobiles, we can do it on my phone. If I drop 

this phone today, right now, some very smart 15-year-old technology kid could figure out where I bought it, who it belongs to, 

where I was yesterday, who I called, et cetera, et cetera. Yet, if it 

happens to a drone, nobody knows. ‘‘Well, I saw something, I don’t 

know what it was.’’ Come on. You can put VIN numbers on it, you 

can put all kinds of wonderful, tiny little technology on it, even in 

something as small as your finger. And if you can’t do it, I can— 

not me—I can find people who can do it, to be able to track it 

down. 

Never mind the regulations. Now, I am all for those thoughtful 

regulations, thoughtful licensing. Not a problem. I am not trying to 

shut down the technology at all. I think this technology is opening 

up a wonderful new frontier, both for hobbyists and for professionals at all kinds of levels. But it also presents a danger, and 

that danger shouldn’t be accepted. And just because it is difficult, 

doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do something. 

So, I don’t really have any questions, because I know you can do 

it. I just see a reluctance to do it, especially from the FAA. And 

I don’t understand it. I don’t understand it at all. Do something before somebody loses their life on this. I don’t want to be here, 

yelling at you for having done nothing. That is no fun. And I certainly don’t want to be yelling at you if it is somebody I know, and 

somebody I love, or somebody you know and somebody you love, or 

somebody in your profession. This is crazy. Just get it done. 

Now, again, I understand it won’t be the last item. I know that 

this is an evolving thing. I know that coming up with smaller 

things and bigger uses—and I am not so sure about the 2-mile radius, because there are some parts of a 2-mile radius that there’s 

no planes at all. But I also know that there are some places beyond 

2 miles that it does. So I am not sure what the answer is. 

You guys know it. You already know it. I am not trying to involve myself, or trying to prohibit any hobbyist from doing anything that is reasonable and thoughtful. And I think that 99 percent of the people who are using these things are well intended, 

and just might make accidents. But accidents didn’t stop us from 

putting VIN numbers on automobiles, on 15 different places on 

automobiles. Accidents happen. 

But there are also some people that are bad people. And if there 

are bad people out there doing bad things, we haven’t done anything that I know of to be able to allow us to find them. If somebody intentionally goes out to Logan International Airport tomorrow and sits in East Boston and flies a drone intentionally into a 

plane to kill somebody, we have allowed the technology to not exist. 

And it exists easily to be able to find that perpetrator. So you can 

have all the criminal prosecutions in the world. If you can’t find 

them, it is not going to help. You can find my phone, you can find 

my automobile. Heck, for all I know, you can probably find my underwear. I don’t know. But we can’t find drone owners, because we 

haven’t required a simple item to be installed. If you want to do 

size, do size. 

33 

By the way, at Logan we have a lot of geese. You can’t control 

geese. But we chase them around. We get dogs to chase them 

around. They have a great time. We do something. Maybe there are 

better ways to do it, but we do something. Something is always better than nothing in the face of a known danger. 

Like I said, I wasn’t going to say anything you didn’t already 

know, but thank you for listening. 

Mr. LOBIONDO. Mr. Meadows? 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. K—I will call you Dr. K. Let me go to you. 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. That is what my students call me. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Let me go to you. In your opening testimony you 

talked about midair collisions, and how the magnitude would be 

more significant in certain areas, and negligible in others. Can you 

elaborate a little bit more on that? 

Coming from the rural area of western North Carolina, where 

you would assume most of it would be safe, but there’s a number 

of small airstrips, grass strips, et cetera. So illuminate, if you 

would. 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. Yes. So when I was at Lincoln Laboratory, 

we got a stream of radar data from all of the FAA and DOD radars, 

and we estimated the density across the United States at different 

altitude layers, and so forth. And there are a lot of areas where we 

just didn’t see anything in 9 months. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So could we put forth certain counties where we 

have drone-free zones, or drone-permissible—are there certain 

counties across the country where there is relatively little if no 

chance of having interaction with an aircraft? 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. I guess that could be a—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. That is a loaded question, so go ahead. 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. It depends so much upon the altitude, right? 

Mr. MEADOWS. Yes. 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. So that has to be part of the figure. 

