White House holds summit on Advanced Air Mobility

On Wednes­day, The U.S White House held a sum­mit on Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) that includ­ed drones and eVTOL air­craft, reports reuters.com.

The sum­mit, host­ed by the White House Office of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Pol­i­cy (OSTP), includ­ed NASA Admin­is­tra­tor, Bill Nel­son, Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion act­ing chief, Bil­ly Nolen, and Joby Avi­a­tion CEO, JoeBen Bevirt. It looked at “the future of avi­a­tion in Amer­i­ca and the reg­u­la­to­ry strat­e­gy towards respon­si­ble and equi­table adop­tion of these tech­nolo­gies.”

The sum­mit addressed how AAM can help achieve goals for U.S. domes­tic pol­i­cy, nation­al secu­ri­ty, cli­mate and job cre­ation. It also looked at the “future of avi­a­tion in Amer­i­ca and the reg­u­la­to­ry strat­e­gy towards respon­si­ble and equi­table adop­tion of these tech­nolo­gies,” as well as chal­lenges of inte­grat­ing drones and eVTOLs into the nation­al air­space.

Bil­ly Nolan

Oth­er speak­ers includ­ed Gary Bat­ton, Chief of the Choctaw Nation of Okla­homa, Alon­dra Nel­son, the act­ing direc­tor of OSTP and Dan Dum­b­ach­er from the Amer­i­can Insti­tute of Aero­nau­tics and Astro­nau­tics (AIAA).

Dum­b­ach­er com­ment­ed, “AAM could embody the sin­gle great­est trans­for­ma­tion for avi­a­tion busi­ness, sci­ence, and pol­i­cy along pub­lic per­cep­tions, since the emer­gence of main­stream com­mer­cial avi­a­tion in the mid-20th cen­tu­ry.”

He con­tin­ued, “With clear oper­a­tional guide­lines, reg­u­la­tions, and stan­dards for accom­mo­dat­ing and incor­po­rat­ing auton­o­my, we see a thriv­ing inte­grat­ed urban and region­al air­space in the next decade.” Adding, “The ben­e­fits of auton­o­my will enhance safe­ty for every­one and enable capa­bil­i­ties we are only just imag­in­ing.”

The sum­mit comes as the White House is press­ing Con­gress to extend and expand gov­ern­ment pow­ers to detect and dis­able both rogue and threat­en­ing drones. That expand­ed author­i­ty is set to expire in Octo­ber.

The meet­ing also includ­ed Nation­al Foot­ball League (NFL) Chief Secu­ri­ty Offi­cer, Cathy Lanier, along with Home­land Secu­ri­ty and Jus­tice Depart­ment offi­cials.

Fur­ther Antidrone Mea­sures Required (image: iStock)

On July 14th, the NFL, Major League Base­ball, NCAA and NASCAR sent a joint let­ter to Con­gress back­ing the Biden administration’s pro­pos­al for expan­sion of drone author­i­ty stat­ing, “This has an impor­tant role in help­ing to ensure the safe­ty of major sport­ing events, includ­ing the mil­lions of Amer­i­can fans who attend such events each year.”

There are over 800,000 reg­is­tered drones in the Unit­ed States. The FBI has con­duct­ed 70 drone and counter-drone pro­tec­tion oper­a­tions at large events like the Super Bowl since 2018.

(News Sources: https://www.reuters.com/ https://newstimes18.com)

(Top Image: The White House March, 2022. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts)