WASHINGTON – National Aeronautics and Space Organisation (NASA) has forthe first time successfully flown its large remotely-piloted Ikhanaaircraft in the public airspace without a safety chase airplane, the USspace agency said on Wednesday.
“This historic flight moves US one step closer to normalising unmannedaircraft operations in the airspace used by commercial and private pilots,”NASA said in a statement.
Flying these large remotely-piloted aircraft over the US opens the doors toservices such as monitoring and fighting forest fires to providing newemergency search and rescue operations, according to NASA. The technologyin this aircraft could, at some point, be scaled down for use in othergeneral aviation aircraft, it said.
“This is a huge milestone for our Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration inthe National Airspace System project team,” said Ed Waggoner, NASA’sIntegrated Aviation Systems Program director.
Flights of large craft like Ikhana, have traditionally required a safetychase aircraft to follow the unmanned aircraft as it travels through thesame airspace used by commercial aircraft. The US Federal AviationAdministration (FAA) granted NASA special permission to conduct this flightunder the authority of a Certificate of Waiver or Authorization on March 30.
The certificate permitted Ikhana’s pilot to rely on the latest Detect andAvoid technology, enabling the remote pilot on the ground to see and avoidother aircraft during the flight. The flight took off from Edwards AirForce Base in California and entered controlled airspace almost immediately.
Ikhana flew into the Class-A airspace, where commercial airliners fly, justwest of Edwards at an altitude of about 20,000 feet. During the returnflight, the pilot began a gentle descent over the city of Tehachapi,California, into Class E airspace – about 10,000 feet -where generalaviation pilots fly.
The pilot initiated an approach into Victorville airport at 5,000 feet,coordinating in real time with air traffic controllers at the airport.After successfully executing all of these milestones, the aircraft exitedthe public airspace and returned to its base at Armstrong.