NSPS UAS CommitteeNOTES 8/7/2017

Member / Email / State
☒ / Amey / Craig / / MI
☐ / Baker / Cliff / / AK
☐ / Beers / Todd / / CO
☒ / Birth / Brent / / PA
☐ / Burch / Tim / / IL
☐ / CdeBaca / Carl / / NV
☐ / Craddock / Jim / / NC
☒ / Glantz / Chris / / OR
☒ / Guinther / Brad / / AL
☐ / Guyton / John / / CO
☐ / Hoffman / Jolene / / NV
☐ / Juhasz-anderson / Debi / / MT
☐ / Leavitt / Kim / / ID
☐ / McDougal / Jeff / / CN
☒ / Neathamer / Bob / / OR
☐ / Paiva / Joe / / KS
☐ / Southard / George / / CO
☒ / Williamson / Joanne / / HI

(Cannot make conference call)

Special Report: Commercial Drone Alliance by Gretchen West

Gretchen called in and spoke to us from 9:00 to 9:20 AM.

Gretchen is a co-Executive Director of the Commercial Drone Alliance, a Senior Advisor at Hogan Lovells, and a past Executive Vice-President at AUVSI, and has many other credentials in support of outreach and the UAS industry end-users. CDA is a non-profit education and advocacy group that supports the interests of commercial enterprise end users.

CDA is still a small organization and is flexible in the interests that it promotes and monitors, able to adapt focus and meet the challenges facing the UAS industry. Currently it has three main concerns:

  1. Legislative Interests (federal) Monitors and presents positions
  2. Educational initiative-including outreach
  3. Security Issues- recently sponsored a Drone Security Summit in DC

There are multiple levels of membership, from “Board of Directors” membership level to “End User” membership level. All membership is included on group discussions via email, and various letters and position papers are put forward. Visible end-user involvement in the CDA voice- on-the-hill adds legitimacy to its positions; the end users that CDA represents have vested interests in 'working' legislation and funding for supporting UAS interests.

Joanne commented that surveyors of the NSPS UAS Committee, by adding Survey- specific use cases to the CDA expertise, can broaden the collective perspective.

All attendees agreed that for NSPS to have an End-user membership in the Commercial Done Alliance would be a valuable opportunity. It will provide leverage to our committee resources for the benefit of NSPS. Joanne will include this in her report this the NSPS Ex. Com. and find out if there are any further permissions that we need to get from NSPS. There is no charge for the 1st year of membership at the End-User level.

Gretchen will email Joanne further CDA membership information, (their website is down). Joanne will distribute to the committee for their review. Brent, as PARTNERSHIP Sub-Committee Chair, will follow through with the paperwork.

Sub-committee reports

Legislative: Craig

Craig finished his review of the FAA Reauthorization Bill, which is still in committee. He has attempted to contact JB a few times regarding the current status, but has not heard back yet. The summary (of his summary) of this many, many page bill is captured in these bullet points.

Key Issues of FAA Reauthorization Senate Bill (S.1405)

1. FAA database of identifying information for UAV flights (Sec. 2104)

2. Test sites will be developed for UAV’s to develop standards for UAV use. (Sec. 2122)

A. Beyond Visible Line of Site (BVLOS)

b. Privacy

c. Sense and avoid

d. Detect and mitigate

e. Nighttime flight

3. Safety Standards (Sec. 2123)

4. Special authority for certain UAV (Sec. 2126)

a. Micro UAVs under 4.4 lbs.

b. Minimal regulations

5. Rules for government use of UAS (Sec. 2127)

6. Model Aircraft (Sec. 2128)

a. FAA may not create rules for hobby or recreation aircraft if aircraft follows basic FAA guidelines about height, airport vicinity etc.

7. Airport safety and hazard mitigation.

a. Develop systems to “detect and mitigate”

One of the ongoing troublesome anomalies that Craig mentioned was the consistent lack of provisions for hobbyist UAS use, which from a safety, security and all other perspectives, is more troublesome than the commercial users, who are registered and fly under a professional standard of operation.

State level:

Michigan and Illinois both have an appointed UAS task force. Both have passed legislation making it mandatory that regulations produced at the local level do not conflict with FAA regulation and rules. Louisiana recently passed similar legislation.

Program Development: Brad Brad recently finished pre/post flight procedures for operations at his company. He foresees that these committee additions will enhance the work product of the contractor putting together “Standard Operating Procedures” for us. Specifically procedures related to Survey UAS, because it involves unique use cases, will be useful to our end products.

UAS Survey Certification: Jolene (Cannot make this conference call.) via –email: She will be meeting with program director at Great Basin College (NV) where she instructs, in August and will put together parameters and expectations of the Certification program.

Partnerships: Brent Brent has looked into AUVSI membership and believes it will be beneficial. He will get back to us with specifics of costs and benefits. Commercial Drone Alliance membership discussed above.

NSPS Webpage: Joanne Last weekJoanne submitted the following to Trish, who is on a well-deserved vacation. Comments and additions are very welcome as is anyone who would like to take over the oversight of this subcommittee

Trish:

The UAS committee is planning to have a page on the NSPS site. The vision is for it to be a robust repository for UAS resources, both ones that we are developing and for information from and links to community resources. This is information that we would like to include:

1. Committee Members-list

2.

3.

4. Official NSPS Committee Reports

5. Monthly UAS Committee meeting notes

6. SUBCOMMITTEES, various information and announcements.

  • UAS Program Development-Brad Guinther
  • Certification -Jolene Hoffman
  • Legislation -Craig Amey
  • Partnerships -Brent Birth/Chris Glantz

7. Links to other UAS -centric organizations and their newsletters and daily reports

8. OTHER CATEGORIES OF INFORMATION these aren't subcommittees right now but will be items of interest.

  • Curriculum Development
  • Equipment and Emergent Technology.
  • Image Security and GIS interface
  • Insurance and Risk Management

NSPS ITEMS:

EX COMM MEETING COMMITTEE REPORT: Report is due to Lisa Van Horn tomorrow. Joanne is preparing this and Chris Glantz will assist.

BUDGET: Joanne will submit the proposal costs from TEEDEEUAS for the Standard Operating Procedures and the cost associated with UAVSI membership. Carl CdeBaca has been enlisted to help with the formatting of the request for the Executive Committee.

Help Wanted

  1. UAS Committee co-chair to work with Joanne
  1. NSPS UAS Resources subcommittee chair to work on webpage and take the lead on NSPS-UAS communications