What’s more, when the lab isn’t using the airspace, regional and state officials hope commercial users might be able to in the future if the federal government gives the OK.
AFRL would like to launch the unmanned aerial vehicles out of Wilmington and fly the drones through a corridor into the vicinity of the Buckeye and Brush Creek Military Operating Areas above rural southern Ohio within the next 12 to 15 months, if not sooner, said Jack Blackhurst, director of AFRL’s Plans and Programs Directorate at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
The lab also wants the ability to test ground-based sense and avoidance technology in the restricted air zone, Blackhurst said.
Air Force researchers have tested drones under much more stringent flight restrictions at Wilmington Air Park. But even so, the agency spends $4 million to $6 million each year to test drones, much of that time out of state, officials said.
“This is really a time saver and as well as a cost saver for AFRL in terms of doing operations in the UAV arena,” Blackhurst said.
Blackhurst was one of the presenters Monday at the Dayton Development Coalition’s Unmanned Aerial Systems Roundtable at Sinclair Community College in Dayton. Regional and state officials officials gave an overview of the status of UAS in Ohio.
Southwest Ohio has high stakes in the field with AFRL’s drone-related work, Sinclair in the midst of a $5 million renovation of the National UAS Training and Certification Center, and the Ohio/Indiana UAS Center located in Springfield.
Monday, the center announced a partnership with Wright State University and the National Center for Medical Readiness in Fairborn that will set up improved modeling and simulation in flight, boost safety in operations, and support training and research and development.
Ohio leaders have continued to target the industry as a high-tech economic and job incubator despite the FAA’s snub of Ohio and Indiana’s joint bid to land a test site to integrate drones into the national airspace. Industry officials were heartened in recent days when the FAA released a draft of proposed rules for the integration of small drones for commercial use in the nation’s skies.
OASIS in the skies
In the Air Force’s case, the Ohio Airspace Strategic Integration Study, known as OASIS, has targeted a site within 60 to 120 miles of Wright-Patterson to test AFRL drones.OASIS was two years in the making with input from the state, NASA, general aviation officials and the FAA, said Maurice McDonald, Dayton Development Coalition executive vice president of aerospace and defense.
“We based all of our requirements off of what the Air Force needed to do in Ohio,” McDonald said, but added: “We want to be able to utilize that airspace when AFRL is not using it to potentially have commercial operations flying in that airspace.”
But that will take federal authorization. The federal government has said no to allowing commercial use of drones in restricted military airspace in the past, “but we’re going to continue to pursue that,” Blackhurst said.
One of the biggest barriers the state has faced to develop the UAS industry is access to airspace, officials said Monday.
However, the FAA has given permission to fly drones in every region of the state and Ohio is asking for more sites, said Ryan Smith, state director of UAS activities.
“We’ve opened up a lot of airspace, and we think we’ve been successful doing it,” he said.
The importance of gaining national recognition for the region’s UAS efforts is key to growing the industry and creating new jobs, Smith said.
Sinclair aims to open the UAS training center in downtown Dayton by August and eyes completion of a new, indoor flying range in November, said Deborah Norris, the community college’s vice president of workforce development and corporate services.
The college had a setback in December when the city of Springfield closed an air traffic control tower at the Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport because of costs, forcing Sinclair and other UAV users to resubmit to the FAA for permission to fly small UAVs. The college also flies drones in Wilmington. Norris expected the FAA will allow Sinclair to resume flying drones in Springfield this spring. Air traffic controllers in Columbus would control the airspace around the site.
©2015 the Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC
