Careful Up There

As aircraft get tinier and more ever-present, it’s time

The month of June is an anniversary of sorts in the annals of travel. It was June 5, 1783, so the history books recount, that two brothers, Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier, launched the first sustained hot air balloon flight in the town of Annonay, France. It’s reported their 33-footdiameter globe aerostatique rose to a dizzying 6,000 feet. In September of that year, they replicated the feat for King Louis XVI (yes, that Louis, who would later lose his head at the guillotine). Indeed the brothers Montgolfier even welcomed the first passengers aboard this demonstration voyage – a sheep, rooster and duck.

It’s hard to imagine these days, but there was a time when the skies were strictly the dominion of birds and clouds and flights of human imagination. People looked up and wondered what it would be like to soar above the land, to fly“as the crow flies.” Escaping the grasp of gravity and setting sail on the air to parts unknown seems to be a desire that’s built in to our DNA.

Now of course, the expanse over our heads is teeming with manmade objects of all sorts, from sleek hypersonic military aircraft to space junk. At any given moment, there are literally thousands of commercial flights zooming across the skies somewhere in the world carrying millions of people from here to there, with more being added every day. What was once considered a magical power has become an everyday fact of 21st century life.

This month’s cover story ( Game of Drones, page 32) explores the next generation of flight, the remote-controlled unmanned aerial vehicle. Of course drones have been making headlines for years as high-tech military weapons systems. However in the smaller-maybe-better department, these little fliers are becoming lightweight, inexpensive, easy to produce and easier to operate – mostly.

Which is where the rub comes in. As airspace become more congested, incidents of drones wandering into the areas around busy airports are raising concerns among both commercial airlines and private aviation enthusiasts. In the past few years reports of airspace incursions by drones have increased, prompting action by both aviation regulators (i.e., new rules) and airport operators (read: anti-drone enforcement and countermeasures).

All these steps and more may be necessary to protect lives and property from those who would misuse drone technology, whether inadvertently or maliciously. But it’s also a little sad. Drones have great potential for good; they’ve been deployed as delivery systems, in healthcare, in security and law enforcement, to combat wildfires and in search and rescue operations.

Beyond that, they have quickly become a favorite recreational activity, entertaining thousands at racing and aerobatics competitions. My personal favorite are the drones mounted with cameras that capture moving images that could not be photographed any other way. These little flying machines are literally opening up whole new vistas, changing the ways we see the world.

So it would be to everyone’s advantage to encourage the safe, reasonable operation of this nascent technology. Regulators, let’s have rules that are clear, easy to follow and applicable to everyone. And drone pilots, fly your machines with care. Learn the rules of the airspace you’re using and follow them; lives depend on it.

After all, there’s plenty of sky up there for everybody.