The NY mid-air involved two pilots with see-and-avoid eyeballs and they could not avoid a mid-air. But you would think they should have been under positive control instead of allegedly talking to his girlfriend…my opinion, regardless of whether it was uncontrolled airspace.

Reference border UAS flight, couldn’t they make the border regions military airspace in a particular band of altitudes? All private and commercial pilots would be required to avoid those altitudes within say 10 miles of the Canadian and Mexican borders and at an established distance off shore. I would also place all take-off and landing locations within that border region/shoreline and establish similar restricted airspace for launch and recovery.

The UAS operator could also view TCAS displays in their ground control stations and react accordingly. Now it appears all UAS operators of certain size unmanned aircraft will require private pilot licenses. But suspect, IMHO, that the Army, would not want to operate UAS off of military installations (without a chase plane) in the U.S. except to assist support for natural disasters.

In those rare instances, a temporary flight restriction could be implemented restricting UAS to a particular altitude blocks that civil aircraft would avoid…plus air traffic control authorities would generally be in that vicinity for positive control and to advise private/commercial flights about the temporary restricted airspace, as required.

The remaining time, you would believe that most CONUS UAS training could occur in both simulators and on military installations. The USAF and Navy have unique challenges with their respective versions of Global Hawk, UCAV, and Reaper/Predator. But not sure there is a need for 11 working groups to solve this. Will have to ask my FAA brother-in-law about it, as he is also an Army Guard pilot.

Obviously there is commercial traffic in Iraq and Afghanistan and over the ocean and somehow they make it work. But the Services could also read the tea leaves and figure out that the airspace reason alone is probably why you would always want manned piloted cargo/passenger flights and manned/unmanned teams for fighters and sophisticated UAS…thus creating your own accompanying chase plane.

I can frankly never envision the day or bandwidth when paying passengers would board an unmanned commercial airliner or Soldiers etc would be flown on an unmanned C-17 or UH-60. The airspace problem just cements that concern.

A method for the UAV pilot, many miles away from the aircraft to do the same thing. I’d wager not a lot of brain-power has been focused on development of a 100% reliable communications system to enable constant real-time interpretation of TCAS info by the UAV pilot. A FAA Air Route Traffic aaocntrol Center (ATTCC), in whose sector the UAV is flying, has to be able to communicate with an RPV operator a thousand or two miles away.

If the RPV has an emergency, doe does it thread itself through the layers of civil airspace to get to somewhere it can land?

The FAA can wave the “Safety of Flight” flag and the USAF had better be ready to pay for doing exactly what the FAA wants.

Military jets fly in civil airspace all the time for training and military operations.

actually, they are flown by enlisted computer techies, you know, joy-stick geeks/gamers.

Depending on the service and the vehicle, UAVs are operated by qualified military pilots. The benefits of UAV-specific training that avoid the costs of full manned vehicle training are still being weighed by the different services.

And,
“They’ve just started what may be the first four-year degree course in UAVs“
… actually, they are flown by enlisted computer techies, you know, joy-stick geeks/gamers.

This STINKS of TYRANNY and doesn’t bode well for the US Citizens. Throw in HR 645 (Internment Camps) — now operational, and Homeland Security handed over to DOD (no FOIA ’cause National Security) with eavesdropping satellites and I’d say we are in for quite a police-state round up.

Martial law will mean it’s time for the revolution according to the unorganized militia (codified in law)!

Did you catch that they are manning the camps with MOS: Internment Resettlement Specialists and FEMA has solicited bids to bring their camps up to speed? I’d give us about 3 months.