Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production of I Heart Radios,
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hey there, and welcome to tex Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works and I heart radio and I love
Speaker 1: all things tech. And On April twenty third, two thousand nineteen,
Speaker 1: Bloomberg reported that Wing Aviation l C, which is a
Speaker 1: company under Alphabet that's the same parent company that Google
Speaker 1: belongs to, had received f A A approval for air
Speaker 1: carrier certification. This was important news because Wing is in
Speaker 1: the drone business with the goal of making drone deliveries
Speaker 1: a reality. In other words, deliveries made by drone, not
Speaker 1: deliveries of drones to people, and this is a goal
Speaker 1: to make it a reality in the United States. So
Speaker 1: today I thought I would talk about drones and the
Speaker 1: laws and regular elations for drone operations in the United
Speaker 1: States in particular, and a little bit about other places
Speaker 1: as well, and why this certification was a necessary step
Speaker 1: for Wings plans to come to fruition. First, I think
Speaker 1: it might be good to define some terms. See the
Speaker 1: word drone is a bit vague. In the broad sense.
Speaker 1: We tend to think of drones as unmanned aircraft or
Speaker 1: unmanned aerial vehicles u a v s. They can range
Speaker 1: from something that can land on the palm of your
Speaker 1: hand to something that if it landed on you would
Speaker 1: give you the Wicked Witch of the East treatment because
Speaker 1: you'd get squished, because they can get real big. But
Speaker 1: the technical definition for a drone, or at least a
Speaker 1: a modern definition for a drone is that it is
Speaker 1: an unmanned, fixed wing or multi rotor aircraft and it
Speaker 1: might draw power through fuel combustion engine or through batteries,
Speaker 1: and for consumer drones, the battery option is by far
Speaker 1: the most common, but typically when we use the word drone,
Speaker 1: we're thinking of multi rotor unmanned aircraft, and frequently there
Speaker 1: are ones that we pilot using a remote control system.
Speaker 1: The most common version you tend to see in the
Speaker 1: consumer market is the quad copter form factor, where you
Speaker 1: have a set of rotors at what would be the
Speaker 1: four corners of the drone, and it helps produce stability.
Speaker 1: These systems are are pretty phenomenal works of technology. Microchips
Speaker 1: and sensors work to keep the drones nice and stable.
Speaker 1: They can make fine tuned adjustments to operations and that
Speaker 1: helps keep the drones in air. So some drone drones
Speaker 1: will allow pilots to actually kind of tweak those settings
Speaker 1: and give a little more control over to human operators.
Speaker 1: But to make drones appealing to the masses, it was
Speaker 1: imperative to create hardware and software that would allow the
Speaker 1: average person to fly one around without having to monitor
Speaker 1: a dozen different variables at once. If you start seeing
Speaker 1: the back right corner and go down, then you're adjusting
Speaker 1: for that. You might overcorrect and next thing you know,
Speaker 1: your drones flipping out. So the technology got to the
Speaker 1: point where that wasn't necessary, where that could be automated. Now.
Speaker 1: I've done episodes about drone technology in the past, including
Speaker 1: talking about how DARPA was very much involved with drones,
Speaker 1: particularly during the Vietnam War, but I'm not going to
Speaker 1: spend a whole lot of time doing that here. I
Speaker 1: just want to touch on the fact that companies have
Speaker 1: developed the technology to a point that allows anyone with
Speaker 1: a little patients to operate a drone fairly easily. And
Speaker 1: doing so safely and responsibly is another matter, and that's
Speaker 1: where regulations will come in. Now. To understand the evolution
Speaker 1: of regulations It's also important to have a quick overview
Speaker 1: of drone history because this is another one of those
Speaker 1: examples where technology develops faster than governments can handle. Now,
Speaker 1: technically the term drone has been used to describe any
Speaker 1: unmanned aerial vehicle in the past. The actual term would
Speaker 1: start to come up probably I think it's more or
Speaker 1: less like the World War One era, but we've used
Speaker 1: the word to apply to things even older than that.
Speaker 1: That includes balloons, which represent the earliest drones. Again, we
Speaker 1: didn't call them that at the time, but that's what
Speaker 1: we'd call him now. As early as eighteen forty nine,
Speaker 1: militaries were experimenting with unmanned balloons as explosive delivery systems
Speaker 1: or bombers, so they're using balloons to bomb targets. The
Speaker 1: Austrian military use such bomb carrying balloons against the city
Speaker 1: of Venice. At the time, Austria was controlling much of
Speaker 1: the surrounding area and they were laying siege to the city.
