The Fight For Mandating UAV Training

The Fight For Mandating UAV Training

This post is also available in: heעברית (Hebrew)

The US Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) think all unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) owners should be required to pass an online training course to be allowed to fly their machines, and is asking Congress to make it mandatory.

ALPA president Tim Canoll explained his proposal to journalists on 1 Feb, 2016 in Washington DC, saying all UAVs need to have a safety mechanism installed by manufacturers that would require a specific “key code” to operate. The code would be awarded to those who successfully complete the online training course, and the measure would increase UAV safety.

“I’d like [UAV manufacturers] to voluntarily do it, but I believe if we could mandate it, it would take a lot of pressure off them,” he said, saying that the federal government “would have to outline what the education curriculum is” for the online course. The training requirement should be part of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reauthorisation legislation expected to be reviewed in Congress later this year, Canoll said.

Canoll told ATWOnline that “there is no answer” to requiring current owners to pass the online test. “All you can do going back is encourage them to take the online test,” he said.

Canoll urged the adoption of the test/keycode system to provide another “layer” of safety, to prevent collisions between small UAVs and manned aircraft. The proposal would be an expansion of the mandatory UAV registration measures adopted by the FAA last year.

Canoll warned, “If they try and weaken the registration requirements, they’re going to get a fight from us … I have a lot of respect for the modelers … The problem is there are a lot of people out there [using small UAVs] who aren’t modelers, who are out there just operating a toy.”