Unmanned Aircraft Getting Close Scrutiny From Legislative Task Force
LISA DEMER ANCHORAGE DAILY NEWS
Growing interest in — and use of — unmanned aircraft in Alaska grabbed the attention of legislators this year. Now their new task force is examining whether the state should take action to address privacy concerns.
State Rep. Shelley Hughes, R-Palmer and the task force chair, pushed for the group’s creation after hearing from residents worried about spying by drone aircraft.
At a task force meeting in Anchorage on Thursday, she stressed that the aircraft in Alaska are far different than the big Predator drones used by the U.S. military that human rights groups contend unlawfully killed scores of civilians.
“We are talking about the smaller, lighter type that we hope to see in use in Alaska, for beneficial uses,” Hughes said. Some of the aircraft weigh just 2 pounds.
They don’t even like to call the vehicles drones. The new group is the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Legislative Task Force, and there’s plenty for it to consider.
Unmanned aircraft could be used for mapping and wildlife surveys, for search and rescue operations and crash investigations, for moviemaking and pipeline inspections, for monitoring of oil spills and wildfires, according to testimony to the task force.
The University of Alaska Fairbanks has been experimenting with unmanned aircraft for years. It is in the running to be a national test site, the task force was told.
In the next couple of months, Alaska State Troopers expect to acquire their first unmanned aircraft, a $70,000 Aeryon Scout being donated by the National Institute of Justice, said Lt. Steven Adams, a task force member who is overseeing the trooper effort.
Regular people are also acquiring unmanned aircraft, equipping them with cameras, and flying them with almost no government oversight as long as it’s for their own fun and not for a commercial purpose, said Ro Bailey, deputy director of the Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Amazon is selling thousands of them, the task force was told.
The Federal Aviation Administration’s safety standards for model aircraft were set in 1981 and advise operators not to take them above 400 feet and to let the airport know if they expect to be within three miles. Bailey said model plane owners tend to be highly responsible but now the devices being sold are powerful toys.
Troopers intend to operate theirs under strict conditions, Adams said. Troopers will have to get permission from headquarters in Anchorage to deploy it. It will be marked with bright orange paint. Because of its short battery life, it will only fly for 20 minutes at time, he said. An operator on the ground — who likely will be a certified pilot — will need to keep the vehicle below 400 feet and within his or her line of sight, Adams said.
The tiny aircraft will be based in Anchorage. It will need to undergo FAA-approved testing and troopers will need training before it can be put into operation, Adams said.
Troopers envision using it mainly for highway crash investigations, Adams said. The aircraft will fly a grid pattern to produce detailed aerial digital pictures that troopers can use to determine measurements that now must be made manually, he said. The hope is to much more quickly reopen the Seward and Glenn highways after bad crashes that now cause traffic to back up for hours.
Troopers also could use it for search and rescue missions, including looking for lost or mission children and the elderly, and to map critical incidents such as natural disasters or oil spills, Adams said.
Troopers don’t want to snoop, he said.
“We don’t see this as any tool that would circumvent the laws that we have right now or to do anything further than what we already have with manned aircraft and the tools we now use every day,” the lieutenant said. “We just would be able to do it faster and at less cost to the state.”
Law enforcement agencies likely would need a search warrant to use unmanned aircraft to collect evidence for a criminal investigation, Kathleen Strasbaugh, a legislative lawyer, told the task force.