I mean I wouldn’t—even over rural North Dakota or whatever, 

you shouldn’t be at 20,000 feet. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. So let me go further, then. How would 

you classify ‘‘near miss’’? What is your definition? 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. So I did a lot of collision risk estimation for 

TCAS. TCAS was mentioned earlier. It is a collision avoidance system for manned aircraft, and the FAA is working on a version for 

unmanned aircraft. And as part of that analysis, we used a definition of 500 feet laterally, and 100 feet vertically. So that is for 

manned aircraft. 

And there is nothing magical about this definition, it is just 

what—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. So, Captain, would you agree with that definition 

of ‘‘near miss’’? Is that satisfactory? 

Mr. CANOLL. Currently there exists a criteria for a near-miss report. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Yes, I am talking about his definition. Would that 

be satisfactory to the airline pilots? 

Mr. CANOLL. I don’t believe so, sir, because it doesn’t provide 

any—near what we would need to avoid the collision. 

34 

Mr. MEADOWS. Can you get to the chairman of this committee 

what you would estimate a near miss would be, and—— 

Mr. CANOLL. I am not sure we are equipped to do that analysis, 

sir. But we can—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, can you query your pilots and ask them to 

opine on it? How about that? 

Mr. CANOLL. Yes, sir. We can ask—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. OK. 

Mr. CANOLL [continuing]. And gather as much information as 

possible. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Let me go real quickly and finish up. 

Mr. Whitaker, some have suggested that your rulemaking has 

not been expeditious. And I believe, in your earlier testimony here, 

when you were talking about doing a rulemaking for commercial 

drones, when—I guess you said the commercial viability and economic viability increases. Did I hear you correctly on that? 

Mr. WHITAKER. I think the question was around large UAS. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Right. 

Mr. WHITAKER. Yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. And that you would—so there is a certain mentality that says if you build it they will come. And your testimony 

here today is if they build it we will regulate it? 

Mr. WHITAKER. No. We are trying to move in step with both the 

commercial demand and the technology. 

Mr. MEADOWS. But, Mr. Whitaker, let me suggest that you are 

more forward-thinking in terms of regulations. The ambiguity of 

FAA doing nothing creates the kind of dynamics that we have here 

today, both on the commercial and on the hobby side of things. And 

the more finite you can be, the better that commercial activity will 

be, in terms of meeting your expectation. If we wait until—to draw 

the regulations until we have problems, as we are trying to do 

today, it creates much uncertainty in the market. Wouldn’t you 

agree with that? 

Mr. WHITAKER. Yes, sir. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So how do we best move your rulemaking faster, 

as it relates to the near misses that we are talking about here, and 

allow us to compete in drones? Because if not, if—we are going to 

lose out to the drone technology in Europe. We have had other testimony sitting at that very table that would suggest that. So how 

do we make sure that you are nimble and do that effectively? 

And I am out of time, so I will yield back, and—— 

Mr. WHITAKER. Thank you. 

Mr. WOODALL [presiding]. The gentleman yields back. The Chair 

recognizes the gentlelady from Nevada, Ms. Titus. 

Ms. TITUS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe that FAA has a 

definition of ‘‘near miss’’ that is already in regulation that is a lot 

larger than what the professor mentioned. But, anyway, we can 

check that out. 

I would like to direct my comments to the Administrator. But if 

any of the rest of you want to weigh in, I would appreciate that. 

You know, I represent Las Vegas. And I was a strong proponent 

of Nevada being named one of the original test centers for this kind 

of technology. And you mentioned that they are there for collaboration and research. But what seems to have happened is that these 

35 

test sites have kind of fizzled out. There is not a lot of attention 

there, they kind of don’t know what their goal is, what they should 

be doing. I would like to get you to comment on that. 

What can these test sites be doing, what is the FAA doing to encourage and support them? Seems like the FAA has now got all its 

attention on granting these section 333 exceptions, as opposed to 

working with the test sites. What is the point of them now? If you 

would, address that. 

And I would also ask you that when they grant these exceptions, 

do you continue to get information from these facilities that now 

can fly? And how do you use that information to inform this process of regulation development? Or is that just once they get the exception they are out there, and we don’t know what is going on? 

Mr. WHITAKER. Yes, ma’am. The test sites, the six test sites, are 

designed to provide an infrastructure for testing, so that the private sector can use them, and other researchers can use them for 

flight tests and other testing. We have tried to streamline the approval process to a large degree, which I think we have done. 