Speaker 1: The bombs had timed fuses that were cut to a
Speaker 1: length that would give the balloon enough time to reach
Speaker 1: its target before exploding, and it was mostly based off
Speaker 1: environmental conditions at the time. So you'd say, based on
Speaker 1: the direction of the wind and its speed, we calculate
Speaker 1: that it will take x number of minutes to get
Speaker 1: to where we want to go, so we'll cut the
Speaker 1: fuse to this link. Now, some of the bombs did
Speaker 1: have a pesky habit of blowing back toward the Austrians,
Speaker 1: and that was not ideal. The Venetians would surrender to
Speaker 1: the Austrians a couple of days after those attacks, but
Speaker 1: the lack of control over the balloons and flight was
Speaker 1: a big reason that other countries did not immediately jump
Speaker 1: on board and employ the same strategy. The first fixed
Speaker 1: wing pilotless drone recorded in history was probably the Rustin
Speaker 1: Proctor aerial target, which was developed in nineteen sixteen. That's
Speaker 1: just sixteen years after the Right Brothers had a successful
Speaker 1: demonstration of heavier than air fixed wing aircraft at Kittie Hawk. Now,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of sites that have information about
Speaker 1: this particular automated aircraft, well not even automated, it's not automated,
Speaker 1: but remote controlled radio control aircraft. But they all used
Speaker 1: suspiciously similar wording in those articles. So in other words,
Speaker 1: I think they're all either working from the exact same
Speaker 1: source material which is being kind might just be copying
Speaker 1: each other. Suffice it to say, the aerial target relied
Speaker 1: on simplistic radio controls. In fact, calling it a remote
Speaker 1: control is probably being way too generous. Uh. And it
Speaker 1: was intended to be used like a flying bomb, but
Speaker 1: it was never actually used in combat. The realities of
Speaker 1: World War One gave countries a lot of incentives to
Speaker 1: develop drones. Being able to attack an opponent without putting
Speaker 1: the lives of your own soldiers in danger was obviously
Speaker 1: a goal for everybody. The designs in World War One
Speaker 1: really led more to the development of cruise missiles than
Speaker 1: the evolution of the end landed aerial vehicle or ua V. Now,
Speaker 1: between the two World Wars, countries began to experiment with
Speaker 1: various unmanned aerial vehicles as targets, much as the aerial
Speaker 1: target name had suggested. So you would have pilots in
Speaker 1: manned aircraft practicing their their firing, practicing their their targeting
Speaker 1: on these aerial target it's that were unmanned. There was
Speaker 1: no fear of endangering another pilot because there's no pilot
Speaker 1: in the enemy aircraft, and it gave pilots a chance
Speaker 1: to hone their skills without putting other people in danger,
Speaker 1: so it became a training method. These aerial targets were
Speaker 1: typically made through converting full sized aircraft UH into radio
Speaker 1: controlled aircraft, rather than building something specifically for the purposes
Speaker 1: of being an unmanned vehicle from the first place. Now,
Speaker 1: according to at least one story, this is where the
Speaker 1: word drone actually came from. It was applied to a
Speaker 1: ua V called the d H point eight to B
Speaker 1: also known as the Queen B. And UH they started
Speaker 1: using the drone to describe this particular aircraft, and then
Speaker 1: later they used it to describe any aerial target, and
Speaker 1: later still to refer to any remotely controlled unmanned aerial vehicle.
Speaker 1: And that's where we got the word drone, at least
Speaker 1: according to a lot of sites I found on the internet. UH,
Speaker 1: I am not confident that that is the correct answer,
Speaker 1: but we're gonna go with it because it was the
Speaker 1: one one I found consensus on. Now I'm gonna switch
Speaker 1: gears a bit and talk about a dude called Reginald
Speaker 1: Denny who was an English actor who immigrated to America
Speaker 1: to seek fame and fortune in Hollywood. And he would
Speaker 1: do that He acted in dozens of roles, though I
Speaker 1: think I've only ever seen him in two movies. He
Speaker 1: was in the nineteen sixty six version of Batman Some
Speaker 1: Days you just can't get rid of a bomb. And
Speaker 1: he was also a bad guy in the Western comedy
Speaker 1: film Cat Balou, which holds a near and dear place
Speaker 1: to my heart. Anyway, he had another interest besides acting,
Speaker 1: and that was of remote control airplanes. He had been
Speaker 1: in the Royal Flying Corps the RFC in Britain during
Speaker 1: World War One, and he had performed as a stunt
Speaker 1: pilot after that. So when he came to America, he
Speaker 1: created a company called Reginald Denny Industries, and and he
Speaker 1: started to design and build remote controlled aircraft, and he
Speaker 1: did some for the military, but he also did other
Speaker 1: ones for hobbyists and amateur pilots. He's widely cited as
Speaker 1: the first person to create a model plane business, a
Speaker 1: radio control model plane business. I should add because there
Speaker 1: were other businesses that made model planes. It's just they
Speaker 1: were either gliders, or they were just models that weren't
Speaker 1: meant to fly at all, or they were tethered, so
Speaker 1: they would you would tie them to an anchor point
Speaker 1: and they would just fly in circles. Oh and one
Speaker 1: other bit of trivia. Another famous person in Hollywood got
Speaker 1: her start as an assembler in one of Denny's manufacturing facilities.
Speaker 1: That actress's name was Norma Gene Mortenson, but she's better
Speaker 1: known by her stage name Marilyn Monroe. While Denny was
Speaker 1: catering to a small and fairly wealthy clientele of r
Speaker 1: C pilots, it would take the development of the transistor
Speaker 1: and making the transistor cheap and to produce to really
Speaker 1: give the hobbyist community a big boost. And that happened
Speaker 1: in the nineteen sixties, and it allowed manufacturers to make
Speaker 1: much smaller radio controlled components for aircraft and also meant
Speaker 1: that the aircraft themselves could be smaller. So soon dozens
Speaker 1: of companies were producing different types of aircraft, often in
Speaker 1: kit form, which means you would go out and buy
Speaker 1: the kit and you would assemble the aircraft at home.
Speaker 1: Now I should add that there had been model aeroplane
Speaker 1: associations and competitions since before Denny had even created his business,
Speaker 1: but those were essentially free form competitions in which the
Speaker 1: aircraft is not controlled during flight. So a glider is
Speaker 1: an example. Or aircraft that uses a rubber band to
Speaker 1: store and then unleash energy. Uh, that was another example.
Speaker 1: Or they were the tethered version before radio control really
Speaker 1: came on the scene in the nineteen sixties. As the
Speaker 1: transistor was taking shape, so was the concept of aircraft
Speaker 1: regulations in the US. And I'm talking about full sized
Speaker 1: aircraft regulations UM and manned aircraft as well. In ninety eight,
Speaker 1: the United States formed the Federal Aviation Administration. Originally it's
Speaker 1: called the Federal Aviation Agency. Either way, it was called
Speaker 1: the f a A still is to this day the
Speaker 1: f a A. And the purpose of it was to
Speaker 1: oversee the development and enforcement of regulations for aircraft. And
Speaker 1: there had been several fatal accidents that involved aircraft over
Speaker 1: the previous decades, some of those involving high profile people,
Speaker 1: including a US senator in nineteen thirty five. Now, previously,
Speaker 1: the Department of Commerce had been charged with administering and
Speaker 1: regulating the use of aircraft, but technology was progressing quickly,
Speaker 1: and as air travel and cargo transportation became more accessible,
Speaker 1: the country began to rely rely upon air travel much
Speaker 1: more heavily, and that led to the need to create
Speaker 1: a new government agency to oversee everything. Senator A. S.
