Robot Planes to Track Weather and Climate

coondoggie writes "The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration this week announced a $3 million, three-year program that to test the use of unmanned aircraft to measure hurricanes, arctic and Antarctic ice changes and other environmental tasks. The agency said the drone aircraft would be outfitted with special sensors and technology to help NOAA scientists better predict a hurricane's intensity and track, how fast Arctic summer ice will melt, and whether soggy Pacific storms will flood West Coast cities. Starting this summer, unmanned aircraft will take instruments on research flights that are too dangerous or too long for pilots and scientists."

Re:Announcing themselves?

[docbombay]

Although the article talks about "automated" unmanned vehicles, the only way that any of the vehicles mentioned in this article are fully automated is in systems responsible for gathering data, *not* navigation or maneuvering. In fact, an FAR clarification notice posted a few years ago http://www.faa.gov/aircraft/air_cert/design_approvals/uas/reg/media/frnotice_uas.pdf [faa.gov] states that the only way that an unmanned vehicle is allowed to fly in the United States is if it is in control (albeit remotely) by a human pilot-in-command, and under constant watch by a human observer, "either through line-of-sight on the ground or in the air by means of a chase aircraft". In controlled airspace, there must also be "communication between the PIC and Air Traffic Control (ATC)".