Highlights of the past year of unmanned aviation activities in the United States are described in the following sections dedicated to Operations (notable flight activities), Programs (acquisition efforts), Standards, Regulations, and Technologies & Capabilities. From some future vantage point, 2005 will probably be judged as the year in which the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) became significantly more involved in overseeing U.S. unmanned aviation and set it on a more formally regulated path.

     Operations. Unmanned aircraft systems (UASes) continued to contribute heavily to the American surveillance and reconnaissance efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan during the third and fourth years, respectively, of these conflicts. As many as five simultaneous orbits were being flown by Predators over Iraq, all of them controlled from vans at bases in the United States. Reminiscent of previous engagements, a Hellfire-armed Predator hit an al Qaida bomb factory in Asorai, Pakistan, in early December, illustrating the efficacy of the shortened sensor-to-shooter chain provided by this combination. The Predator/Hellfire combination was also used to clear improvised explosive devices (IEDs) from the highway around Tal Afar, Iraq, in advance of convoys in September.
     Small UASes (defined here as those under 25 kg, or 55 lb) supporting these contingencies also expanded in their numbers and capabilities, and their proliferation has brought them into direct conflict with manned aircraft on several occasions. To date, ___ midair collisions between friendly unmanned and manned (or other unmanned) aircraft have occurred, although none have resulted in fatalities. Numerous other small unmanned aircraft (UA) have been lost when their control frequencies were inadvertently interfered with by other friendly forces. These so-called blue-on-blue collision and jamming incidents accounted for ___ of all small UA losses, with mechanical failures another ___ and hostile fire in fourth place with only ___.
     Within the United States, the U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) extended its Arizona Border Control Initiative through January 2005 to cover the timeframe of the U.S. presidential inauguration, using Army/Northrop Grumman Hunters to patrol the Arizona-Mexico border. It then began regular patrols of the Arizona border with its own UAS, a Predator B, in late September 2005 (see Programs below). In its first quarter of operations, the system’s first aircraft’s availability rate was nearly 90 percent.
     The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) tested the unmanned aviation waters in April 2005 with its first funded, UAS-only, Earth science demonstration. Under a US$1,300,000 lease, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems was to fly NASA’s Altair off the California coast to gather climatic data and assess and protect fisheries during a six-flight, 13.6-hour program of observations flown from Gray Butte airport near Palmdale, California. After four payload calibration and validation flights, three research flights over the Pacific were attempted but aborted each time due to problems with the Altair’s satcom system. As a result, only 6 hours of data were obtained during the three test flights (seven total) flown between 14 April and 17 May 2005. A second attempt by NOAA is pending additional funding.
     Perhaps the most significant news was where and when UA did not operate during 2005, which was along the U.S. Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in August. Despite Army Ravens being deployed into the area, Army Hunters being stationed at nearby Ft Polk, Louisiana, and Air Force Predators being alerted for deployment, no military unmanned aircraft were allowed to fly in support of the Katrina recovery operations. In an ironic mirroring of the jurisdictional standoff between the Louisiana governor’s office and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Northern Command (NORTHCOM), the military coordinator of relief efforts, said the FAA denied its request for airspace clearance due to UA’s lack of a see & avoid capability, and the FAA reported NORTHCOM never asked for such clearance. Both are probably true. Small UA were reportedly observed flying in the disaster area on several occasions, and FEMA spoke with at least one UAS service provider in Mississippi, but no FAA authorization was ever granted for unmanned flights. In any event, the opportunity presented by Katrina to demonstrate how UA could contribute in natural disasters and to learn lessons applicable to their employment in future relief operations was lost.

