AVIATION SECURITY AND SAFETY ISSUES PERTAINING TO THE USE OF

UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLES (UAV) OR DRONES

Institute of Graduate Studies

PHILIPPINE STATE COLLEGE OF AERONAUTICS

Villamor Air Base, Pasay City

MEAM 609

JOEL G. PADUANO

3RD Tri-Semester 2018-19

 Republic of the Philippines
PHILIPPINE STATE COLLEGE OF AERONAUTICS
Institute of Graduate Studies

I. Introduction

It was just recently that the use of drones in the Philippines had been

legalized for commercial purposes. But first, anyone who wants to fly drone

related to their professions needs to acquire certification according to the

Philippine aviation authority, the Civil Aeronautics Authority of the Philippines

(UAV Coach, 2019). Flying drones are legal in the Philippines, but there are

drone regulations that you need to be aware of when you do this. Philippines is

so young, compared to other countries, when it comes to the exploitation of

drones.

It is more appropriate to have a better understanding relating to the history

of drone from other countries. We will discuss the different applications and

intentions of this technology. Having a very wide angle of perspective about this

technology may let us realize how to exploit drones, in a better way.

The first drones was cited during the 1st world war in 1918 and gained

curiosity during the 1920, and its legitimacy was gained during the conflict in

Vietnam from 1964 to 1975, with more than 3435 acknowledged flight missions

(O. Zubeida, 2014). Many military drones was induced from 2001 in Pakistan,

Somalia and Afghanistan, while in 2006, a first drone battle between Hezbollah
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and the Israel was placed. With these very dangerous uses of drones in wars of

many entities opened a different kind of war (G. Chamayou, 2014), the

commercial application for scientific purposes had sprung up for the objectives

like acquiring as precise as possible of photogrammetry data from archeological

sites and aids during the facilitation of search and rescue procedures after a

typhoon.

The size of drones have enormous variety, from toy like size which weighs

only a few kilograms to the largest military drone, the Predator, which weighting

1022 kg and has a length of 8.22 meters, have a speed ranges between 135

km/h and 217 km/h and a cruising altitude is 7620 km, plus a self-reliance which

could reach 30 to 40 hours of operation. Other large models of drones that used

in military are the Reaper and the Black Hawk. The reason this technology is

being popular is because operating these drones is really less costly rather than

to fly a real aircraft with a real pilots who must have undergone an expensive

training.

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Figure I.1 The Predator unmanned aircraft.

Source:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-
1_Predator#/media/File:MQ-1_Predator_unmanned_aircraft.jpg.

According to A. Rogers and J. Hill (2014), there were two phases in the

history of drones when it enters in the international stage. It is said the phases

were both slow and rapid: slow that for over a hundred-year designers were

trying to unveil the most appreciable design through experimentations before it

enters mainstream, and rapid when the final concept of this technology was

discovered at the late twentieth century, this is the time the use of UAV boomed.

The inventory of US military’s increased to 40 times from 2002 to 2010. Now,

almost all countries now are using unmanned aerial vehicle or UAV in one form

or another. It also became very controversial, because of how they have been

utilized, like notorious act for assassinations, and the fear of the public towards

the idea of robotized warfare.

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The essence of the questions about “How we use it?” and “How we carry

out our global affairs?” lies in the unambiguously ‘unmanned’ existence of this

technology. Modern unmanned aerial systems or UAS comprise of one or more

vehicles connected to a satellite from the ground station. They can perform what

a manned aircraft can do and they can behave as the same kind of tasks with the

same surveillance equipment or weapons same as a manned aircraft can do. But

when we talk about making a very long distance from the pilot to the target,

physical pilots’ risk had been removed using drones. The aftermath of eliminating

the physical pilots’ risk affects the political risk declination. Drones solve the

‘Gary Powers problem’. Gary Powers was a U-2 CIA’s pilot. He was shot down in

1960 by the Russians and was sentenced to ten years in prison for spying the

Russian territory.

The aftermath of having less risk, for both the materials and the political

allows drone performance to be more efficient, most ideal to use into spaces and

territories where humans can not or will never able go, not physically bounded by

human necessities, they can cover a very large scope over their targeted areas.

More interesting fact is that drones are also considered as less problematic

targeted area of operation. Drones seem to apparent are less obviously

overcome the manned aerial operations. All they need to acquire is to have more

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enhanced equipment, other than that, nothing can an unmanned aerial vehicle

cannot do.