Speaker 1: Mike Munroney from Oklahoma introduced a bill to create the
Speaker 1: f a A and it had the mission to provide
Speaker 1: quote for the safe and Efficient use of National Airspace
Speaker 1: end quote. Now would be a while before the f
Speaker 1: a A turned its attention to u a v s,
Speaker 1: largely because there just weren't that many u a v
Speaker 1: s out there to worry about it. Plus, hobbyist organizations
Speaker 1: were trying to be proactive, so they were creating their
Speaker 1: own sets of rules and guidelines for operation, and part
Speaker 1: of that was in an effort to stay ahead of
Speaker 1: the need for regulations, which many thought would end up
Speaker 1: hurting the hobby as a whole. If you have to
Speaker 1: start regulating things, you discourage people from getting involved in it.
Speaker 1: So they're kind of hoping to head that off at
Speaker 1: the pass and say, well, we're just going to make
Speaker 1: sure that everyone is knows how to behave and operate
Speaker 1: these things so that we don't have the government get involved.
Speaker 1: And because again it was a relatively small number of people,
Speaker 1: there wasn't much concern at least for a few decades.
Speaker 1: There was one other federal agency that hobbyists and companies
Speaker 1: catering to hobbyists had to pay attention to, and that
Speaker 1: was the f c C, which is authorized to designate
Speaker 1: radio frequencies for specific types of use. So radio controlled
Speaker 1: vehicles fall into the same category as amateur radio, and
Speaker 1: so all our C vehicles have to operate within the
Speaker 1: amateur radio bandwidths of radio frequencies. Other frequency bandwidths are
Speaker 1: meant for different purposes, So for example, television broadcast is
Speaker 1: one of those where military use takes up several different bandwidths.
Speaker 1: We'll get back to the FCC a bit later, because
Speaker 1: there's a complication that arises it if you want to
Speaker 1: use a ua V for commercial purposes. Um that the
Speaker 1: f c C overseas alright, So for years r C
Speaker 1: pilots didn't really have to worry about regulations as long
Speaker 1: as they followed the guidelines that the various hobbyist organizations had.
Speaker 1: A STAF published in the f a A issued an
Speaker 1: advisory Circular on Model Aircraft Operating Standards, and these were
Speaker 1: a list of safety standards that the f a A
Speaker 1: advised model aircraft operators to follow. They were pretty straightforward
Speaker 1: rules that broke down into the following. Don't operate a
Speaker 1: model aircraft near populated and noise sensitive areas. Don't operate
Speaker 1: a model aircraft in front of spectators until you've established
Speaker 1: that the aircraft is actually air worthy through some flight testing.
Speaker 1: Don't fly higher than four feet in altitude. If you
Speaker 1: do want to fly a model aircraft within three miles
Speaker 1: of an airport, you have to first notify the air
Speaker 1: traffic facility or air traffic control tower first. UM I
Speaker 1: think I said first there twice, But that's how important
Speaker 1: it was. You were to give right of way to
Speaker 1: any full scale aircraft and avoid flying in their proximity
Speaker 1: whenever possible, and you were encouraged to talk with air
Speaker 1: traffic control to help in your planning to comply with
Speaker 1: those rules. And that was it, and it stayed that
Speaker 1: way for a couple of decades. I'll talk about what
Speaker 1: happened next in just a moment, but first let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break. So as we know, technology continues to evolve,
Speaker 1: and as tech evolves, it tends to become more accessible,
Speaker 1: both because prices for that tech will drop and the
Speaker 1: tech also gets easier to use. So what was once
Speaker 1: a complicated task becomes more automated, and that means more
Speaker 1: people can get involved in that activity without encountering a
Speaker 1: very steep learning curve, and they don't have to develop
Speaker 1: the same sort of skill that earlier hobbyists had to
Speaker 1: develop in order to be active in that hobby. Flying
Speaker 1: an RC plane before the development of automated technologies required
Speaker 1: a whole lot of skill and focus. It's much easier
Speaker 1: to fly a quad copter with automatic leveling capabilities. In fact,
Speaker 1: it's hard to describe the difference. I've operated an RC
Speaker 1: airplane before, and once it's in the air, it's not
Speaker 1: that hard to control it, but it's a little tricky
Speaker 1: if you want to bring it down safely. I always
Speaker 1: had to hand the controls over to someone who is
Speaker 1: more capable than I to do that. I could do
Speaker 1: basic maneuvers, I couldn't do anything fancy. UM quad copters
Speaker 1: are very different because it automates a lot of the
Speaker 1: features that keeps the aircraft steady in the air as
Speaker 1: you're giving it different commands, So you've given a lot
Speaker 1: more freedom to do wacky stuff and not have to
Speaker 1: worry so much about the aircraft having a total crash.
