Stakeholder Collaboration Our research paints a very rich portrait of an industry with many internal and external interdependencies. As users of the NAS, the UAS industry is inextricably linked to traditional NAS participants such as general and commercial aviation, air traffic controllers, and pilots. A new twist is the addition of local communities as key stakeholders on matters such as privacy and land use within areas under their jurisdiction. These groups of stakeholders share a common need for safe and secure operations with the UAS industry and are key partners in dialog on safety. Creating a common frame of reference and language for approaching safety issues remains a work in progress. But these are necessary to establish goals and set priorities to provide confidence to the American public.
1.2 Public Policy Issues While much more needs to be understood on the applicability of specific aviation safety measures to the industry, several key public policy questions have been identified during this research on high-level matters. These are: How Do We Incentivize Stakeholders to Stay at the Table to Have Safety Conversations? Our research shows that message fatigue may be affecting the UAS industry. Interviews with industry experts reveal concerns that too often the message from traditional aviation stakeholders, “sounds too much like ‘be more like us.’”47 This they fear may lead to loss of acceptance of any safety messages from traditional aviation. How Widely Should Outcome and Performance-Based Regulation Be Employed by FAA for UAS? In 2018 the FAA included in their Strategic Plan several transformation initiatives emphasizing the need to shift to performance-based regulations for safety.48 This type of regulation evaluates outcomes, rather than compliance with written procedures.49 Yet, an industry may need a certain level of maturity and experience with traditional regulations to properly employ performance-based measures. Formally assessing the maturity of the UAS industry may be necessary by the FAA to determine the extent, if any, performance-based regulation is used. What Is the Appropriate Mix Between Voluntary and Compulsory Measures? The industry executives we spoke to link the success of voluntary safety measures to an understanding of “knowing the right thing to do.” Whereas they viewed compulsory
Guiding the New UAS Industry to Safety Excellence
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