U.S. Air Force 46th Expeditionary Aerial Reconnaissance Squadron, July 2, 2004. Unloading
a rocket from a Predator unmanned aerial vehicle at Balad Air Base, Iraq. Source: Photo by
U.S. Air Force Staff Sergeant Cohen A. Young, http:// cryptome.org/2012-info/drone-
crew/drone-crew.htm.

The aftermath of a drone strike in Yemen.

Source: https://s.yimg.com/dh/ap/default/141113/drone_2.jpg.

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II. Body

The history of the UAV’s development really depends on how the

exploiters of drones its purpose and who can access this technology with their

hands. In the beginning, drones started out as attempts by the United States and

the British to withdraw the pilots from the aircrafts to be killed during the World

War I, making aircrafts into something like a flying bomb that no pilots’ life will

cost during the course of its destination. At this point the accuracy of

maneuvering the aircraft, is really inadequate, either travelling to a distance

through a radio or via internal gyroscope-based autopilots. Their

experimentations did not progress up to the airfield. What they are made more

useful during this time are training anti-aircraft gunners.

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FThe Queen Bee pilotless target drone was a radio-controlled aircraft.

Source: Source:https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/a-brief-history-of-drones

Different variety of unmanned aerial vehicle grew rapidly. Predator and

Reaper, the contentious drones that strikes, yielded most of the public’s attention

around the world. Most of unmanned aerial vehicles are used only for the

purpose of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions or ISR

missions. Today, many of the soldiers have easy access to different forms of

aerial recon even at the level of the smallest patrol for conducting surveillance to

areas formerly inaccessible for their operations. At the sea, unmanned aerial

vehicles provides a very useful coverage. Even the smallest war vessel, they can

carry an extremely efficient unmanned aerial vehicle, such as the Scan-Eagle,

giving commanders their own persistent aerial explorations.

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As this technology ascended to a more controllable and the

communication was improved, it can now be able to provide huge benefits when

it comes to transmitting digital high specification images from the drone. This

provides research analysts to see what the real situation on ground is as it took

place.

“One of the main lessons of the 1973 war was the lack of good operational

intelligence”, wrote by one of the member of Israeli Aircraft Industries (IAI). There

were 20 small (12 foot long) IAI Scout drones were produced during 1979. It can

carry rockets to launch during its mission. The Scout serves very well to Israeli

forces during the war in in Lebanon in 1982 (Tsach et al., 2011).

Nowadays unmanned aerial vehicles purpose are not only exclusive for

military missions but also available for entertainment accessible for civilians. Like

the quadrocopter AR.Drone produced by the Parrot or the quadrocopter 450 ARF

manufactured by Conrad Electronics (Reely Quadrocopter 450 ARF, 2011).

These drones can be controlled using your iPhone, iPad or iPod with their

wireless LAN or WLAN (Parrot, 2011). Moreover, these drones are installed with

frontal camera and vertical camera streaming live videos via WLAN of your

control device. These simple specifications are used for the controlling of the

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drone but can be also perverted for attacking anybody which can be associated

with privacy and security threats.

Our imaginations could be the only restraining component to the intensity

of our uses for unmanned aerial vehicles. The commercial use of this technology

this days include transporting critical goods, conducting search and rescue

operations, aerial photography, and monitoring oil fields and pipelines. One good

example of this new demand for UAVs is the journalism professor Matt Waite. He

spent nearly twenty years as reporting natural disasters for many places. He is

using GateWing X100 UAV. His GateWing X100 UAV can fit in the back of his

sport utility vehicle, can be easily launch by hand and installed with a high

resolution camera pointing downwardly. He can control it through his tablet with

the aid of a digital map, a very simply touch on the screen and he can easily tell it

where to fly, no required piloting skills. His X100 is surprisingly very useful for his

reports; like on fires, floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes, any situation where it is

very dangerous for a manned aircraft to fly (P, Hruby, 2012). At the aftermath of

Hurricane Harvey, where the FAA authorized at 43 commercial UAVs to fly and

give aids for helping local authorities for rescue, “assess damage to homes,

roads, bridges, power lines, oil and gas facilities, and office buildings (A.

Marshall, 2017).”