Speaker 1: Now the technology advanced much faster than the law did,
Speaker 1: which again it's pretty common in technology. We'd see it
Speaker 1: in other areas, not just in things like transportation. We
Speaker 1: see it pretty much everywhere where. Innovators come up with
Speaker 1: a new idea that the law it really hasn't accounted
Speaker 1: for yet, and then we see the law try to
Speaker 1: catch up with the state of the art tech. But
Speaker 1: that takes time, and it takes a while for regulators
Speaker 1: to kind of suss out the details to sort of
Speaker 1: caught a by them into rules and regulations. Now, the
Speaker 1: popularity of drones inevitably led to several cases in which
Speaker 1: the unmanned vehicles caused concern, including several near miss scenarios
Speaker 1: with full scale aircraft near airports. So the f a
Speaker 1: A recognized the situation was urgent that these drones were
Speaker 1: just going to keep getting more and more popular, which
Speaker 1: meant more of them in the air, which meant more
Speaker 1: opportunities for disaster to occur. So the agency needed to
Speaker 1: jump in on this point. Now, at first, the f
Speaker 1: a A tried to enforce rules for actual aircraft that
Speaker 1: and have them applied to u a v s, and
Speaker 1: they concluded that unmanned aerial systems or u A S s s,
Speaker 1: which essentially the same thing as U A V S
Speaker 1: is just another name for it, are legally designated as aircraft,
Speaker 1: and that would mean that all operators would have to
Speaker 1: follow f a A rules and get certified to operate
Speaker 1: their vehicles. The f A wanted to classify U A
Speaker 1: S devices as aircraft under the Code of Federal Regulations,
Speaker 1: specifically as defined in Part one oh three, which is
Speaker 1: the section for ultra light vehicles. However, as defined, ultra
Speaker 1: light vehicles are manned vehicles that either way less than
Speaker 1: one fifty five pounds if they're unpowered, or two hundred
Speaker 1: fifty four pounds if they are powered. That's around seventy
Speaker 1: ms for unpowered and a little more than a hundred
Speaker 1: and ten kilograms for powered aircraft. So when the f
Speaker 1: a A attempted to prosecute cases centered on irresponsible and
Speaker 1: dangerous operation of u AS vehicles using these rules as
Speaker 1: their basis, that's where they encountered some problems. The case
Speaker 1: went to the court system of the National Transportation Safety Board,
Speaker 1: but the NTSB rejected the f A A S case
Speaker 1: on the grounds that u AS vehicles do not meet
Speaker 1: the definition of an ultra light aircraft. They said, you
Speaker 1: can't apply the rules for this thing for this other thing.
Speaker 1: There are two different things. So a lot of the
Speaker 1: charges were dismissed, but there were a couple that did stick.
Speaker 1: The court held up a charge involving operating drones within
Speaker 1: controlled airspaces like a near an airport, so the f
Speaker 1: a A had no legal justification to take operators to
Speaker 1: court even if they were acting irresponsibly, so the agency
Speaker 1: had limited authority. It was pretty clear that the f
Speaker 1: a A could have the right to regulate operations within
Speaker 1: controlled airspace, and that the f a A could establish
Speaker 1: the right to regulate pilots and drone airworthiness. But some operations,
Speaker 1: such as the indoor operation of drones, were deemed to
Speaker 1: be completely outside the f a AS authority. They couldn't
Speaker 1: say anything about how you operate a drone indoors. Now,
Speaker 1: the f a A would go and draft a new
Speaker 1: set of rules under Part one zero seven. This would
Speaker 1: be small unmanned aircraft systems, so they drafted specific rules
Speaker 1: to cover these devices since they did not fit on
Speaker 1: the ultra light category. This would set the actual rules
Speaker 1: that the f a A could actively enforce, and the
Speaker 1: rules not only created the safe parameters for drone operation.
Speaker 1: It also gave commercial U a S operators the legal
Speaker 1: foundation upon which they could pursue their careers. Because commercial
Speaker 1: U a S operators UH have to follow rules as well,
Speaker 1: and they're different rules than recreational drone users. You might
Speaker 1: wonder what a professional u a S operator is doing.
Speaker 1: A lot of them are camera operators because a lot
Speaker 1: of film projects end up meeting drone shots. They can
Speaker 1: replace helicopter shots or crane shots, so you can see
Speaker 1: them a lot in the entertainment and information industries, and
Speaker 1: this was a way for people to actually make that
Speaker 1: a living. Now, the rules states the drone operators have
Speaker 1: to maintain a line of sight with their vehicles while
Speaker 1: they're operating them outdoors. So you could not use a
Speaker 1: camera and monitor system to pilot your your drone out
Speaker 1: of sight. So you couldn't just go beyond line of sight.
Speaker 1: With these these rules in place, the pilot has to
Speaker 1: be able to lay eyes on the drone at all times. UH. Also,
Speaker 1: the operators are to fly the drones at an altitude
Speaker 1: ceiling of four hundred feet or a hundred twenty two.
Speaker 1: That's the same as for the model airplanes, so that
Speaker 1: didn't change. Another restriction states that you can't fly your
Speaker 1: drone over human beings unless those people are undercover, So
Speaker 1: if the drone were to follow the sky, wouldn't hurt anybody. Uh.
Speaker 1: The only exception to this is if you are the
Speaker 1: actual pilot of the drone, you can fly it over yourself,
Speaker 1: but you're not allowed to fly it over anyone else.
Speaker 1: That would become a big restriction for commercial drones, as
Speaker 1: we'll talk about a bit later. The vehicles also can't
Speaker 1: be carrying hazardous material, so you can't have you know,
Speaker 1: like biological agents or chemical agents or things like that
Speaker 1: are explosives on a drone that's illegal, and pilots are
Speaker 1: limited to operating only a single aircraft at any given time.
Speaker 1: There are also other rules that are involved with this,
Speaker 1: but that's those are the general ones for recreational drone use.
Speaker 1: In addition, if a ua V weighs more than point
Speaker 1: to five kgrams or about point five five pounds, the
Speaker 1: operator is required to register the drone. In the United States,
Speaker 1: operators have to be at least thirteen years old in
Speaker 1: order to register a drone. If they are younger than that,
Speaker 1: they can have a quote unquote responsible adult do it
Speaker 1: in their place. So you don't have to be thirteen
Speaker 1: to operate a drone, but you have to be at
Speaker 1: least thirteen to register a drone. The registration fee is
Speaker 1: five dollars. It's good for three years, so it's not
Speaker 1: prohibitively expensive. You know, drones are already pretty expensive, so
Speaker 1: that's the limiting factor. I would argue more than the
Speaker 1: registration fee. These rules are again just for recreational use.
Speaker 1: They don't apply to people who are piloting drones for profit.