But at the same time, they are also designed to be a marketplace. So they have to compete for that work. And some test sites 

have been more successful than others in that. We have been meeting with all the test sites over the last 2 months to try to help 

jump-start and facilitate some of that work. 

To your second point, the tech center has a role in accumulating 

the data from the test site operations and collating that data and 

using it for supporting our research efforts. 

Ms. TITUS. Anybody else care to comment on whether these test 

sites are working like they should, or we are getting enough information from them, or they don’t make much difference? 

Mr. CANOLL. Well, I think industry, ma’am, as they start to see 

the value of the test site—because, while I am not a technician, I 

am not a designer, but the company that comes up with a small, 

lightweight, universally powered active collision avoidance system 

that is priced at a point that can be placed on almost any aerial 

system, that company is going to make a lot of money. And their 

best place to test these are the existing test sites. So I think it is 

a good program, moving forward. 

Ms. TITUS. I would like to go back to the Administrator. Part of 

my question was about granting all the section 333 exemptions. 

That seems to be where most of your energy and effort is concentrated now, instead of supporting technology and testing and 

data collection. Is that accurate, or—— 

Mr. WHITAKER. Well, I would say those are different functions. 

And the section 333 has certainly gotten a lot of attention, but it 

is a different group, if you will, within FAA that does that. We 

have research going on with MITRE Corporation, with—in conjunction with NASA, DOD, at the tech center, and at the Center of Excellence. So we are focused on all of those things, and they are all 

part of the puzzle, going forward. 

Ms. TITUS. So do you get information back after you have granted an exemption to one of these companies, or—— 

Mr. WHITAKER. Not necessarily for commercial exemptions, although we do have some commercial partnerships, where we are 

taking that data and analyzing it. 

36 

Ms. TITUS. Wouldn’t that be helpful for making up these regulations? 

Mr. WHITAKER. Well, it is not a restriction. We have issued 1,800 

333 exemptions. It is not a restriction that we feel is appropriate 

for commercial operators to mandate that type of work. 

Ms. TITUS. So you don’t think it would be helpful to find out 

what these—— 

Mr. WHITAKER. It might be helpful in some that are willing to 

do that that we have partnered with. 

Ms. TITUS. So it is voluntary? 

Mr. WHITAKER. That is correct. 

Ms. TITUS. And if you look at the way the agency is set up, is 

there more priority, more effort, more energy put in to granting 

these exceptions than in the testing and the technology and the 

test centers? 

Mr. WHITAKER. No, I would say they are not linked. And as the 

small rule gets finalized, that 333 process will be dramatically reduced. 

Ms. TITUS. Well, if the—but they are—shouldn’t they be linked? 

You are the one who used the term ‘‘collaboration’’ about the test 

sites. Shouldn’t—— 

Mr. WHITAKER. Well, they are linked as far as exchange of information. But the 333 approval process is a different workforce than 

the research coordination. 

Ms. TITUS. Right. But isn’t that where the priority is now, instead of on the testing and getting the information to make these 

regulations? 

Mr. WHITAKER. The priority would be on both of those. 

Ms. TITUS. How do you measure that? 

Mr. WHITAKER. Well, we measure the 333s by throughput. And 

on the test sites and the research, it is not amenable to immediate 

sort of metric measurements. But there is a lot of research, a lot 

of effort going into that. 

Ms. TITUS. OK. Thank you. 

Mr. WOODALL. The gentlelady yields back. The Chair recognizes 

the gentleman from South Carolina, Mr. Sanford. 

Mr. SANFORD. Thank you, Chairman. It strikes me, I guess, three 

things hit me: one, the unmanned is the—if it is not the future of 

flight, it is certainly the next frontier of flight; two, that there has 

been a long-time fascination with flight, going back to the days of 

da Vinci, and moving forward to the Wright Brothers; and three, 

that we want to encourage innovation on that front. And, in general, Government regulation control and other inhibits that innovation that I think is vital, ultimately, to American competitiveness. 

So, we want to have, you know, kids out there, fiddling with 

something. You say, ‘‘Well, if you tie these three rocks onto it, will 

it fly as well?’’ I mean, you know, at the base level, kids in the 

basement of a garage working with some of this stuff may well lead 

to innovations and new developments with regard to unmanned 

flight that, I think, could have commercial applications, and certainly competitive applications. 

