Drones are easing into the U.S. National Airspace System (NAS), drawn in partly because of research being conducted through federally backed programs at a collection of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) test sites authorized by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
At the end of April, the FAA counted 350,000 commercial drones, “going places and doing things that would otherwise be dangerous for people or other vehicles,” the agency said.1
Research to open the skies to these drones got a boost from the FAA in 2013, when the agency designated six UAS test sites across the country — in addition to another previously designated site — for the study of a range of related topics, including UAS human factors, airworthiness testing and the changes in air traffic control procedures likely to be required to enable the integration of drones into airspace previously occupied only by manned aircraft. In the years since, other participants at other sites — including st…