     Programs. Contracts for two major UAS acquisition programs, the Army’s Extended Range/Multi-Purpose (ER/MP) and the Department of Homeland Security’s Predator B, were awarded in 2005. Two other major programs, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s (DARPA’s) Joint Unmanned Combat Aircraft System (JUCAS) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA’s) Access 5, underwent significant changes. Otherwise, testing of developmental UA and production of operational UA continued.
     The Army selected the General Atomics Aeronautical System’s Warrior as the winner of its ER/MP competition that had begun in late 2001 to find a follow-on to its Hunter corps level reconnaissance and surveillance assets on 8 August 2005. Warrior, essentially a Predator with a Thielert Centurion 1.7 diesel engine, will hold the distinction of becoming the first diesel-powered UA to enter production, greatly simplifying its logistics by its use of this common battlefield fuel. It made its first flight on 25 October 2004. The US$900,000,000 program is to eventually deliver 11 systems composed of 12 aircraft and five ground control stations each and reach its initial operational capability (IOC) by mid 2009. As with Hunter, Warrior will use AAI’s Shadow ground station, the Army’s common control van.
     On 30 August 2005, the USBP awarded General Atomics Aeronautical Systems a US$14,000,000 contract for one Predator B system, to initially be stationed at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, and General Atomics personnel to fly and maintain it. Delivery of the first aircraft and the ground control station occurred a month later on 28 September, providing an IOC, with full operational capability (FOC) to be achieved in the Spring of 2006. This was the first contract for a UAS awarded from the Department of Homeland Security since its formation in 2002. The USBP was reportedly also investigating the acquisition of a small, hand-launched UAS to be operated by its agents in the field for increasing their situational awareness.
     The U.S. Coast Guard, another component of the Department of Homeland Security with an interest in unmanned aviation, reduced its planned buy of Bell Textron Eagle Eye tiltrotor UA for its Deep Water program from 69 to 45 and slipped the initial delivery date from 2006 to 2009.
     On 1 November 2005, program management responsibility for JUCAS transferred from DARPA in Washington, DC, to the Air Force’s Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. Although JUCAS remains a joint Air Force-Navy program and has a Navy captain as its Program Manager, the Air Force is now responsible for a significant portion of its day-to-day decisions and budget. Given that the Air Force is concurrently managing two other, high profile strike/fighter programs (F-22 and F-35) which have both suffered recent cuts in their planned numbers of aircraft to be bought, this shift increases the risk that JUCAS may eventually see its funds used to help restore the cuts to these programs.
     Starting in September, NASA signaled its intention to terminate its funding of its five-year, US$103, 000,000 Access 5 program and formalized this decision in its FY06 budget in November. In this budget’s appropriations bill, the U.S. Congress directed NASA to submit two reports, one on how to transition Access 5’s results to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) due by 15 February 2006 and the other on the potential of UA to conduct science in the near space environment by 31 March 2006. At their December 2005 Technology Workshop, the FAA characterized the status of Access 5 as “entering a period of reinvestment,” and it remains to be seen whether and to what extent the cash-strapped FAA will assume funding responsibility for the program.
     With its new leadership and a Presidential mandate, NASA is returning to its original charter of pushing the leading edge of aviation technology, rather than that of aviation regulation (as in Access 5), a function of the FAA. In fact, NASA’s new Associate Administrator for Aeronautics, Lisa Porter, made it clear that NASA remains specifically committed to advancing unmanned aviation technology, by identifying the X-50 and A-160 UAS programs for receiving increased NASA participation. As another indicator, the NASA Centennial Challenges program established a US$250,000 prize in December for demonstrating a totally autonomous robotic aircraft capable of navigating over other planets in an October 2007 contest.

     Standards. After a flurry of initial accomplishments in 2004, the various standards development organizations (SDOs) supporting unmanned aviation failed to publish one new standard in 2005, although a number of new ones were drafted and under review at year’s end.
     The most significant accomplishment was the adoption by the U.S. Defense Department in May 2005 of ASTM F2411 Design and Performance of an Airborne Sense-and-Avoid System as its performance standard for future, automated see & avoid systems on military UASes. Meant to establish the initial benchmark to which manufacturers could build such systems, F2411 will be revised and evolve as the technology and regulations behind them mature to ensure the quality of these systems. In addition, ASTM’s F38 committee produced the first draft standards and recommended practices for UAS airworthiness, training, and catapult performance, along with a dozen others, most of which should see publication in 2006.
     After standing up in December 2004, RTCA’s SC-203 committee set itself the following three goals and has worked diligently toward them during its quarterly meetings:

- An overall concept of UAS operations MASPS by December 2005;

- A UAS communications MOSPS by December 2006; and

- A UAS see & avoid MOSPS by December 2007.

