As expected, a bill to speed the switch from radar to an air traffic control system based on GPS technology, and to open US skies to unmanned aircraft flights within four years, received final congressional approval on Monday.
The bill passed the Senate 75-20, despite labour opposition to a deal cut between the Democratic-controlled Senate and the Republican-controlled House on rules governing union organizing elections at airlines and railroads. The House had passed the bill last week, and it now goes to President Barack Obama for his signature.
The bill authorizes $63.4 billion for the Federal Aviation Administration over four years, including about $11 billion toward the air traffic system and its modernisation.
The system is central to the FAA’s plans for accommodating a forecast 50 percent growth in air traffic over the next decade. Most other nations already have adopted satellite-based technology for guiding planes, or are heading in that direction, but the FAA has moved cautiously. The U.S. accounts for 35 percent of global commercial air traffic and has the world’s most complicated airspace, with greater and more varied private aviation than other countries.
The FAA is also required under the bill to provide military, commercial and privately-owned unmanned with expanded access to US airspace currently reserved for manned aircraft by September 30, 2015. That means permitting unmanned aircraft controlled by remote operators on the ground to fly in the same airspace as airliners, cargo planes, business jets and private aircraft.
Currently, the FAA restricts UAS use primarily to segregated blocks of military airspace, border patrols and about 300 public agencies and their private partners. Those public agencies are mainly restricted to flying small unmanned aircraft at low altitudes away from airports and urban centres.
Source: The Washington Post