Welcoming Drone Delivery - A Stepping Stone To Flying Cars
The Use of Airspace Needs The Consent of The Air Rights Holders
Thank you to everyone for reading the newsletter, and thank you for your input. You can contact me at jonathan@skytrades.io and SkyTrades.io - Enjoy this weeks article.
Drones Lead to Flying Cars
Drones provide a logical step towards flying cars. They are smaller, don't carry people and can bring us things we want, quickly and with reduced emissions to trucks and cars. Drones have proven themselves to be very helpful to our lives in many ways, in very tightly controlled and monitored environments. Everything from blood delivery to cups of coffee.
If we accept that drones are a precursor in some way to flying cars, or at least to the acceptance of flying cars the question is - Why don’t we have drones flying, helping us with our everyday needs, like we have been promised for over a decade?
Key questions:
Is the technology available?
Are drones safe?
Will drones infringe on my privacy or property rights?
These valid questions fall into three buckets. Let’s take each bucket, tip it up, and see what’s there.
Technology
There are a multitude of drone manufacturers globally, using known and unknown technology. Constantly evolving technology is one of the attractions for the builders and developers of drones. There are some commonalities between them.
Found in numerous types of drones, dual Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) like GPS and GLONASS drones are able to operate in both non-satellite and satellite modes, providing enhanced connectivity during operation.
Gyroscopes consist of a wheel that can spin in any direction on its axis and are used in drones to measure the rate of rotation. Because a gyroscope focuses on the tilt of a drone, it becomes essential for providing stability. This way, drones can maintain their direction and deliver a smooth flying experience.
Drones come in a variety of types, each tailored to the unique demands of different industries. For instance, some people require lightweight drones to hold a camera for photography, while others need robust drones to transport heavy medical supplies. Examples of drones being used today include; military drones, delivery of food and medicine in very limited circumstances, emergency rescue, agriculture, outer space, wildlife and historical conservation. As a result, companies produce drones that come in four main types; single-rotor helicopter, multi-rotor, fixed-wing and fixed-wing hybrid VTOL.
Bottom Line: The technology exists for drones to be able to fly and it’s improving quickly over time.
Regulation
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has identified the safety of people, vehicles, and property as the most critical factors for successfully adopting urban air mobility. Safety can be improved by reducing risk. Risk is reduced by lessening the accident's severity or lowering the likelihood of an accident. In the context of airspace, risk cannot be eliminated, but it can be reduced by avoiding objects, areas with turbulences, and weather that can endanger the flight. Crucially drones do not carry people so their risk level is much lower than general aviation and this must be remembered. Too often people and regulators see drones as pattern recognition of aircraft carrying hundreds of passengers, they are not the same.
Companies wishing to deliver products by drone must consider among other things federal regulation 14 C.F.R. § 107.31, which requires drone pilots to keep their drones in visual line of sight at all times.
Commercial drone pilots can apply for a Part 107 waiver if they need to fly beyond the visual line of sight (BVLOS). For a waiver on the line of sight rule, the FAA requires applications to detail:
(i) how the Remote Pilot will monitor the drone's location, altitude, and movement, keeping it within operation limits.
(ii) how the pilot will avoid other aircraft, people, and obstacles,
(iii) how issues or malfunctions will be detected and managed.
(iv) contingency plans for GPS failures or reduced accuracy. These waivers are not a slam dunk and when they are granted can have various restrictions attached.
Bottom Line: There are regulations in place to allow drones to fly in very tightly controlled situations, and these ares and approvals are expanding, albeit slowed down by the lack of permissioned airspace.
Individual Rights (air rights)
Landowners own the airspace in the “immediate reaches” above their land, per the U.S. Supreme Court. The immediate reaches is considered through the courts and accepted to be up to c.500ft. It is arguably higher in altitude, and the commercial value of airspace continues to increase in value over time.
Property rights are strongly held, and in common law jurisdictions like the US and the U.K., these rights have been long established and defended.
As the privatization of the air proceeds, it is naïve to expect that it will simply be appropriated by the aviation industry without… private citizens, and communities (involvement). - Progress in Aerospace Sciences, Aleksandar Bauranov, Jasenka Rakas
Individual landowners are not in the ecosystem so their airspace is being used without permission or no airspace is being used commercially at scale. Whichever the case the drones are not flying to any meaningful degree legally.
While local communities have increasingly influenced the operations of airlines and airports in their jurisdictions. Flights occurring at low altitudes will have a hyper-local effect on outcomes for property owners. Housing close to popular delivery hubs will be crossed multiple times a day by drones and the payment for this access will lead to increases in property values as well as increased motivations for property owners to be part of the low-altitude ecosystem, and there will be increased drone flight. It can allow previously maligned neighbourhoods and housing developments to become wealthier and healthier. SkyTrades enables these property owners to monetize their underutilised assets with passive income by pushing the flywheel.
If a drone company, no matter what size their balance sheet, flies drones in private airspace without permission it’s a violation.
Bottom Line: Individual air rights, until now, have not been available to be used in the ecosystem legally with permission. A single point of failure for low-altitude air mobility.
The Demand For Drone Delivery
The demand is so strong some companies are operating without the air rights holders’ permission at a very high risk.
The Walmart drone delivery program now encompasses 7 states and 36 stores flying in private air space permissionless. Now they have joined forces with Wing, the Alphabet-owned drone company, to introduce drone deliveries to two additional stores in the Dallas-Fort Worth region. The commercial logic for drone delivery by Walmart and Alphabet is clear, and it is also clear for the landowners.
Customers within a 6-mile radius of these stores can order various items. Wing has 11 other delivery hubs in the Dallas area and aspires to normalise drone delivery on a large scale. By 2024, their goal is to achieve "store-to-door" deliveries in as little as 15 minutes with 50 times the efficiency of gas-powered trucks. Over 90% of Americans live within 10 minutes of a Walmart store and their low-altitude air rights must be respected.
The value of drone delivery to landowners is not simply in being able to get packages delivered to them. To give an analogy would a homeowner allow Airbnb to place a guest in their spare room and keep the entire fee?
Fines For Drones in Non-Permitted Airspace
A drone pilot in the U.K., a common law jurisdiction, who flew his unmanned aircraft near an airport to capture aerial shots of a festival has been directed to pay nearly £1,500 in fines. The pilots’ actions violated multiple laws which track many US laws on privacy, trespass and flying drones in non-permitted areas, they include;
Flying above the legal altitude limit of 400 feet (122 meters)
Operating the drone beyond his line of sight.
Flying within a restricted zone without permission.
Failing to maintain visual contact with the drone.
Disregarding the requirement to display a registration number.
The pilot admitted to 7 offences and 13 additional drone-related offences were considered during his sentencing. The pilot acknowledged his lack of awareness about the laws and regulations surrounding drone flights. The magistrate emphasized that ignorance of the law could not serve as a defence. The pilots DJI Mavic 2 drone was ordered to be forfeited and destroyed.
Landowners need to assert their air rights to have a say in how low-altitude airspace is used. To do this register here, and have them secured for you.
