I've been following this thread a bit now, and would like to toss in something. I work as an SUAV technician and flight instructor for a Tampa based defense contractor. Because of the FAA's new 60 day advance notice provision, we cannot even test fly our birds unless within an MOA. Our UAVs are not Preditors or anything like that. They are small, electric birds from Aerovironment, which typically have a mission altitude of 300 ft AGL. Despite this, we are being dumped into the same class as all other DOD UAVs. So, it's not just you private guys getting stiffled. We can't do much without driving down to Avon Park Bombing Range in central Florida. Therefore, development within our company is difficult to test as well as you guys. Matter of fact, I'm driving down to Avon Park tomorrow to test two Pointers and two Ravens we just repaired. That's a lot of time and expense we wish we could avoid by simply flying over farmland or state parklands. Part of the reason is we have to fly out to 5km for a proper range test, so we need a lot of airspace.

In any case, I understand a bit what you guys are talking about. The FAA isn't making it any easier on the professional SUAV industry either.

Erich Freymann
WinTec, In
www.arrowmaker.com