NAS Integration Timeline
The editorial staff at sUAS News came up with the idea of producing a visual Airspace integration timeline for the benefit of the international UAS/RPAS community. Educating and giving back to the community we are a part of is important to us.
Our objective was to give stakeholders (manned aviators too), a gauge if you will, for some of what it takes to introduce new technologies into a highly regulated existing ecosystem. We also see it as a little recognition and thank you to the many good people who have donated countless hours of expertise contributing to our shared goal of safe UAS airspace integration.
This project has been months in the making, being passed around with the dates and details being checked, and has come together at the right time with the recent release of the NPRM. Regardless of what your thoughts may be on where we are as a community today, this is a one-page visual representation of our origin story.
Most newcomers appear to view the NPRM as somewhat restrictive, while those participating in the effort for many years see the proposal as progressive. Whatever the case, the NPRM published is much less restrictive than what was on the table even just a few short years ago.
To complete this project sUAS News had to enlist the help of a tireless community contributor from the UAV Market Space, James Jewell http://www.uavm.com. He agreed to help bring the piece to fruition with idea that we need to make sure “our successes and mistakes are documented and that we learn from them.”
There are some amongst the regulatory pioneers who believe it is necessary to document some of the history before our collective memories fade and the exact historical data is gone and lost forever. Many of these pioneers are retiring, and we have lost some good people along the way, namely Mr. Laurence “Nuke” Newcome and Mr. Dan Schultz. Others still have been reassigned or moved on to follow different pursuits.
In addition to being a historical record, we hope that the timeline also serves a reflecting point for what’s in store for Beyond Visual Line Of Sight (BVLOS) operations. There is still a lot of hard work that needs to be done.
