Local governments have been pressing the Federal Aviation Administration for wider use of unmanned aircraft — a demand driven largely by returning veterans who observed the crafts' effectiveness in war, according to experts at New Mexico State University and Auburn University.Police could use the smaller planes to find lost children, hunt illegal marijuana crops and ease traffic jams in evacuations of cities before hurricanes or other natural disasters.
The FAA is expected this year to propose new rules for smaller unmanned aircraft, a process that will include input from the public, says FAA spokesman Les Dorr. The agency also is talking with the Justice Department and national law enforcement groups "about possibly trying to streamline the process of applying for certificates of authorization" to operate such planes, he says.
Drones have flown in the USA for several years but have been limited to restricted airspace and to portions of the borders with Canada and Mexico.
The FAA authorized the Physical Science Laboratory at New Mexico State University to research the issues involved. "We're extremely interested in being able to pave the way to integrate unmanned aircraft into the civil air space," says Doug Davis, deputy director of the Technical Analysis and Applications Center at NMSU.
Davis says UAVs, or unmanned aerial vehicles, range in size from 15 ounces to 34,000 pounds and a wing span bigger than a Boeing 737.
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