The ability of commercial aircraft to move safely through the skies – particularly in the vicinity of airports – is a prominent part of the test drone operators must take in order to get a Remote Pilot Certificate (RPC) from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). Government regulations require the person actually flying a drone – or, “unmanned aircraft system” (UAS) – to have an RPC, or be directly supervised by someone with such a certificate.
To date, drone-aircraft collisions have been rare, but near-misses have increased sharply around the world. Last week, a drone flying illegally close to a departure lane at Heathrow Airport in the U.K., came within 100 feet of an airplane that had taken off second earlier, endangering the 330 passengers onboard.