The Wall Street Journal
By Jack Nicas
Updated Sept. 25, 2014 7:23 p.m. ET
The Federal Aviation
Administration authorized six filmmaking companies to use unmanned
aircraft for their work, a milestone for commercial drones in the U.S.
that also points up the complexity of the government's effort to
regulate the emerging industry.
The FAA's decision,
announced Thursday, marked the first exemptions of their kind from the
agency's virtual ban on the commercial use of unmanned aircraft.
Previously, the FAA had approved two commercial-drone operations; both
were for Alaskan oil operations.
The FAA has said the
exemptions are a safe, interim way to relieve pent-up demand while the
government works out a comprehensive policy governing the industry.
The FAA and others have
raised safety concerns as commercial-drone use has increased rapidly
over the past couple years despite the agency's ban. Drones aren't
expected to be in widespread use in the U.S. until the agency completes
rules for them, which is expected in the next several years.
But in the meantime,
according to the latest comments by regulators, the FAA intends to
encourage, and expects to approve, many more such operating requests
from companies in other fields.
Underlining the current
regulatory jumble, some of the companies that received exemptions
Thursday already had flown the aircraft as part of their work in the
U.S., in violation of the ban, according to the companies or their
websites. Many other companies use drones commercially—in real estate,
agriculture and other businesses—according to drone makers and users.
The vehicles have been
popular among producers of films and commercials, in part because they
can fly in a sweet spot for filming that is too low for helicopters and
too high for cranes, said Preston Ryon, co-owner of Snaproll Media LLC,
one of the newly approved companies.
Mr. Ryon said his company
starting using drones to film country-music videos in its hometown of
Nashville, but halted those operations in the U.S. about a year ago in
response to the FAA's ban. Snaproll has since turned down dozens of
jobs, he said.
"We shot 'Fast &
Furious 6' over in Moscow, and we've been up in Canada," said Mr. Ryon, a
former corporate-jet pilot who founded Snaproll four years ago. "But
quite honestly we're excited to be back in the U.S. and working."
He said the exemption
process is an important step toward common-sense regulations. "The rules
and regulations need to happen because it's kind of a free-for-all
right now," he said.
The FAA has said new
drone rules will take time because of the complex safety issues raised
by thousands of new vehicles using the nation's airspace.
The agency has faced increasing pressure from the private sector and some lawmakers over its existing policy.
The FAA has required its
approval for all nonrecreational drone flights, but the certification
process is similar to that for manned aircraft, which many drone
companies say is too time-consuming and expensive.
In May, the FAA said it
would consider requests for exemptions, particularly for uses in
controlled environments away from populated areas, such as in
filmmaking, crop monitoring and power-plant inspections.
The FAA said it is
evaluating requests from 48 companies, including Amazon.com Inc., which
wants to test prototype delivery drones at its Seattle headquarters. The
regulator had been expected to exempt seven film companies from its
ban, but it asked one of them for more information.
Chris Dodd, chairman of
the Motion Picture Association of America, told reporters Thursday that
the FAA's exemptions mark "an important day for the [film] industry,"
adding that they help "create a climate where more production is done at
home."
FAA chief Michael Huerta
reiterated the need to balance public safety with industry demands to
use unmanned aircraft. But he made clear that more exemptions are
coming, saying the new approvals create a model for other industries.
"We are open to receiving petitions from anyone," he said during a
teleconference with reporters.
The FAA and the film
companies agreed on a set of conditions that the agency said ensured
that drone operations wouldn't compromise safety.
Those conditions include
that the operators are certified private pilots of manned aircraft, that
the drones are inspected before each flight, and that the pilots keep
the vehicles within sight. They also restrict the companies' drone
operations to daytime.
Tony Carmean, co-owner of
San Diego-based Aerial MOB LLC, another of the exempted firms, said his
company stopped using drones in the U.S. when it applied for the
exemption in May. He applauded the FAA for incorporating input from
companies, which suggested many of the restrictions that come with the
exemptions.
"This whole exemption
process has been about safety, safety, safety," he said. "We helped
write these rules, and we're the experts in this technology."
The seventh company that
had been expected to win an exemption was Flying-Cam Inc. Haik Gazarian,
its director of operations, said Flying-Cam used drones to shoot movies
in the U.S. from 1994 to 2011, when it halted operations in the country
in response to the FAA policy. "We've had to downgrade and lay off
people," he said. "We shoot a lot of films all around the globe to keep
us surviving." In 2014, the company won an Academy Award for the
development of its filmmaking drone.
Tom Hallman said his
company, Pictorvision Inc., has yet to use drones in the U.S., sticking
to its main business of shooting video from helicopters. That put the
company "at a huge disadvantage," he said. "People were and are
absolutely using these things" in the U.S.
The other companies that
received the exemptions were Astraeus Aerial, HeliVideo Productions LLC
and RC Pro Productions Consulting LLC.
—Andy Pasztor contributed to this article.
- Source: http://online.wsj.com
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