In a new letter to the Federal Aviation Administration, an Amazon executive questions the FAA over its lack of action on Amazon’s petition to conduct outdoor flight tests for drone delivery in the U.S.
“Without the ability to test outdoors in the United States soon, we will have no choice but to divert even more of our UAS (unmanned aerial systems) research and development resources abroad,” warns the letter from Paul Misener, Amazon vice president of global public policy.
The letter comes as the FAA circulates draft rules that would require unmanned aircraft to fly below 400 feet and remain within sight of the operator, who would need to a license to operate the drone.
The proposed rules, expected to be made public by the end of the year, would create major challenges for Amazon’s “Prime Air” delivery initiative in the United States. The company has proposed using drones to deliver packages in a radius of up to 10 miles, well beyond the line of sight of the person flying the drone.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos expressed disappointment with the FAA’s approach last week at a Business Insider conference. “It’s sad but possible that the U.S. could be late,” he said, noting that other countries are likely to be first in supporting commercial drones.
The FAA tells Bloomberg News in a statement, “The agency has designated an inspector to work closely with representatives from Amazon on its request for an experimental certificate to conduct research and development of unmanned aircraft. The FAA is currently waiting for additional information from the company to complete the application. Since 2005, the FAA has issued over 200 initial and recurrent experimental research and development certificates to unmanned aircraft operations.”
But Amazon says the process is holding it back. GeekWire has obtained a copy of the Amazon letter, dated Dec. 7 and first reported by the Wall Street Journal. Here’s an excerpt.
To date, much of our Prime Air research and development efforts, including flight testing operations, have been conducted inside our laboratory and indoor testing facilities in Washington State. However, we must move beyond indoor testing if we are to realize the consumer benefits of Amazon Prime Air. In the absence of timely approval by the FAA to conduct outdoor testing, we have begun utilizing outdoor testing facilities outside the United States. These non-U.S. facilities enable us to quickly build and modify our Prime Air vehicles as we construct new designs and make improvements. It is our continued desire to also pursue fast-paced innovation in the United States, which would include the creation of high-quality jobs and significant investment in the local community. We believe this is what Congress intended when enacting Section 333, and it is why we continue to make every effort to seek this exemption.
To ensure that our outdoor flight testing operations are as safe as possible, we have proposed to test on private property in a rural area of Washington State, away from people or crowds. We also have proposed to do so under the supervision of trained pilots, at low altitudes, below 400 feet above ground level (“AGL”), within visual line of sight, employing “geofencing” technology that will keep the vehicle confined to the test area, and abiding by the detailed safety measures outlined in our petition. These detailed safety measures are much stronger than those currently required for hobbyists and manufacturers of model aircraft, who already do every day what Amazon is proposing.
Given the very conservative nature of Amazon’s request, especially in contrast to the nature of other petitions for commercial small UAS operations that already have been granted, as well as the way that thousands of hobbyists are permitted to operate small UAS today, we are very concerned that our needs for testing operations have not yet been accommodated.
At the FAA’s suggestion, and again in-line with our desire to pursue fast-paced innovation in the United States, we also have been exploring another regulatory path to accommodate our research and development needs, an Experimental Certification under 14 C.F.R. § 21.191. However, this alternative entails a lengthy process that was designed for manned aircraft and bears little practical application to small UAS. This process requires certification for each individual vehicle, which is burdensome considering how fast we are designing new Prime Air vehicles. Our first Experimental Certification application has been delayed multiple times as we try to work with the FAA to simplify the process. Disconcertingly, there is no guarantee that this alternative process will provide us the flexibility we need or at the pace we need it. Therefore, we are maintaining our Section 333 petition, and hope that we have not lost time pursuing this alternative.
