ICAO: Friend or Foe to Drone Operators?

Written by Andre Louis-Ferdinand

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Some of you manned pilots may know about the ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization). As its name suggests, ICAO "is a specialized agency of the United Nations. It codifies the principles and techniques of international air navigation and fosters the planning and development of international air transport to ensure safe and orderly growth." It is headquartered in Quebec, Canada.

The ICAO's new Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) Panel aims to deliver standards for unmanned aircraft to the organization’s governing council in 2018. Once approved, the standards will guide ICAO’s 191 member states in setting their own national regulations. The overall process of producing RPAS standards is expected to take a decade or longer.

Leslie Cary, ICAO’s RPAS program manager, states that "Most topics will take several years and several packages to complete; the 2018 packages will be the start of a very complex activity,” she said. “We anticipate a rolling delivery of SARPs [Standards and Recommended Practices], Procedures for Air Navigation Services and guidance material on a biennial basis for the next 10+ years until all the topics are complete.”

While it is clear that the ICAO will be debating RPA regulation for the next decade at least, the "jury is still out" as to whether the ICAO will be a friend or foe to drone operators.

However, to be perfectly honest, the ICAO suggestions are likely irrelevant to the drone industry as a whole. The ICAO will conveniently be waiting until after the FAA makes its UAV legislation in late 2015 or early to mid 2016. ICAO suggestions have traditionally followed to the letter what the FAA has already regulated within the United States. In my opinion, this scheduled move by the ICAO means that the future of drone legislation does not lie in their hands at all, but the FAA's. It is clear that the next year will be very important for the future of our industry.