Speaker 1: And starting in two thousand and six, the f a
Speaker 1: A began to issue commercial drone permits. This gets complicated
Speaker 1: because operating a drone commercially is in violation of those
Speaker 1: f c C regulations I talked about, because the f
Speaker 1: c C regulations state that you can only use those
Speaker 1: amateur radio bands for amateur use. You cannot use it
Speaker 1: to make a profit. That's you know, there are different
Speaker 1: frequencies that are reserved for commercial use. So technically, if
Speaker 1: you're making a living operating a drone, you can get
Speaker 1: permission from the f a A to do it, but
Speaker 1: the actual radio frequencies you're using to control the drone
Speaker 1: have to be over amateur radio frequencies and that technically
Speaker 1: is in violation of the FCC rules. That being said,
Speaker 1: I am not aware of any cases in which the
Speaker 1: f c C came up against a drone operator and
Speaker 1: said you're not allowed to do that because you're making
Speaker 1: money and these frequencies have been reserved just for amateur use.
Speaker 1: But technically it is against the rules. Maybe that means
Speaker 1: that one day we'll see the rules get some adjustment,
Speaker 1: but uh, yeah, it's an interesting issue that I guess
Speaker 1: isn't really an issue because if no one's pressing the matter,
Speaker 1: it doesn't ultimately mean anything. But technically it is against
Speaker 1: the rules. So on average, once the f a A
Speaker 1: started to issue commercial drone permits in two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: it was issuing them at a rate of two per
Speaker 1: year for about eight years. Now. That was not because
Speaker 1: the f a A was being particularly picky with who
Speaker 1: got a drone permit to operate a drone commercially, It
Speaker 1: was just because the demand was super low, not a
Speaker 1: lot of people were requesting these certifications. However, that did
Speaker 1: change dramatically in uh the f a went from doing
Speaker 1: about two a year to doing a thousand permits. In
Speaker 1: the following year, it more than tripled the number of permits,
Speaker 1: so it's more than three thousand at that point. And
Speaker 1: this is kind of in line with the rise in
Speaker 1: quality of drones in general, as well as the camera
Speaker 1: equipment aboard drones. So now you started to see, you know,
Speaker 1: higher resolution cameras get attached to drones around this time,
Speaker 1: so there were more uses, commercial potential, commercial uses for drones.
Speaker 1: So as the camera's improved, interest in drone permits increased
Speaker 1: and more filmmakers and producers began incorporating drone footage in
Speaker 1: their works. But the rules as written would prohibit certain operations.
Speaker 1: No company would be able to use drones to deliver
Speaker 1: packages under the U A V Rules in Part Part
Speaker 1: one oh seven. In order to get that permission, a
Speaker 1: company would have to take some extra steps. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can operate a drone to shoot movies. You could
Speaker 1: do that, and you can make a profit despite the
Speaker 1: FCC guidelines. But you couldn't use a drone to carry
Speaker 1: a package to a customer in the United States because
Speaker 1: the f A rules would prohibit that. So the first
Speaker 1: proposals to use drones for delivery started popping up in
Speaker 1: that's when Amazon's Jeff Bezos showed news correspondent Charlie Rose
Speaker 1: a project that was codenamed Prime Air still is to
Speaker 1: this day. This program would have drones called octocopters, carrying
Speaker 1: packages through the sky to customers homes, and it was
Speaker 1: a big surprise to the television crew that was there
Speaker 1: to shoot an interview with Bezos, and was a huge
Speaker 1: unveiling to the world at large. The goal was to
Speaker 1: speed up delivery considerably. So ideally, here's how this would unfold.
Speaker 1: A customer would hit by on the Amazon site for
Speaker 1: some small product. That would send a message to a
Speaker 1: nearby order fulfillment center, and there the order would be
Speaker 1: prepared and placed in a small yellow bucket, and then
Speaker 1: a drone could come by and pick up the little
Speaker 1: yellow bucket and then fly to the correct destination, setting
Speaker 1: down the package and getting the product into the customer's
Speaker 1: hands within a half hour of their ordering it. So
Speaker 1: it was a pretty revolutionary idea, particularly for two thousand thirteen.
Speaker 1: Bezos estimate it would take probably four to five years
Speaker 1: to really perfect the technology and get regulations in place
Speaker 1: to make it a viable service. It's now six years
Speaker 1: after that, and that hasn't happened yet, but a different
Speaker 1: company did close the gap. More on that in just
Speaker 1: a second. But since Amazon's reveal, a few different companies,
Speaker 1: including Amazon, have attempted to run some limited programs to
Speaker 1: research the feasibility of delivery drones. They had to be
Speaker 1: limited in the US because the f a A was
Speaker 1: still working out how to regulate the practice, and the
Speaker 1: rules for recreational use were too restrictive for a practical
Speaker 1: delivery drone. Ideally, you'd want a largely automated system, which
Speaker 1: means the operator might not even be a human being.
Speaker 1: It might be a computer system. But if you did
Speaker 1: have a human pilot, you'd probably want that person to
Speaker 1: be stationed in the headquarters and operating the vehicle via
Speaker 1: remote control and using onboard cameras for visual information fed
Speaker 1: back to monitors in front of the pilot. But that
Speaker 1: violates the line of site rule that recreational pilots have
Speaker 1: to follow. It wouldn't make sense for livery services to
Speaker 1: have to follow that rule, because if a person has
Speaker 1: to trail behind a drone in order to make a delivery,
Speaker 1: why would you not just give the package to the
Speaker 1: person the operator and then they could make the delivery themselves.
Speaker 1: It's it's a waste of resources to have a person
Speaker 1: go along with the package. Now, there were a few
Speaker 1: demonstrations that were little more than publicity stunts rather than
Speaker 1: an example of a working practice. So, for example, there
Speaker 1: was a guy named Harut Vartanian who was the owner
Speaker 1: of a dry cleaning business in Philadelphia called the Mena
Speaker 1: Yunk Cleaners. Then he used a converted d j I
Speaker 1: Phantom quad copter, which is a radio controlled device. Uh,
Speaker 1: and he did it to deliver light loads of dry cleaning.
