Trump sends a gift card to Amazon — drone testing
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump once predicted that Jeff Bezos and his Amazon empire would have “such problems” if he became president, but on Wednesday Trump gave the company a gamechanging gift by opening up the skies to a drone pilot program for services like package delivery.
Trump signed a memorandum that allows states, municipalities and tribal groups to test drones for a sweeping array of activities such as disaster response, mapping, agriculture — and delivery of goods.
Until now, the Federal Aviation Administration restricted drones from flying over people, operating at night or buzzing beyond the visual line-of-sight of the ground-based pilot.
“America’s skies are changing,” said Michael Kratsios, deputy assistant to the president in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “Our aviation regulatory framework has not kept pace with this change.”
More than 1 million drone owners have registered with the FAA, Kratsios said, and commercial drone numbers are expected to soar fivefold by 2021.
The action may open the door to revolutionary, and disruptive, drone usage in new areas of the economy. And it is Amazon, the world’s biggest retailer, that is among those that may benefit the most — despite Trump’s years-old antipathy toward the company and Bezos.
Like other companies, Amazon has some hurdles to clear before it conducts more expansive testing of package delivery in the U.S. Regulatory impediments in the past led Amazon to conduct testing in the United Kingdom, just as Google’s parent, Alphabet, moved to test its Project Wing in Australia, where in recent weeks it began making deliveries to people’s backyards.
The presidential memo would allow exemptions from current safety rules so communities could move ahead with testing of drone operations.
States, communities and tribes selected to participate would devise their own trial programs in partnership with government and industry drone users. The administration anticipates approving at least five applications, but there is no limit on the number of communities that can join.
The FAA would review each program. The agency would grant waivers, if necessary, to rules that now restrict drone operations. Examples include prohibitions on flights over people, nighttime flights and flights beyond the line of sight of the operator.
Among the things that could be tested are package deliveries; the reliability and security of data links between pilot and aircraft; and technology to prevent collisions between drones and other aircraft and to detect and counter drones flying in restricted areas.
The trial program will collect data on drone operations that will aid the government’s effort to develop a separate air traffic control system for lowflying unmanned aircraft, Kratsios said. Ultimately, the information is intended to be used to more generally expand drone flights around the country.
The test zones are expected to start going into place in about a year. The program would continue for three years after that.
The program is intended “to foster technological innovation that will be a catalyst for ideas that have the potential to change our day-to-day lives,” Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said.