And so, you know, what has hit me in sort of listening to testimony today is, you know, how do we get to a place that is minimally invasive, with regard to unmanned, and how do we get to a 

37 

place that keeps Government out of involvement as much as possible, so that we maximize individual freedom without in any way 

interrupting commercial flight or noncommercial flight. 

And so, I was intrigued by what my colleague from California 

had gotten at, and my colleague from North Carolina. How do we 

come up with something that is really simple, whether that is the 

kind of legislation you talked about, so that you don’t end up with 

a bunch of, you know, things being tacked on to this equipment 

that raises the price, that keeps, frankly, many consumers out of 

the marketplace? How do you keep up with some massive database? And then we got to hire more bureaucrats to cover the database, watch the 90 percent of folks who wouldn’t be a problem. 

How do we do something quite simple, whether that is the 

Garamendi language, or something else? 

And I guess I would begin with you. Any ideas from your end, 

Doctor, on something that you may have seen in a different country 

as a best practice, or something that you may have heard about in 

talking with other colleagues that would, indeed, be minimally 

invasive? 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. Yes. So I think an altitude limit is minimally invasive. Very easy to implement. That is something that we 

can do now. 

Mr. SANFORD. But if I understand it right, it wouldn’t solve the 

problem of, you know, you go to 400 feet, but if you are 400 feet 

off final, then you got a problem. 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. Yes. So, I mean, trying to solve the whole 

problem is very complicated, and will take time. Four hundred feet 

is something that—— 

Mr. SANFORD. OK, that would be your vote. 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. Yes. 

Mr. SANFORD. Let’s just—we will keep it moving. Mr. Hanson, 

your thought? Quick thought. Most simple remedy would be what? 

Mr. HANSON. I believe that the community-based approach has 

proven, for decades, to be an effective way of handling at least the 

model aircraft/hobby environment, and I would look to that to continue keeping this operation—— 

Mr. SANFORD. Community-based model. Captain Canoll? 

Mr. CANOLL. So outside of the community base, those who are 

operating outside of that, the altitude restriction would help. But 

also, if there was a way to restrict the enabling of the vehicle when 

you purchase it until a code is put in—you need to get that code, 

you have to go online and pass a test, and now you know, ‘‘Oh, that 

is right, I can’t go to the airport, because I couldn’t get my code 

without passing the test.’’ 

Mr. SANFORD. Code. Mr. Hubbard? 

Mr. HUBBARD. Until technology catches up, public awareness. 

Mr. SANFORD. Mr. Whitaker? 

Mr. WHITAKER. I would say the most efficient way to get there 

is an industry-based standard, so we don’t have to go down the regulatory path. And that involves stakeholder engagement, which we 

are also focused on. 

Mr. SANFORD. I very much like that idea of industry standard 

versus Government edict. 

38 

One quick question, because I see I am down to 52 seconds. And 

I guess this would be directed to you, Mr. Hanson. Going back to 

that idea of industry standard, how would you describe the way in 

which AMA develops and educates its members and the general 

public about certain modeling guidelines and safety at large? 

You know, you talk about community standard, you talk about 

sort of industry standard. How do you all do that, presently? 

Mr. HANSON. Well, currently, within our membership we—a lot, 

if not the majority, of our education is done at the local club level, 

with the club—the local people come together and gather in a club 

and share information. 

In terms of the broader membership, we do that through our 

mainstay magazine, through our online presence. And then, in 

terms of the uneducated consumer, we are doing that through the 

Know Before You Fly campaign. 

Mr. SANFORD. I see I have 1 second left, Mr. Chairman. Well, 

down to zero. 

Mr. WOODALL. Thank you for yielding back that second, Mr. Sanford. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Washington, Mr. 

Larsen. 

Mr. LARSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Deputy Chief Hubbard, in your testimony you said the Forest 

Service and the Department of the Interior are developing a summary of the 2015 field season, and you will make recommendations. 

When could we expect to see that summary? 

Mr. HUBBARD. The summary of the incursions? 

Mr. LARSEN. Yes. 

Mr. HUBBARD. Yes, we have that available now. 

Mr. LARSEN. Oh, OK, all right. It is available now. Are you making recommendations from that summary? 

