BOULDER CITY, Nevada – Sensurion Aerospace‘s Magpie MP-1 officially opened Nevada’s UAS Test Range on Friday, Dec. 19. The Magpie MP-1 holds a Special Airworthiness Certificate from the FAA and carries U.S. registration N106MP.
“This is a great day for the State of Nevada, the FAA, and Sensurion Aerospace,” said Sensurion CEO Captain Joe Burns. “This is an important step forward for the unmanned aircraft industry, and for aviation innovation in Nevada. Sensurion Aerospace is proud to have our MAGPIE MP-1 initiate operations here in the Nevada UAS Test Range, and to be among the first to carry an FAA ‘N number’ registration.”
The Magpie has a 6-foot wingspan, weighs 5.5 pounds (empty) with a 5-pound payload. Sensurion Aerospace is working within FAA Section 333 exemptions to authorize civilian use of the MAGPIE MP-1 in oil and gas exploration missions, infrastructure monitoring, atmospherics and gas sensing, and flight training.
“A real world mission example for the oil and gas industry would be a flight below 400 feet AGL over thousands of ground-based sensors spread across many square miles,” said Dan Johnson, Sensurion’s Vice President of Business Development. “In reality, it looks very similar to the RC flight profile.”
Magpie MP-1 operators are required to have a commercial pilot certificate and hold a current second class medical.
When these little bees start buzzing around hither and yon with no one on board to watch and avoid other manned aircraft, the pilot’s of which stand little chance of seeing them in time to avoid them thus increasing the likelihood of a mid-air collision, all this hype about how great they are will suddenly change casting a pall over them and the entire certification process. It won’t make a nickle’s worth of difference what license or qualification the remote operator has which is nothing more than a feel good policy for the sake of the bureaucratic FAA in appeasing the mounting pressure from potential users. Will they be required to carry and use ADS-B? If so that would be a great way to get those systems reduced in size and weight and more importantly their cost which is about the only halo I can see on these little bees buzzing around.