Speaker 1: And by light I mean like a couple of shirts maybe.
Speaker 1: And not only was it remote controlled, it actually required
Speaker 1: two people to operate the drone. One person acted as pilot,
Speaker 1: the other one acted as a spotter to make sure
Speaker 1: it the drone wasn't going to run into anything or
Speaker 1: encounter any obstacles. Now, obviously that is not a labor
Speaker 1: saving effort, right If you're using two people to deliver
Speaker 1: a couple of shirts using a drone, you're obviously on
Speaker 1: the losing end of a proposition as far as work
Speaker 1: efficiency goes. However, that really wasn't the point. The point
Speaker 1: was to have a marketing approach that would attract more
Speaker 1: young people to the business, and it's certainly gathered a
Speaker 1: lot of of interest from various news media in the area.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of videos about this particular move,
Speaker 1: even though it was not a practical solution to the
Speaker 1: problem of delivery. Other demonstrations were perhaps a little more practical,
Speaker 1: though still clearly orchestrated to get a lot of news coverage.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and fourteen, Domino's Pizza announced it was
Speaker 1: partnering with a drone company called Flirty, a US drone company,
Speaker 1: to arrange for drone pizza delivery services in a small
Speaker 1: area in New Zealand. In reality, due to regulatory hurdles,
Speaker 1: it took about two years for the company to deliver
Speaker 1: its first pizza by drone, doing so in a New
Speaker 1: Zealand town whose name I will now totally mangle. It's
Speaker 1: Wanga Paroa. I know I butchered that name, and I
Speaker 1: am deeply sorry. But the drones carried pizza in a
Speaker 1: cardboard box which was holding a standard cardboard pizza box
Speaker 1: inside of it, and presumably inside that was the za itself.
Speaker 1: The drone would fly off to a customer's home hover
Speaker 1: over their backyard and lower the cardboard box on a
Speaker 1: toe cable until the box was safely on the ground,
Speaker 1: at which point the cable would disengage with the box
Speaker 1: would wind back up inside the drone, and the drone
Speaker 1: would fly back home to Domino's now Wing, which I'll
Speaker 1: talk about more in a few minutes. Also ran a
Speaker 1: similar demonstration in Australia in two seventeen, using its drones
Speaker 1: to deliver food from a Mexican restaurant chain, as well
Speaker 1: as orders from a drug store company, though honestly, I
Speaker 1: think most of the coverage was focused more on the
Speaker 1: burritos than the drugs. UH. At Amazon's Machine Learning, Automation,
Speaker 1: Robotics and Space Exploration conference also known as MARS, the
Speaker 1: company delivered bottles of sunscreen to conference attendees, and the
Speaker 1: company announced that the whole delivery thing was planned in advance,
Speaker 1: but it was executed as a fully automated process. There
Speaker 1: was no one piloting the actual drones, and it was
Speaker 1: the first demonstration of Amazon's Prime Air technology on public grounds.
Speaker 1: All previous testing, at least in the United States, have
Speaker 1: been on private property. Now, Amazon had done other pilot
Speaker 1: programs or I guess we should say pilot less programs
Speaker 1: in other countries in the UK, where the company did
Speaker 1: not encounter the same regulatory concerns as it did in
Speaker 1: the United States. It went a little further, a little faster.
Speaker 1: Amazon ran a test program of Prime Air in Cambridge
Speaker 1: starting back in sixteen. So the company has operated in
Speaker 1: limited fashion in other markets, just not in the US.
Speaker 1: But the company that has reasonly managed to take the
Speaker 1: next big step in drone delivery is Wing, and I'll
Speaker 1: explain more in just a second, but first let's take
Speaker 1: another quick break. So, as I mentioned earlier in this episode,
Speaker 1: Wing is a company under the parent company Alphabet. That's
Speaker 1: again the same parent company to Google, and Wing has
Speaker 1: advanced the possibility of drone delivery in the US to
Speaker 1: become the first drone company to secure air carrier certification
Speaker 1: from the f a A, and the f a A
Speaker 1: had made the determination that any large scale drone delivery
Speaker 1: service in the US would have to meet the safety
Speaker 1: and economic certification standards, the same ones that a licensed
Speaker 1: airline in the United States would have to meet. And
Speaker 1: eye license airline, I really am talking about things like
Speaker 1: a charter airline or a small air cargo operation. Now,
Speaker 1: without that certification, companies would not be allowed to operate
Speaker 1: a drone delivery service at scale, and certainly not be
Speaker 1: able to charge for the delivery service. They could charge
Speaker 1: for the products, but not the delivery service itself, So
Speaker 1: companies had a big incentive to work through this process.
Speaker 1: Wing is the first company to actually do it. So
Speaker 1: let's dive down a little bit into those standards to
Speaker 1: get a better understanding of how something that applies to
Speaker 1: manned aircraft that carry human passengers and cargo can also
Speaker 1: apply to an unmanned autonomous drone. Now, in the introduction
Speaker 1: to Air Carrier Certification, the f a A states quote,
Speaker 1: the Federal Aviation Administration f a A uses the Air
Speaker 1: Carrier certification process to ensure that you, the applicant, are
Speaker 1: able to design, document, implement an audit safety critical processes
Speaker 1: that do two things. Comply with regulations and safety standards
Speaker 1: manage hazard related risks in your operating environment. The purpose
Speaker 1: for the certification process is really to determine whether an
Speaker 1: applicant is able to conduct business in a manner that
Speaker 1: complies with all applicable regulations and safety standards and allows
Speaker 1: you to manage the hazard related risks in your operating
Speaker 1: systems and environment. The process is designed to preclude the
Speaker 1: certification of applicants who are unwilling or unable to comply
Speaker 1: with regulations or to conform to safe operating practices. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, this whole process is there to make
Speaker 1: sure that the people who want to operate these kind
Speaker 1: of businesses really know their stuff and discourage those who
Speaker 1: are like man, I shere would love to run an
Speaker 1: air charter company and then realize, oh wait, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't have the knowledge or skill set to actually
Speaker 1: pull this off as a real business. I'm discouraged by this.
