UAS Integration into Civil Airspace. Douglas M. Marshall

of being flown without a pilot shall be flown without a pilot over the territory of a contracting State without special authorization by that State and in accordance with the terms of such authorization. Each contracting State undertakes to ensure that the flight of such aircraft without a pilot in regions open to civil aircraft shall be so controlled as to obviate danger to civil aircraft.

      ICAO’s rules apply to international airspace, which is typically defined as the airspace over the high seas more than 12 miles from the sovereign territory of a State (country), as well as some domestic airspace by virtue of incorporation into a contracting State’s own regulatory scheme. The rules just apply to the 193 Member States, so any nation that declines to become an ICAO member is not entitled to the protection of ICAO’s rules. However, ICAO is a voluntary organization and there are no provisions for enforcement of the regulations or standards such as those found in the US Federal Aviation Regulations or similar regulatory provisions enacted by the Member States. As a practical matter, a nation that elects to not be an ICAO Member State will find that no foreign air carriers will be allowed to land in that nation’s airports, except in an emergency, and that nation’s airlines, if any, will not be permitted to operate in the airspace of a Member Nation.

      However, even a Member State may find itself isolated and ostracized for a blatant violation of ICAO rules, such as what happened to Belarus in May of 2021 after its leadership engineered the diversion and forced landing of a commercial airline’s aircraft in Belarus to detain a political dissident journalist (basically a hijack). The airline (Ryanair) was operating a scheduled flight on an approved international route over Belarus, not intended to land in that country. Belarus military aircraft forced the airliner to land in Belarus and the dissident was taken off the aircraft and placed into custody. In response, the European Union banned Belavia, the national airline of Belarus, from EU airspace, effectively shutting the airline down indefinitely. Other EU Member States and non-EU nations also ceased flights in and out of Belarus, and the US Department of Transportation (at the request of the State Department) issued a final order blocking most travel between the United States and Belarus. All EU nations are ICAO Member States. Articles 6 of the Convention gives Contracting States the authority to revoke permission of another State’s aircraft to operate over the territory of the Contracting State, so this action by the EU was wholly consistent with the Convention, as well as ICAO’s rule.

As a founding member of ICAO and a nation that has a substantial interest in preserving harmony in international commercial aviation, the United States enforces ICAO’s rules against US operators to the extent that the ICAO rule has been incorporated into the FARs and does not conflict with domestic regulations. Other ICAO Member States do the same. In 2012 ICAO created a Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) Panel, designed to deliver standards for unmanned aircraft to ICAO’s governing council in 2018. The panel’s focus was and is on the development of standards and recommended practices (SARPs) for adoption by the ICAO Council regarding airworthiness, operations, and licensing of remote pilots. The first edition of the “Manual on Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems” was released in 2015. Also in 2015, ICAO established the Unmanned Aircraft Systems Advisory Group (UAS-AG) to support the Secretariat in developing guidance material and expedite the development of provisions to be used by Member States to regulate unmanned aircraft systems. The Advisory Group has continued to respond to ICAO’s Requests for Information (RFI) in 2017, 2018, and 2019 by holding industry symposia to showcase submissions by interested parties responding to the RFIs. The last scheduled symposium, “Drone Enable/2021” was held virtually in April 2021. The 2020 Rio de Janeiro Symposium was canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

      The following chapter will offer a brief look at regulatory efforts around the world that focus on integration of drones into domestic airspace. The European Union is developing its version of unmanned aircraft systems traffic management, called “U-space,” and the US is engaged in a parallel effort labeled “UTM,” while also participating in the European effort with the intent to harmonize these two major projects. Most other non-EU nations have thus far not taken the deep dive into the integration technology that is ongoing in the US and Europe, but those two undertakings will presumably provide a template for other nations to adopt. The overall picture of global airspace integration efforts intended to merge UAS operations with manned aviation at low levels, as well as higher controlled and uncontrolled airspace, divides the strategies into three broad categories: Unmanned Aircraft Systems Traffic Management (UTM) in the US, “U-space” in the European Union, and an FIMS-based (Flight Information Management Systems) data exchange gateway that connects UTM participants with a nation’s air traffic management system, Australia being a good example. Air traffic management (ATM) is the broad descriptor of air traffic control services in all categories airspace.

      The details of those strategies are discussed in Chapters 2, 3, and 4.

      Conclusion

      Aviation regulations have been in place for over a century. They have evolved into a complex and interconnected web of overlapping regulations, acceptable means of compliance, guidance materials, and standards. The introduction of unmanned aircraft into national airspaces around the world may properly be characterized as the greatest technical innovation in aviation since the development and implementation of gas turbine engines for commercial aircraft. This phenomenon has also been the most disruptive to airspace safety, something that cannot be said for jet engines. The next chapter takes us to UAS airspace integration efforts in the European Union, which have been responsive to this disruptive technology.

      References

      1 14 Code of Federal Regulations §91.113(d)(Converging).

      2 Chaplin, J.C.(2011). Safety Regulation – The First 100 Years, Journal of Aeronautical History, Paper No. 2011/3.

      3 https://ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/air/encasia_en.

      4 https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/process/Pages/default.aspx.

      5 https://www.icao.int/about-icao/History/Pages/default.aspx.

      6 Official Journal of the European Union L 295/35, November 12.11.2010, page 35. “Regulation (EU) No. 996/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 October.

      7 Tanaka, Y.(2012). The International Law of the Sea, 3, 390. Cambridge University Press.

      8 US Department of Homeland Security, United States Coast Guard, Navigation Rules, International-Inland, Rule 14 Head-on Situation.