     A third SDO, SAE, has formed two subcommittees focused on UAS topics, AC-9C for ice detection and prevention measures and AS-4 for command and control. Standards have yet to emerge from either, but are expected to do so in 2006.

     Regulations. By any measure, 2005 was the breakthrough year for UAS regulation in the U.S. Three significant events occurred:

- The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) promulgated its first UAS-specific policy, AFS-400 Unmanned Aircraft Systems Policy 05-01, Unmanned Aircraft Systems Operations in the U.S. National Airspace System—Interim Operational Approval Guidance, on 16 September 2005;

- It issued its first airworthiness certificates to unmanned aircraft; and

- It established the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program Office to oversee UAS integration into the National Airspace (NAS).

     The FAA’s Flight Standards division created Policy 05-01 as a first cut at establishing UA airworthiness and aircrew qualification criteria for the increasing number of applications for unmanned flight. Previously such requests had been reviewed and approved or disapproved solely by the Air Traffic division, and airworthiness and qualification issues had not been addressed. The new policy now allows only the Department of Defense or Homeland Security to fly UA under the previous Certificate of Authorization (COA) process; all others must obtain a Special Airworthiness Certificate. Notably, an exception is made for those small UA (under 55 lb) resembling radio-controlled model airplanes, but they must show prudence in their flight areas. While 05-01 is a positive step in legitimizing commercial unmanned aviation, contrast its 9 pages with the comparable 120-page FAA policy on space tourism issued in December 2005, and it becomes clear the latter is considered to be the more imminent, mature commercial prospect.
     NASA’s General Atomics Altair, registration number N8172V, became the first U.S.-certified UAS on 25 August 2005, when the FAA issued it a Special Airworthiness Certificate in the experimental category for research & development, crew training, and market survey purposes. The one-year certificate has a number of operational limitations, including requiring a chase aircraft for see & avoidance, that can be worked off as the Altair demonstrates its maturity. In setting this precedent, the FAA treated Altair much as it does light and sport aircraft, such as ultra-lights, but with added restrictions. From application to issuance, the process took two months. Altair was followed on 1 December by the second U.S.-certified UAS, the Bell Textron Eagle Eye tiltrotor, destined for production for the U.S. Coast Guard (see Programs above). In this case, the process was aided by the prior certification of Bell Textron’s BA609 manned counterpart to Eagle Eye but still took five months. To this point, only individual aircraft have been certified; no production line or type airworthiness certificates have been issued, but this may occur in the next year or two.
     Organizationally, the FAA took a major step on 8 December when it stood up the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Program Office and appointed Mr. Doug Davis to be its first manager. Mr. Davis has had a 21-year career in the FAA, serving in air traffic operations and as a liaison officer with the U.S. military prior to assuming this newly-created position. Situated within the Flight Standards and Safety Directorate, the UASPO is chartered to ___. It will complement the FAA’s cross-directorate UAS Working Group, chaired by Mr. Tony Fazio, which will address standards, airworthiness certification, rulemaking, and policies. The creation of this office signals the FAA’s recognition of UASes as a major player in the NAS of the future.
     In addition to these three advances, the FAA and the Air Force Flight Standards Agency made progress in coordinating the next revision to FAA Order 7610.4, which governs how the FAA responds to DoD requests to fly its unmanned aircraft in civilian airspace, i.e., off its test and training ranges. The current 7610.4 provides only an on-or-off range option for a military UAS; either fly it on a military range or request a Certificate of Authorization (COA) to fly it off range. The revision under consideration would expand this to four options by allowing (1) unmanned aircraft weighing under 55 lb and flying less than 100 knots or (2) those having a certified see & avoid system onboard to fly off range without a COA. Because the FAA has applied the provisions of 7610.4 to non-military UAS operations in the past, this latest revision could set important precedents for the treatment of civil unmanned aircraft, particularly those in the RC-model size class, in the near future. With 55-lb civil aircraft allowed in the NAS for sport and recreational purposes and 55-lb public (military) ones about to be for defense purposes, professional organizations such as the Remote Control Aerial Photography Association (RCAPA) will be watching to see if they will be allowed to operate in the niche between the two, as 55-lb civil aircraft for commercial purposes.