Speaker 1: It's better that I turn away from it now before
Speaker 1: I spend too much time and money trying to develop
Speaker 1: a business that ultimately I cannot actually oversee. So the
Speaker 1: f a A divides this whole process up into five phases,
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to go through all of them.
Speaker 1: The first phase is technically a pre application phase to
Speaker 1: issuing a certain certificate. That would be the final phase
Speaker 1: is actually giving the certificate out. That's phase five. So
Speaker 1: the early phases are really about the development, submission, and
Speaker 1: analysis of a company's operating systems to make sure that
Speaker 1: the business plan and the operation plan that the company
Speaker 1: has complies with all regulations and safety standards. So essentially,
Speaker 1: this is how a company is going to operate on paper, right,
Speaker 1: It's their plan and it has to be a good,
Speaker 1: thorough one that meets all these different regulations for safety
Speaker 1: and risk assessment for the FAA to even go any
Speaker 1: further in the process. So the f a A has
Speaker 1: analysts who will take the submission of this plan on
Speaker 1: paper and they will go through it with a fine
Speaker 1: toothed comb to make sure everything is in order, that
Speaker 1: the people behind the company have truly thought about the
Speaker 1: risks associated with operating the business as defined, and they
Speaker 1: have plans in place to mitigate or correct for any
Speaker 1: any risks or safety concerns that might arise. UH. The
Speaker 1: companies also have to submit a safety risk management process
Speaker 1: that the FAA has to approve before moving on, which
Speaker 1: then brings us all the way up through Phase three
Speaker 1: and two Phase four. So assuming the company's plans are
Speaker 1: in order, assuming that they get through phase three, the
Speaker 1: phase four is all about a demonstration of the operations
Speaker 1: of the company. So now you're no longer talking about
Speaker 1: the company on paper. Now you have to be able
Speaker 1: to prove that it works in action in the real world.
Speaker 1: So again, the earlier phases were all about saying, this
Speaker 1: is how we're going to do business. This is how
Speaker 1: we're going to detect any potential problems, this is how
Speaker 1: we're going to address those problems. It's how we're going
Speaker 1: to ensure the safety of our customers and everybody else.
Speaker 1: Phase four is actually testing that plan out with a demonstration.
Speaker 1: So with traditional airline companies, that even includes the operation
Speaker 1: of the aircraft to satisfy the f a a S
Speaker 1: requirements that the said aircraft is meeting all safety regulations,
Speaker 1: and then the company has to pass a series approving
Speaker 1: tests set by the f a A. And if they
Speaker 1: can do that, then they can show that their real
Speaker 1: world implementation of this operations plan actually works. Now, assuming
Speaker 1: all of the requirements are met satisfactorily, the f a
Speaker 1: would then issue the air carrier certificate to the company.
Speaker 1: This is phase five. Most of the safety requirements are
Speaker 1: all about identifying those potential risks and and how the
Speaker 1: business would identify, analyze, assess, and address those risks, and
Speaker 1: how the business would assign accountability for its operations. So
Speaker 1: one of the things you have to submit when you're
Speaker 1: submitting for an air carrier certificate is the name of
Speaker 1: a representative of the company who is the accountability executive.
Speaker 1: That's the person for whom all accountability ultimately falls for
Speaker 1: that business. So it needs to be someone you're really
Speaker 1: confident in who can be incredibly certain that the operations
Speaker 1: are going to be safe and reliable. So it's all
Speaker 1: meant to demonstrate that people at the company have a
Speaker 1: real understanding of how to operate in airspace and in
Speaker 1: a responsible and safe manner. The process can take months,
Speaker 1: and when news broke in March two thousand nineteen that
Speaker 1: the f a A was going to award a drone
Speaker 1: delivery business one of these air carrier certificate, it did
Speaker 1: not take a whole lot of detective work to figure
Speaker 1: out that the most likely candidate was Wing, because it
Speaker 1: was the only drone delivery company that was listed on
Speaker 1: the f a a's website as having applied for the
Speaker 1: certification in the first place. So it was either Wing
Speaker 1: or some company that the f a A just didn't disclose,
Speaker 1: so pretty pretty much everyone already figured it out. Even
Speaker 1: with this new approval, Wing will still have to operate
Speaker 1: within some pretty tight restrictions. The FAA has yet to
Speaker 1: establish the rules for operating drones in more densely populated
Speaker 1: areas such as cities, and while commercial drones don't have
Speaker 1: to follow all the same rules as recreational drone operators,
Speaker 1: one of those rules still applies, which is you are
Speaker 1: not allowed to fly a drone over other human beings.
