Man vs Drone: Some Pilots Fight Back Against Robots

Jan. 15, 2015 1:47 p.m. ET

In an unfolding battle over U.S. skies, it's man versus drone.

Aerial surveyors, photographers and moviemaking pilots are increasingly losing business to robotsthat often can do their jobs faster, cheaper and better.

That competition, paired with concerns about midair collisions with drones, has made commercialpilots some of the fiercest opponents to unmanned aircraft. And now these aviators are fightingback, lobbying regulators for strict rules for the devices and reporting unauthorized drone users toauthorities.

Jim Williams, head of the Federal Aviation Administration's unmanned-aircraft office, said that manyFAA investigations into commercial-drone flights begin with tips from manned-aircraft pilots whocompete with those drones. "They'll let us know that, 'Hey, I'm losing all my business to these guys.They're not approved. Go investigate,'" Mr. Williams said at a drone conference last year. "We willinvestigate those."

Unlike the vast majority of commercial pilots in the U.S.--those that helm passenger jets tens ofthousands of feet above the ground--the primary drone opponents operate helicopters and smallplanes generally between 500 feet to 2,000 feet, making maps, inspecting pipelines and sprayingcrops. Drones are supposed to stay below 400 feet, but the FAA has received dozens of reports of thedevices flying too close to manned aircraft--typically smaller planes and helicopters.

"I'm now looking for lawn mowers flying around," said Mike Peavey, a former Vietnam War pilot whoflies helicopters around New England to monitor power lines and shoot movies. "A 40-pound objectimpacting certain parts of a helicopter would be disastrous."

Mr. Peavey said he initially refused to film a sailboat competition in Newport, R.I., in June becausedrones would also be buzzing above the water. He lobbied Rhode Island's aeronautics inspector toreconsider its authorization for drones at the event.

A week before the event, the inspector said operating a drone near an open-air event would be amisdemeanor under Rhode Island law. Mr. Peavey filmed the sailboats but drones did not.

The FAA has effectively banned the commercial use of drones until it completes rules for the devicesin the next few years. Meanwhile, the agency has approved limited commercial-drone flights for 15operators.

In many of those exemptions, the Air Line Pilots Association, the biggest U.S. pilots union, and theNational Agricultural Aviation Association, a trade group for crop dusters, helped persuade the FAAto place tight restrictions on the drone flights, including requiring operators to have pilot licensesand to keep the devices within eyeshot.

For several exemptions, the FAA agreed with the crop-duster group's recommendations to require

operators to file notices with local aviation authorities two days before flying and to displayidentification numbers on their drones. The group urged the FAA to also require bright paint, strobelights and transponders that broadcast the drones' location to other aircraft, but the agencydeclined.

Last year, after a judge struck down the FAA's first-ever fine against a man for operating a dronerecklessly, the crop-duster group filed the only outside legal brief in support of the fine. If the FAAcan't punish unsafe drone users, "then the safety of flight of agricultural air operation (and allmanned aircraft operations for that matter) is in jeopardy," wrote the group, which urges itsmembers to report drone sightings to the FAA.

Pilot Chuck Boyle, president of the Professional Aerial Photographers Association International, saiddrones have been a hot topic at group meetings for years. "We have lots of members who are veryfrustrated," he said. "I hear stories of them losing business to a construction company who's decidedto do it themselves [with a drone], or a drone operator who just took another job from them."

Mr. Boyle has started reporting drone users who flout the FAA ban. "I am very concerned that thecavalier attitude that he displays and his very open commercial 'drone' offering will get someonehurt," he wrote to an FAA inspector last year, reporting an Orlando, Fla., businessman whosecompany shoots TV commercials with drones.

The inspector told the company, CineDrones, that if it was using drones commercially, "I must insistyou stop operations immediately."

CineDrones President Mike Fortin said he ignored the warning and is still operating without issue.

Many pilots, however, aren't as critical of drones, and some are even adopting them.

Former U.S. Air Force pilot Robert Hicks, who runs an aerial-photography company using mannedaircraft, said he recently started his own drone company after realizing his industry was shifting. Hehas targeted Latin America for customers because of the strict regulations in the U.S.

Julie Belanger, who runs an aerial-mapping company with her husband in San Martin, Calif., saidthey want to use drones but are waiting for FAA rules. Meanwhile, they're competing againstentrepreneurs who are using the devices against FAA policy. The system is encouraging unsafeusers, she said. "In the right hands drones produce beautiful stuff and are safe," she said. "In thewrong hands, they're a danger to aviation."

Bill Richards, a pilot who shoots films with his helicopter in New York City, said that while"everybody in my business is pooh-poohing them," he decided to build his own drone for $15,000."They can do something I can't: get within a few feet of you without blowing everybody off the set,"he said.

Still, he said, manned choppers will maintain a role. "The speed and power of a real helicopter is notgoing to be challenged."

Indeed, some pilots say drones don't threaten them because their manned aircraft can carry heavierpayloads and fly much longer and farther.

Japanese farmers have been using Yamaha Corp. helicopter drones since 1990 to spray crops; thosedevices carry 4.2 gallons of pesticide, fly 12 miles an hour and cost about $150,000. That is not

commercially viable in the U.S., said Andrew Moore, executive director of the agricultural aviationassociation. His members' planes sometimes cost a fraction of the Yamaha drone, carry 500 gallonsof pesticide and fly 160 miles an hour.

"I think that drone works fine in Japan where they have postage-stamp-sized fields," he said. "Butwhen you're looking at agriculture on the U.S. scale, it doesn't translate."

Write to Jack Nicas at jack.nicas@wsj.com

Corrections & Amplifications

Julie Belanger runs an aerial-mapping company with her husband in San Martin, Calif. Her firstname was incorrectly given as Jill in an earlier version of this article.

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