Industry has Wild West quality; few rules regulate remote-controlled flights
By Peter Vieth
The Daily Record Newswire
RICHMOND, VA — Some lawyers are hoping to board a fast-climbing flight of the fledgling civil drone industry once the government develops a set of ground rules. Few seem to know exactly what the future will hold for domestic unmanned flights, however.
While attorneys for government contractors already are busy helping fill the military’s demand for remote controlled aircraft with both surveillance and weapons abilities, the civil drone industry is hovering, as many businesses wait for a regulatory structure.
Law firms across the country are forming practice groups devoted to unmanned aerial vehicles.
Enthusiasts describe a vast palette of possibilities for the homeland use of drones, from fighting crime to news gathering to monitoring far-flung industrial equipment.
Lawyers hope to be along for the ride as business explores the possibilities.
Meanwhile, there is a Wild-West aspect to civilian drone use now, with few clear rules to regulate the remote-controlled flights:
Police nabbed one person and sought another after a botched attempt to fly marijuana, tobacco and cell phones into a South Carolina maximum security prison in April. The drone crashed short of the prison fence.
In Philadelphia, an entrepreneur hopes to drag advertising banners from low-flying drones. His lawyers tell him the plan is legal, he told ABC News.
The FAA reportedly investigated a photographer’s use of a drone to capture video of a congressman’s June 21 wedding. No word on any findings of a violation.
While the civilian drone industry awaits a flight plan, one Virginia law firm boasts of a long record of working with the contractors who keep the military drones flying. Military unmanned aerial systems are “where the action is,” according to Robert E. Korroch of Newport News. He chairs the 12-attorney Williams Mullen drone practice group, which launched in June.
A similar practice group debuted in February for Richmond-based LeClairRyan firm.
“We’re not waiting for things to happen, we’re helping businesses now. Companies are not waiting to see what the FAA is going to do,” Korroch said.
Still, he said, not a lot of U.S. businesses are operating drones for profit just yet.
Drone practice groups elsewhere sound a similar theme: Great prospects, slowly emerging ventures.
“We’ve had inquiries from several clients that had an interest in using drones … in their business, and it’s clear this is a new technology that’s going to be used in multiple industries,” said Joe Orlet, a St. Louis, Missouri, attorney who is part of a newly formed drone practice group.
“We’re in the infancy of the use of this technology in commercial applications,” Orlet said.
Unmanned aerial vehicles make up the fastest growing sector of the world aerospace industry, reports the Teal Group, a Fairfax-based consulting firm, but the civil UAV market lags far behind the burgeoning military side of the business.
Civil UAV business accounts for 11 percent of the overall drone market in a 2014 Teal study, with that number expected to grow to 14 percent by the end of the 10-year forecast, according to a Teal Group news release.
News gathering is one of the many expected applications for drone technology, and a Washington firm has already entered that arena.
Holland and Knight in May authored a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of news organizations in support of a photographer fighting a $10,000 FAA fine.
The photographer had flown his drone-mounted camera around the University of Virginia grounds to produce a dizzying video that highlights both campus architecture and remote controlled flying skills.
An administrative law judge overturned the fine, but the case is on review before the National Transportation Safety Board.
News organizations want to “encourage rulemaking that promotes a First Amendment-friendly atmosphere for the safe use of UAVs in journalism,” said Charles D. Tobin of Holland & Knight. Drones can be used to measure crop yields, evaluate disaster scenes and monitor earthbound traffic, Tobin said. In essence, drones can do much of what helicopters do now, but at a lower cost and reduced risk.
News companies are paying attention. “We think they are a safer, lower-cost alternative to provide unique coverage,” Tobin said.
In Virginia, where police are eager to put flying cameras to use for public safety purposes, the pilotless planes are parked, grounded under a General Assembly moratorium on law enforcement drone use.
While the Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police said police drones should be cleared for takeoff last year, an odd-bedfellows coalition of groups urged a temporary ban. The American Civil Liberties Union was arm-in-arm with a tea party group expressing concern about Virginians’ privacy rights.
The police drone moratorium, through July 1 of next year, was sponsored by Todd Gilbert, a former prosecutor from Woodstock then serving in the House of Delegates.
With ban is in place, an Assembly-mandated study produced a series of model procedures for police drone use. Among the suggestions:
Drone use should be “as transparent as possible,”
Weapons should be “strictly prohibited,”
Police drones should be approved by the Federal Aviation Administration, and
“When the primary mission is to collect evidence of a criminal incident AND the [drone] will intrude upon the reasonable expectation of privacy, the law enforcement agency should consult with their Commonwealth’s Attorney about obtaining a search warrant in advance of deployment.”
While lawyers and business leaders try to plot the regulatory route for commercial drones, flight experts and eager students are experimenting with UAVs at a tiny airstrip near the New River in Montgomery County.
The site operated by Virginia Tech is one of only six drone test sites in the country approved by the FAA. The goal is to figure out how to integrate unmanned aircraft into the national airspace.
The current regulatory battle involves the smallest of drones – model aircraft used by hobbyists and others at low altitudes over private property.
A group of 30 academics complains that proposed FAA regulations on small UAVs will stifle research and impede potential business ventures.
The rules allow hobby flights below 400 feet as long as the drones fly away from airports and stay within sight of the operator, but commercial operators and private educators are barred, according to Paul Voss, a Massachusetts professor who spearheaded a protest letter to the Transportation Department.
“Under the FAA model aircraft rules, a 10-year-old hobbyist can freely fly model aircraft for recreation, while our nation’s scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs are prohibited from using the same technology in the same types of environments,” the letter said.
The researchers said they were particularly concerned that the FAA is telling drone operators that the agency has the sole authority over use of the airspace from the ground up, instead of 500 feet and above, which has been interpreted as public airspace in the past.
