Pilots in Bend, Oregon, are concerned that a proposal to open a remote area of Central Oregon to aerial drone testing could mean they’re shut out of the airspace, according to a report at KVAL.com, which quotes pilot Don Wilfong: “We’re concerned that whole large area not be closed to private aircraft all the time.”
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Janice Wood is editor of General Aviation News.
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I agree with you Dennis. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Dept. down here wants to start operating drones as well. With the already crowded airspace (and small airports under attack ie., KSMO) the GA community will slowly be shut out in many areas of the country.
I believe it would make much more sense and be more fiscally responsible for all the groups trying to establish airspace restrictions for drone testing or othger military uses to all use one location. Currently almost the entire state of Nevada is covered with restricted airspace. The Air Force currently has another proposal to establish another huge restricted area for covering most of North Dakota and eastern Montana. Why can’t all these groups get their heads together and use one location? It has to be more cost effective to have one group monitoring and managing one section of airspace than all the sections the military currently has set aside. Why not just use what they have in Nevada? Especially when it comes to drone testing. The whole point of pilotless drones is to allow remote control of the flights. The drones could easily fly in Nevada and the controllers of the drones could be anywhere. The Air Force already does this with the drones in Afganistan so it’s certainly not anything new.
The whole idea of allowing drones to fly in non-military airspace was to allow longer distance or reconnaissance flights. Under no circumstances should civilian airspace be closed because of drone flights.