Mr. HUBBARD. No, that is just capturing what we have encountered. And we turn to FAA and others for recommendations. 

Mr. LARSEN. So one of the instances in California you reported 

that five aircraft were delayed for 20 minutes. Is that right? 

Mr. HUBBARD. Yes. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yes. What impact can a 20-minute delay have on 

your ability to contain or suppress a fire? What happens in 20 minutes? 

Mr. HUBBARD. In back-country fires, not a lot. It gets bigger. In 

interface fires, where you have life and property at risk, it, of 

course, depends on the situation. But it could be dramatic. 

Mr. LARSEN. Define dramatic. 

Mr. HUBBARD. Loss of property, for sure. And sometimes putting 

lives at risk. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yes, yes. So, after we get a chance to review the 

summary, I may do some followup with you on—just to understand 

better what steps we might take. 

So then, FAA and you all have worked on it. Do you have an 

MOU [memorandum of understanding]? Is that right, or an MOA 

[memorandum of agreement]? 

Mr. HUBBARD. MOA, yes. 

Mr. LARSEN. An MOA. And what is in that MOA? 

Mr. HUBBARD. How we would want to proceed together to try to 

resolve these kinds of issues, because we know we are an outlier, 

39 

in terms of our statistics and our operating altitudes. And it is 

going to be a little more complicated. So we need some help. 

Mr. LARSEN. How many millions of acres did you say were on fire 

in the West this year? 

Mr. HUBBARD. We burned 9 million acres. 

Mr. LARSEN. Nine million? What was the other number that you 

had? I mean how many individual fires were there? 

Mr. HUBBARD. 47,000 fires. 

Mr. LARSEN. Is that an outlier? 

Mr. HUBBARD. No. 

Mr. LARSEN. So I don’t think you are an outlier. I don’t think so. 

Mr. Whitaker, how do you confirm that there have been situations where drones have come inappropriately close to aircraft? 

There’s been some questions about confirming these, whether they 

are or they aren’t. How does the FAA come around and confirm 

these? 

Mr. WHITAKER. Well, I think, as others have discussed, they are 

difficult to confirm. We don’t have numbers on these things that we 

can see, we don’t have an ability to locate them the way we would 

with a laser, for example. And that is just the nature of the data. 

So it is very raw data. 

I think what we can say is that the trend in the data is pretty 

obvious. So the number reports on a monthly basis now is over 100, 

and that is a fivefold increase from a year ago. So you can argue 

around the margins, but I don’t think there is any question that 

there is a significant trend. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yes, yes. And Captain Canoll, how do you confirm? 

How does ALPA confirm these numbers? 

Mr. CANOLL. Well, it is—the information we get is on an anecdotal basis, and then we point our members to the Web site, which 

helps them refresh their memory on the criteria for a near midair 

collision report. 

Mr. LARSEN. Oh. 

Mr. CANOLL. And then, if, in their mind—which is the determinative factor in this instance—they believe they had one, we 

point them to the various links at the FAA, so they can fill the 

form out and submit the report. That is beyond the report that 

happens real time, where the pilot says, ‘‘Hey, there’s one of those 

X-wing drones,’’ presses the button on his transponder, and calls 

the tower or the approach control, and says, ‘‘I just observed this,’’ 

and then the controller can say, ‘‘OK, that is a data point for us.’’ 

Mr. LARSEN. Yes. 

Mr. CANOLL. And can warn the aircraft behind them. That is 

very important. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yes, right. 

And, Dr. K, you are the technology guy. How would you suggest 

we clean that up? How to confirm these—— 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. Yes, it is really tough if you just rely upon 

pilot reports. And I don’t want to diminish the severity of this, but 

there have been, well, at least one case where the pilot thought 

they hit a drone, and it turned out later to be a bird. So it is very 

tricky. 

40 

So what you would have to rely upon is some kind of surveillance 

system, perhaps something near an airport that could actually capture these things. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yes, yes. And can you talk a little bit, as well, 

about—and this will be my final question, I just want to understand, without getting into the deep, gory details, but the difference 

between an engine taking in a bird, and an engine taking in either 

a composite material drone, or a drone that is metal-based. 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. Yes. So, I should clarify that engine ingestion is not my area of expertise, but I have talked with some people, and we don’t really know. And I was very happy to hear that 

the FAA is pursuing that. But, I mean, it is not rocket science. It 

has probably something to do with the size of the drone, the components it is made out of, and so forth. 