Speaker 1: You can't have drones flying over people because of the
Speaker 1: potential hazard it poses, and for that reason, Wing is
Speaker 1: limiting its service to some role communities in Virginia. Those
Speaker 1: lucky Virginians will be able to order stuff to be
Speaker 1: delivered by Wing drones, largely because there's very little likelihood
Speaker 1: that the drones will need to fly over any crowds
Speaker 1: of people in order to get to their destinations. So
Speaker 1: then has limited utility. Even if it were to expand
Speaker 1: to other regions, which is wings ultimate plan. They do
Speaker 1: want to expand operations to other communities, at the moment,
Speaker 1: they would still need to be communities that are fairly
Speaker 1: spread out where you're not going to have drones flying
Speaker 1: over people's heads, because there's still no rules to guide
Speaker 1: that kind of operation. So the plan for the near
Speaker 1: future is for Wing to continue its operations. This way,
Speaker 1: it will continue to refine its approach and tweak things
Speaker 1: that might not work so well as they could. Once
Speaker 1: the delivery delivery drones are actively delivering packages to people
Speaker 1: in those communities in Virginia, they can use that as
Speaker 1: sort of testing grounds to see what the best practices
Speaker 1: are for their business. But in the meantime, the hope
Speaker 1: is at the f a A will continue to create
Speaker 1: these rules that would allow companies like Wing to expand
Speaker 1: operations to markets that would find those services perhaps more helpful,
Speaker 1: like cities. Now in other parts of the world, companies
Speaker 1: are moving forward at a slightly faster pace. Every area
Speaker 1: is different, so companies like Wing or Amazon might face
Speaker 1: completely different regulations or political resistance or acceptance um in
Speaker 1: one country than they would in the United States, so
Speaker 1: they often are experimenting in multiple markets simultaneously. Some are
Speaker 1: much more receptive than others, so it is not something
Speaker 1: that is is advancing evenly around the world. Meanwhile, in
Speaker 1: the US, there are a lot of unanswered questions. Typically,
Speaker 1: airspace regulations fall to the federal level, they are not
Speaker 1: state level considerations, but there are some questions about what
Speaker 1: happens if a drone has to cross state lines to
Speaker 1: make a delivery. You might have a big city in
Speaker 1: one state that is bordering a state line, and on
Speaker 1: the other side of the state line, you might have
Speaker 1: a small community, which means that deliveries are typically crossing
Speaker 1: state lines. Uh. Is that going to cause any issues
Speaker 1: with the drones? That's still a question, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: the regulatory issues, not technical issues. There's nothing technically different
Speaker 1: about crossing a state line. But are the regulatory problems
Speaker 1: that might we might encounter. That's a question that hasn't
Speaker 1: been answered yet. I find it fascinating that we're already
Speaker 1: at a level of technical sophistication which a drone can
Speaker 1: technically deliver stuff to an address by itself in the
Speaker 1: first place. We're already there technologically, and I think that's amazing.
Speaker 1: I've seen some implementations in which the person who's receiving
Speaker 1: a package first has to go out and put down
Speaker 1: kind of a mat. It's usually a square that has
Speaker 1: a clear symbol on it, and the camera aboard a
Speaker 1: drone can pick up the image. Some software processes the image,
Speaker 1: and mide recognition software says, ah, this is indeed the
Speaker 1: right location for me to deliver this package, and the
Speaker 1: drone would typically descend landing more or less on that pad,
Speaker 1: dropping its package, and then flying off. And other implementations,
Speaker 1: it wasn't obvious if there was anything on the ground
Speaker 1: that was marketing marking the point where the drone was
Speaker 1: supposed to leave a package. So it's possible that there
Speaker 1: are some implementations that don't require you to put out
Speaker 1: such a pad meeting. You can just stay in your
Speaker 1: house while you're waiting for the drone delivery, and then
Speaker 1: when you get a notification you can go outside and
Speaker 1: pick it up. But I'll know for sure because a
Speaker 1: lot of the videos for this kind of stuff are
Speaker 1: shot in such a way that you don't really see
Speaker 1: the ground so well, or there are clearly sort of
Speaker 1: a pr video where you can't be certain that it
Speaker 1: really reflects the reality of the scenario. UH. But to
Speaker 1: make this work a lot had to come together. The
Speaker 1: physical operation of the drone has to account for the
Speaker 1: weight of the pay road. Typically these companies are maxing
Speaker 1: out at around five pounds for a payload, or about
Speaker 1: two point to seven kilograms. UH. The drone has to
Speaker 1: be able to maintain stable flight even in breezy conditions.
Speaker 1: I do imagine that if the weather is particularly nasty,
Speaker 1: drones are not going to be operating that day. The
Speaker 1: obstacle recognition technology has to be top notch because the
Speaker 1: drones are gonna be navigating areas that can have potential
Speaker 1: obstacles like power lines, trees, water towers, and other buildings.
Speaker 1: So there's still a long way to go, but some
Speaker 1: things that have acted as barriers for the drone delivery
Speaker 1: business are now at least resolved in the United States,
Speaker 1: like there's there's clearly been one case where the first
Speaker 1: steps towards widespread drone delivery are possible. Uh. The big
Speaker 1: step obviously is that air carrier certification process. So Win
Speaker 1: can actually charge money now for its drone delivery service
Speaker 1: because it's received this certification. You know, before they could
Speaker 1: offer a drone delivery service in a trial experiment, but
Speaker 1: they couldn't charge for it. That would have been against
Speaker 1: the f a's rules. Now they can charge for it. Again,
Speaker 1: there's still the issue with FCC, but no one seems
Speaker 1: to be particularly concerned with that um So you can
Speaker 1: now include a delivery convenience fee on top of the
Speaker 1: cost for the whatever the the item is. Now, will
Speaker 1: we see a future in which delivery trucks disappear and
Speaker 1: drones are delivering everything the skies are cloudy with drones,
Speaker 1: Probably not. Drones are still gonna have physical limitations on
Speaker 1: how much they can carry, and sometimes we order stuff
Speaker 1: that's heavier than five pounds, which means they're still gonna
Speaker 1: have to be someone driving that stuff around. And again,
Speaker 1: types of weather might end up complicating matters, but for
Speaker 1: certain types of products, those being small and lighter than
Speaker 1: a few pounds, you might be able to get a
Speaker 1: delivery within a half hour of ordering courtesy of a
Speaker 1: little flying robo friend. So that brings us up to
Speaker 1: speed to the current state of drone delivery systems. And
Speaker 1: that concludes this episode. If you have any suggestions for
Speaker 1: future episodes, or any comments or anything you would like
Speaker 1: to send me, the email addresses tech Stuff at how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com, or you can pop on by
Speaker 1: our website that's text stuff podcast dot com. You'll find
Speaker 1: an archive of all of our old episodes there, plus
Speaker 1: links to our social media sites and a link to
Speaker 1: our online store, where every purchase you make goes to
Speaker 1: help the show and we greatly appreciate it, and I'll
Speaker 1: talk to you again really soon. Text stuff is a
Speaker 1: production of my heart.