     Technologies & Capabilities. Long recognized as the key missing enabler of unmanned aviation for regulatory purposes, see & avoid (S&A) technology is poised to make significant advances during 2006 with three technology demonstrations. The Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), in conjunction with the New Mexico State University’s Technical Analysis and Applications Center (TAAC) and the 46th Test Group, will fly an innovative tracking sensor on a General Dynamics Aerostar UA in January. Naval Air Systems Command will follow in April with a single camera and tracker coupled to the autopilot of a Geneva Aerospace Dakota UA and avoid other UA flown toward it. Expanding this same system to meet or exceed the requirements of ASTM F2411, the Defense Department’s See & Avoid Flight Demonstration (SAFD) will demonstrate this system’s ability to avoid parachutists, balloons, and converging aircraft to the FAA that summer. Unlike previous S&A tests, these three projects will fly on unmanned aircraft, two will not require pilot inputs for the avoidance maneuver, and one will progress to flight in civil airspace. Concurrently, Lincoln Laboratories, under FAA direction, will model this same S&A system in its NAS model to evaluate its contribution to airspace safety. The results of this modeling, and the flight demonstration, should help revise the FAA’s expectation that any S&A capability is “years in the future” and expedite their regulatory acceptance.
     Another maturing UAS capability was demonstrated by the Air Force in October when it/one pilot flew four MQ-1 Predators simultaneously from a single ground control station at Creech AFB, Nevada. This ability is key to the future operational employment of the JUCAS. It is also at direct odds with the FAA’s insistence that manned aviation’s “one plane, one pilot” rule be applied to unmanned aviation.
     Propulsion technology for affordable, long endurance flight advanced on several fronts during 2005. The diesel engine of the Army’s Warrior should increase its endurance by ___ percent over that of its Predator predecessor and reduce its fuel costs by six percent. A subscale forerunner of AeroVironment’s Global Observer took to the air on 27 May 2005, demonstrating the first use of liquid hydrogen-fueled fuel cells for propulsion. Its goal is an endurance of 7 to 10 days at or above 65,000 feet. AC Propulsion’s solar-battery powered SoLong remained aloft for 48 hours and 16 minutes hours on 1-3 June 2005. SoLong achieved this endurance by gliding by day and using its solar cells to recharge its lithium ion batteries, which in turn carried it through the nights.
     Perhaps most intriguing is DARPA’s new nano air vehicle (NAV) initiative, managed by Dr. Darryll Pines in their Defense Systems Office (DSO). Defined as aircraft having no dimension greater than 5 cm (2 inches), a gross weight less than 10 grams (with a 2-gram payload), a speed of 7 to 10 m/s (14 to 19 knots), a range of up to a kilometer, and the ability to hover for at least 60 seconds, NAVs now serve the same role as did micro air vehicles (MAVs) in the mid-1990s, establishing a benchmark toward which to push miniature aviation technology and research. DARPA hosted the first NAV Proposers Day on 29 September 2005.

     One further indicator of the increasing maturity of unmanned aviation was the appearance in 2005 of specialized conferences on such topics as unmanned systems human factors (a seeming oxymoron) and UA commercial markets. The former, hosted by ___, held its second meeting in Mesa, Arizona, in May and the latter, hosted by Embry Riddle University, its first in Daytona Beach, Florida, in November. Their appearance marks the start of a trend toward more focused communities within unmanned aviation.

     In summary, 2005 was not a year in which unmanned aviation set altitude or endurance records or made similar headline achievements. Instead 2005 was a quiet, non-flashy year in which it solidified its gains and laid the groundwork for advances in technology, standards, and regulations that will unfold in 2006 and beyond.