Mr. LARSEN. Sure. So we will think about that. Thank you, Mr. 

Chairman. 

Mr. WOODALL. The gentleman yields back. The Chair recognizes 

the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Davis. 

Mr. DAVIS. It is always tough to follow my colleague talking 

about engine digestion or ingestion or indigestion. So great question, Mr. Larsen. 

Hey, thank you for being here. I apologize. Multiple hearings 

today, so if I am redundant with any of my questions, please forgive me. But I have a concern. I represent central Illinois, home 

to some of the manufacturers of our newer types of hobby aircraft 

in UAV technology, and also home to many possible users of this 

technology for commercial use. 

And I know a lot of discussion was on the exemption program 

that is currently being implemented and run through the FAA. And 

part of my concerns have to do with some previous hearings like 

this, where we talked about the exemption process moving very 

slowly to offer commercial exemptions to those who have applied. 

And now, since they have sped up, what we have seen is some of 

the older requests being limited versus some of the newer requests 

in what can be done with the technology for which they have applied for the exemption. 

And Mr. Whitaker, I appreciate that your process has evolved at 

the FAA, but I think there is—there might be a concern where 

older applicants and older exemptions that were issued may need 

to have some of the newer flexibility that some of the newer exemptions that are being issued currently enjoy. 

So, can you tell me? Is there a process in place at the FAA right 

now to look at some of the older applications to see if they need 

that same type of flexibility? And, if so, are you going to do that 

unilaterally, or is that something that the previous applicants have 

to do? 

Mr. WHITAKER. So this is not a concern that I have heard expressed before, but it sounds like a concern that the newer exemptions have more flexibility. That would normally be triggered by 

the current holders coming back for some adjustment to their 333 

application. But I—— 

Mr. DAVIS. So they would have to come back personally to 

change the operational conditions that they—— 

41 

Mr. WHITAKER. As opposed to us changing the conditions for 

them. But I will look into that and respond to your office—— 

Mr. DAVIS. Well, please do. It is a concern of those in my district—— 

Mr. WHITAKER. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS [continuing]. Who have been possibly granted exemptions that may now be outdated. 

Mr. WHITAKER. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS. And I do believe—and I hope that you take this 

back—that we need to have some flexibility in that process, because the technology has changed, even over the time that this program, this exemption program, was implemented. 

Mr. WHITAKER. Absolutely. 

Mr. DAVIS. And the technology that is being produced in my district is going to continue to evolve unless we, the Federal Government, stop its ability to evolve and to continue to grow into what 

I think should be commercial usage, and a much more flexible commercial usage for UAV technology, and to do it in a safe way. But 

I don’t think—I think that can happen. 

And while I have time left, I will not butcher your name like— 

my colleague, Mr. Larsen, didn’t either, since I wasn’t here to get 

the correct pronunciation. I will call you Dr. K again, too. 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. That is just fine. 

Mr. DAVIS. Can you give me an idea of how maybe transponder 

technology could be helpful in avoiding some of the collisions, some 

of the issues that I think the FAA is facing right now, and we are, 

too, as policymakers? 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. Yes. So if unmanned aircraft are going to be 

flying at the level of transport aircraft, or even up with general 

aviation aircraft, in order to be seen by TCAS and so forth, they 

need to have some kind of transponder. 

Mr. DAVIS. Doesn’t that transponder technology work at lower 

level flights, like life flights? 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. It could work, as well. I am not sure how 

many life flight helicopters have TCAS installed. But it is a possibility. 

The problem, though, is that the cost of these transponders, including ADS–B Out, is pretty expensive. And they consume power 

and they are heavy. So for a lot of these larger aircraft, it makes 

sense, and should be absolutely required. But for smaller drones, 

maybe a couple pounds—— 

Mr. DAVIS. So the technology for lightweight transponder technology does not currently exist for the newer versions of UAV. 

Right? 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. There is a lot of interest in actually developing this, and this is an activity of Google, in fact. 

Mr. DAVIS. An entrepreneur’s dream, or an entrepreneurial 

dream. 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS. And how do you pronounce your last name, since I 

don’t have any more time? 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. It is Kochenderfer. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you. I yield back. 

