Drone Technologies Rapidly Advancing; Policies to Allow Them, Not So Much
With interest in the use of drones for commercial purposes taking flight, the Bay Area Council recently convened a policy roundtable with national policy expert Lisa Ellman, the unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) practice leader at member firm McKenna Long and Aldridge. Ellman talked about the many exciting commercial applications for drones but said the U.S. is lagging the world in developing the policies necessary to allow industry to take full advantage of this exciting technology. “By 2025, it’s thought that UAS will have an economic impact of $82 billion and 100,000 new jobs created here in the U.S.,” Ellman said. “Drones are helpful for industrial uses like powerline inspection, pipeline inspection, flare stack inspection, and infrastructure inspection. Filmmaking, as well.” Commercial use of drones is technically illegal in the U.S., with companies only able to operate them after receiving special exemptions from the Federal Aviation Administration. “It is not too late to fix,” Ellman concludes. “It’s important that innovators come to the table and educate policymakers about the technology that is out there. There is crash avoidance technology that can prevent the drone from running into us, for example.”
