Pirker Case Casts Shadow over Unmanned Systems Conference

UAS industry industry growing increasingly impatient with the FAA’s regulatory and policy containment of unmanned aircraft systems.

By Bill Carey

June 2, 2014

Raphael Pirker cast a long shadow over the Unmanned Systems 2014 conference. Pirker’s challenge of an FAA fine for allegedly flying his Ritewing Zephyr recklessly at the University of Virginia came up repeatedly during the annual conference the Association of Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) stages, this year in Orlando. Pirker won the first round when an administrative law judge with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) rejected the fine; the Board was considering the case on appeal by the FAA as the unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) industry gathered at the Orange County Convention Center.

The Pirker case is emblematic of an industry growing increasingly impatient with the FAA’s regulatory and policy containment of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). Called “Trappy” in the radio-controlled, “first-person view” (R/C FPV) community of aerial videographers, and recently known to be running a drone shop in Hong Kong, Pirker ran afoul of the FAA over safety but also because he flew the four-pound, polymer foam construction Zephyr for compensation, which the FAA prohibits. One questioner in Orlando asked Jim Williams, manager of the FAA’s UAS Integration Office, why the agency penalized Pirker when a hobbyist can fly a carbon-fiber scale model of the F-16 fighter unfettered–a question that was repeated in different forms throughout the conference. When an attendee from Australia asked Williams if the U.S. risked “losing this industry to countries with more forward-looking regulatory environments,” the room broke into applause.

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