42 

Mr. WOODALL. The gentleman yields back. I recognize myself for 

just a few moments. 

Mr. Whitaker, you talked about the difference between going 

after folks with serious penalties when they did not learn their lesson, versus trying to train folks up. I am thinking about the number of incursions on restricted airspace by licensed pilots, by 

trained pilots, by pilots flying planes with transponders. I see those 

incursions in restricted airspace listed in the thousands. Do you 

happen to know how many of those folks have faced serious penalties, versus just trying to be trained up? 

Mr. WHITAKER. So you are talking about incursion between 

manned aircraft? 

Mr. WOODALL. That is right. 

Mr. WHITAKER. Yes, I don’t have statistics on that. Our compliance philosophy would largely be the same, that we would be focused on remediating the problem and making sure there is compliance as a first step, before moving to enforcement. 

Mr. WOODALL. I am told the maximum financial penalty for one 

of those restricted airspace incursions is $1,100. I think Mr. Mica 

from Florida has legislation to increase that to $100,000. But I just 

want to contrast that for a moment with what we are talking about 

with unmanned vehicles today. 

Captain, you are one of my bosses, so I take you at your word 

when you tell me how we can solve problems. But I have heard a 

lot about adding technology to these $55 drones to keep them out 

of restricted airspace, yet no one is making that same suggestion 

for $50,000, $100,000, $150,000 manned aircraft. 

Is the importance of keeping folks out of restricted airspace such 

that, before we start talking about adding technology to $55 drones 

we should be adding it to $55,000 aircraft? 

Mr. CANOLL. So I think it is a multilayered problem. And it is 

not only the financial penalties for manned aircraft. Straying into 

restricted airspace will ultimately result in you losing your license 

to operate the aircraft. 

And tracking who is the operator of the unmanned aerial system 

is difficult. So that is where part of the conflict is. I think we have 

to look at it—both. 

And, you know, I don’t know the numbers, either. But I do know 

we have programs in the manned aircraft community, such as 

ASAP [Aviation Safety Action Program], where if you make a mistake in an aircraft—we are human, and we do make mistakes—you 

have a way of reporting it. And that report is gathered into a very 

large database. And we can do analysis on it. That, to my knowledge, doesn’t exist for the commercial operation of unmanned systems. Yet I think it would be a good idea for us to look at it. 

Mr. WOODALL. Having that reporting database might be the 

more powerful, as a dictator of behavior, than having some of these 

technological restrictions across the board. 

Mr. CANOLL. I think they are both important. But to have the 

database of someone who could voluntarily report, ‘‘Hey, I lost command of my vehicle for this amount of time, and I think it was because of this,’’ then we can look towards mitigations for the problems that they experienced in the future. 

43 

Mr. WOODALL. Doctor, you suggested that—in response to one of 

my colleague’s questions—that one of the easy answers would be 

an altitude restriction. My guess is we are either going to have to 

change the strength of the transmitter, or put an altimeter in every 

unmanned aircraft to make that effective. 

Is that what you had in mind, a technology solution to create an 

altitude restriction, not just a rule that then would be left up to 

individuals about whether they abided by it or not? 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. Yes, I think that something should be enabled by default. Because, like I said, when you pull it out from underneath the Christmas tree, a lot of people just try to see how 

high they can go. And we really want to prevent things like that. 

But it should be allowed to be overriden, because a lot of these 

consumer drones are used by legitimate operators, like law enforcement and so forth. 

Mr. WOODALL. Well, that was, in fact, the very first line of the 

captain’s written testimony, is this is obviously an industry that 

has great benefit potential for America, for quality of life, for safety 

of pilots, and how can we come together on that. 

I will close with this, then. I would ask each one of you. In the 

context of terrorism, I can tell you there are an unlimited number 

of folks who want to do us harm. I am sorry, an unlimited number 

of ways to do us harm, but a limited number of folks who want to 

do it. In this area that we are talking about today, unlimited number of ways that accidents can happen by untrained personnel, a 

limited number of folks who really are out there, day in and day 

out, to violate the rules, as the FAA has indicated just this week. 

Is that the challenge, Doctor, not to find a one-size-fits-all aircraft solution, but to go after those folks who would intentionally 

violate the—whether it be industry standards or Federal regulatory 

standards? 

Dr. KOCHENDERFER. In my written statement I categorize the different kinds of users. So I worry a lot about the naive users and 

the reckless users. I think bad actors are a separate category, and 

I would have to say that there is relatively little we can do about 

that right now. 

Mr. WOODALL. Mr. Hanson, should we be focused on the naive 

users or the bad actors? 

Mr. HANSON. Well, I think intentional acts need to be dealt with, 

and I think there are existing laws and sanctions that could be put 

in place to do that. 

The naive, or the uneducated community is one that we really 

need to focus on, because we firmly believe—and our experience 

shows us—that the users, if good-natured and conscientious individuals, they just need the proper information. 

Mr. WOODALL. I thank you. If there are no further questions, 

then I thank all of the witnesses for their testimony and their indulgence today, and the committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 12:13 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

44 


Insert offset folio 6 here 96926.006
45 


Insert offset folio 7 here 96926.007
46 


Insert offset folio 8 here 96926.008
47 


Insert offset folio 9 here 96926.009
48 


Insert offset folio 10 here 96926.010
49 


Insert offset folio 11 here 96926.011
50 


Insert offset folio 12 here 96926.012
51 


Insert offset folio 13 here 96926.013
52 


Insert offset folio 14 here 96926.014
53 


Insert offset folio 15 here 96926.015
54 


Insert offset folio 16 here 96926.016
55 


Insert offset folio 17 here 96926.017
56 


Insert offset folio 18 here 96926.018
57 


Insert offset folio 19 here 96926.019
58 


Insert offset folio 20 here 96926.020
59 


Insert offset folio 21 here 96926.021
60 


Insert offset folio 22 here 96926.022
61 


Insert offset folio 23 here 96926.023
62 


Insert offset folio 24 here 96926.024
63 


Insert offset folio 25 here 96926.025
64 


Insert offset folio 26 here 96926.026
65 


Insert offset folio 27 here 96926.027
66 


Insert offset folio 28 here 96926.028
67 


Insert offset folio 29 here 96926.029
68 


Insert offset folio 30 here 96926.030
69 


Insert offset folio 31 here 96926.031
70 


Insert offset folio 32 here 96926.032
71 


Insert offset folio 33 here 96926.033
72 


Insert offset folio 34 here 96926.034
73 


Insert offset folio 35 here 96926.035
74 


Insert offset folio 36 here 96926.036
75 


Insert offset folio 37 here 96926.037
76 


Insert offset folio 38 here 96926.038
77 


Insert offset folio 39 here 96926.039
78 


Insert offset folio 40 here 96926.040
79 


Insert offset folio 41 here 96926.041
80 


Insert offset folio 42 here 96926.042
81 


Insert offset folio 43 here 96926.043
82 


Insert offset folio 44 here 96926.044
83 


Insert offset folio 45 here 96926.045
84 


Insert offset folio 46 here 96926.046
85 


Insert offset folio 47 here 96926.047
86 


Insert offset folio 48 here 96926.048
87 


Insert offset folio 49 here 96926.049
88 


Insert offset folio 50 here 96926.050
89 


Insert offset folio 51 here 96926.051
90 


Insert offset folio 52 here 96926.052
91 


Insert offset folio 53 here 96926.053
92 


Insert offset folio 54 here 96926.054
93 


Insert offset folio 55 here 96926.055
94 


Insert offset folio 56 here 96926.056
95 


Insert offset folio 57 here 96926.057
96 


Insert offset folio 58 here 96926.058
97 


Insert offset folio 59 here 96926.059
98 


Insert offset folio 60 here 96926.060
99 


Insert offset folio 61 here 96926.061
100 


Insert offset folio 62 here 96926.062
101 


Insert offset folio 63 here 96926.063
102 


Insert offset folio 64 here 96926.064
103 


Insert offset folio 65 here 96926.065
104 


Insert offset folio 66 here 96926.066
105 


Insert offset folio 67 here 96926.067
106 


Insert offset folio 68 here 96926.068
107 


Insert offset folio 69 here 96926.069
108 


Insert offset folio 70 here 96926.070
109 


Insert offset folio 71 here 96926.071
110 


Insert offset folio 72 here 96926.072
111 


Insert offset folio 73 here 96926.073
112 


Insert offset folio 74 here 96926.074
113 

Æ 


Insert offset folio 75 here 96926.075