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Companies who seek useful devices for their operations (like, agriculture

and logistics companies) and individuals who seeks fun are not the only

constitution who are interested to use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

Someday, terrorist identities will also utilize the use unmanned aerial vehicles

(UAVs) for their fiendish activities. This is one the reasons why Federal Aviation

Administration (FAA) regulates the limits of commercial or civil utilization for

unmanned aerial vehicles within the US. These regulations, however, are

changing depending on the demand for new FAA guidelines (Federal Aviation

Administration, 2016). As the regulatory checks the use of UAVs inside the

United States for commercial or civil purposes continue to lessen, the demand

increases and UAV technology providers developed more capable and easy or

user-friendly UAVs and unmanned aerial control systems. Unluckily, now that we

have greater commercial accessibility to unmanned aerial vehicles technology,

these made unmanned aerial vehicles more appealing as a medium for the

terrorist to use and attacks. The policy makers now should must think another

courses of action to hinder this issuing terror.

Communication is the key element of terrorism. Terrorists employ violence

to send out messages to their target audience/s, Joseph Tuman wrote the book

“In Communicating Terror”. According to Tuman, “The primary audience will be

those who witness and observe the violence and destruction and engage in
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discourse about what they have seen”. Therefore, their message is really not the

violence or destruction that we can see on televisions, heard from the radios or

read from the newspapers, not so obviously. But rather, you can find their

message is either imbedded within the violence or comes after it in later

messages (J. Tuman, 2010). So, the tactical output of their terrorist activities may

not be the people they killed or the property they destroyed but rather the

message they are trying to send to their target audience. By attacking a very

peculiar high-value targets, such as a billionaire, high-ranking political entity,

celebrity, or even an athlete, terrorist organizations can show its power to

overcome the defensive actions of the government, showing that they are

powerful and the government authority cannot do anything. The more attention

they earn by their actions, either through sheer destruction or due to the target’s

high value, the higher value a particular target can become. Just assuming that

these terrorists will approach easily soft preys rather than the protected ones due

to the complexity is simplifying their operations too much. Failing to address the

concept that terrorism’s key element is communication through violence, Jackson

et al. (2008), mentioned in the Novel Threats that the real probability that

terrorists may select an accurate delivery method or medium that subject to beat

perimeter of defenses to attack at a high-value target and thus earning the

terrorists a high level of infamy and attention. By ignoring these terrorists’ leaning

for choosing their targets of symbolic implication or for media attention, their
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study comes to the refute findings that unmanned aerial vehicles are not likely a

threat. These are really indeed a probable threat.

To have a strong passive defense is one of the best way to mitigate a

UAV terrorist attacks. Most commercial buildings conduct physical screening,

they can easily identify a very small UAVs if someone is carrying them around. If

they are continuously strict everytime, they could be less likelihood be a targeted.

It is possible to fly an unmanned aerial vehicles inside a building, but its mobility

will be very constraint. Having this kind of security inside commercial buildings

will eliminate the capability to perform such kind of acts using unmanned aerial

vehicles.

Nowadays, nearly all of the technology associated with remote controlled

or R/C aircrafts and UAVs are widely accessible to everyone as hobby-grade,

and it would be really impossible to hinder the growth of this technology (A. Lele

and A. Mishra, 2009). Nevertheless, there is a potential to discover to build a

UAVs that can be maneuvered beyond the human visual range. The very big

difference between remote controlled or R/C aircraft and UAVs is navigational

control. There navigational control can be distinguished into two very different

pieces of technology, autopilots and GPS receivers. Although GPS receivers are

very simple task, the autopilot scope a very great special function, as it is only set
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by the individuals who operates the aircraft or building the UAVs. Because of the

growth and wide variety uses of a UAV, it is required that this very specialized

technology, the intelligence agencies and law enforcement have identified some

factors they can look for potential terrorist threats they can during the screening.

If intelligence personnel and law enforcement acquired the power to

monitor purchases of autopilots, they can easily cross-reference almost all

purchases against other indicants of terrorist action, like ties or linkages to radical

groups and the chemicals purchases that could be used to make explosive

devices. Likewise, purchasing any commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) UAV that

includes an autopilot and can be able to hold 1–5 kg payload or more can be

supervised. So, it is recommendable for provisions to be put in place that would

enable intelligence agencies and law enforcement to monitor these purchases of

autopilots and COTS UAVs.

