Future use of unmanned aircraft

Andrew Moore, National Agricultural Aviation Association

Andrew Moore, executive director of the National Agricultural Aviation Association, sent an opinion about the column that Rich Keller wrote in the March issue of AgProfessional (“Why limit the use of ‘drones?’). He was generally supportive of the comments made in the column, but he also provided some insight with his message below.

“Our nation’s aerial applicators’ position with Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) has to do with their safety. Because we likely will be using the same airspace as UAS we want to make sure they are well marked or lit with strobes and, ideally, we’d like to know where they will be when we are flying. So, the existence of some sort of database that UAS operators must use to log the geographical coordinates of their airborne UAS would be helpful.

http://www.agprofessional.com/news/Commentary-Future-use-of-unmanned-aircraft-203074801.html?ref=801

Me thinks the crop dusters have it the wrong way round, they will be using the UA airspace. There will be far more UA than dusters about and perhaps less manned crop dusting will be required if the precision agriculture software works its magic and applications can be placed more accurately. Are we seeing another group that will put up barriers ?? (Ed)