San Diego Utility to Fly UAS; Amazon Seeks Testing Approval



By Brett Davis

A San Diego utility has been granted a special airworthiness certificate from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to fly unmanned aircraft and test flight crews, even as Amazon has petitioned to be allowed to test its Prime Air UAS in the United States.

San Diego Gas & Electric announced on 11 July that it will be able to test and train with UAS in a sparsely population area of San Diego County. The utility wants to see if small UAS can be used on a day-to-day basis to inspect electric and gas lines in places that are inaccessible to helicopters or roads, as well as respond to disasters if needed.

"This versatile technology would allow us to improve our response to emergency situations such as fires, as well as complete aerial inspections in remote areas that are otherwise difficult to access, and locate the cause of power outages faster,” says Dave Geier, the utility’s vice president of electric transmission and system engineering. “By using these devices, we hope to enhance the reliability of the energy network and promote public safety for the benefit of the entire region."

The UAS will be flown in four approved test areas, each of which are 2.5 miles long and half a mile wide, with no residences or businesses. If the demonstration is successful, the utility — which supplies power to 3.4 million residents of San Diego and Orange counties — may seek to broaden their unmanned systems use for field inspections.

Sales giant Amazon has also petitioned the FAA for the ability to test its UAS in the United States. In a letter to the FAA dated 9 July, the company says it has developed UAS that can fly at more than 50 miles per hour while carrying five-pound payloads, a capability that covers 86 percent of the products sold on Amazon.

“Granting Amazon an exemption to allow R&D testing outdoors in the United States is in the public interest because it advances Congress’s goal of getting commercial sUAS flying in the United States safely and soon,” Paul Misener, the company’s vice president of Global Public Policy, wrote in the letter to FAA Administrator Michael Huerta. “It is a necessary step towards realizing the consumer benefits of Amazon Prime Air and, at this point, Amazon’s continuing innovation in the United States requires the requested exemption for outdoor testing in support of our R&D.”

The letter notes that an exemption “will do nothing more than allow Amazon to do what thousands of hobbyists and manufacturers of model aircraft do every day,” but the company will abide by even stronger safety standards.

“One day, seeing Amazon Prime Air will be as normal as seeing mail trucks on the road today, resulting in enormous benefits for consumers across the nation,” the letter says.