UAVs should be incorporated into the existing aviation system in a safe

and conformable manner and this integration will foster a competitive and

innovative drone industry worldwide, helping to create jobs and growth especially

in aviation industry. The proposed regulatory framework must set the level of

safety and environmental security acceptable to the society and can offer decent

flexibility for the new industry to evolve and mature.

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Considering the very extensive range of operations and types of drones, it is

advised to establish three make categories of functioning and their related

regulatory regime: Open, Specific and Certified. In the Open operation category

of drones, must not involve an authorization by an Aviation Authority for the flight

but stay inside a defined boundaries for their operations. The Specific operation

category should require risk assessment that will require to have an operations

authorization with specific limitations accommodated to the operation. The

Certified operations are the ones who really need to acquire certifications for

operations with a very high affiliated risk or might be called for a voluntary basis

by organizations allowing services such as remote piloting or equipment like

“detect and avoid”.

Also protection of other public concerns like security and privacy implied

by using drone operations will need to be treated at the same manner for safety

risk and will be addressed with at National Level. The regulatory framework may

conceive of supplying something to reduce that jeopardies. The evolving

regulations needs to be accompanied by promoting safety actions to support the

public.

The advance development of drones and their consolidation in no

segregated airspace will confound the new challenges and a significant amount

of research needs to be performed. An air traffic management aspect of the

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construct of operation will need to be formulated. Lastly, developing of the drone

market and technologies needs to be carefully monitored.

III. Conclusion

Despite having many promising commercial uses, this technology still

lacks studies regarding various dimensions of safety and security issues. Their

higher failure rate and crash risks needs to be study and address, like crash

statistics and accident reports, which should be open to the public and

independent research entities.

The controversial course of commercial drone flights will bring review to all

the existing air flight mappings, the end result will be a standardized international

level but it is still unattainable. An immense potential of this new cartographic

mapping research will be a better no-flight zones due to risks linked to the

intensive uses of drones and also to have a deeper study about possible crashes

of drones on industrial facilities. Implementation of national and international

legal framework for drones must be participated by the public in the decision

making process. Authorities have to regulate drone commercial traffic inside land

use, not only the problematic issues but also the noise and privacy matters which

are highly important for the public.

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From a technical critical point of view, the acceptance of the public about the

risks due to drone operations is a complex function involving the following

entities: the knowledge, awareness of risks; benefits attributed this the

technology; social transformation debate induced by the introduction of this

technology and finally, privacy problems and surveillance induced by flying

drones.

The utilization of unmanned aerial vehicles by terrorists is not a far-off threat.

The commercialization of unmanned aerial vehicles is occurring now and with the

governing of the aviation authorities permitting operator to fly small unmanned

aerial vehicles, eliminating the pricy requirement for acquiring pilot licensed, we

will see more commercial unmanned aerial vehicles demand. Unmanned aerial

vehicle companies and technology providers will attempt to make unmanned

aerial vehicles technology even more reachable to both individual hobbyists and

businesses to increase their marketability. Unluckily, commercial maturation will

make such technology more captivating and also accessible to the terrorists.

Terrorists will surely look for small unmanned aerial vehicles to acquire

because of their substantial potential benefits. Terrorists use violence as their

medium of communication, and they understand that it is not essential to kill a

large number of people to send a message. Unmanned aerial vehicles provides

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them the ability to get around the defensive perimeters, allowing these terrorists

to target high-risk personnel and events, which they can acquire immediate live

media coverage and pin point the weakness in the government for its unfitness to

provide protection for their targets. Additionally, using unmanned aerial vehicles

provides a certain level of safety for the terrorist by enabling him to be far away

from their target location, possibly allowing them to perform multiple attacks

before they can get arrested. Terrorists are now progressively able to take

advantage on the benefits of using unmanned aerial vehicles through

technological advancements such as those in human supervisory control and

through a lessen costs of obtaining a unmanned aerial vehicle. On the whole, the

likeliness of figuring unmanned aerial vehicles used in terror attacks is

significantly heightening.

While unmanned aerial vehicles may be more difficult to overcome than

traditional air threats, there are criteria that can be used as guided to help

mitigate these threat from small unmanned aerial vehicles. The appearances of

high-risk personnel indoors and hosting high-risk events is likely the best way to

protect against the threat from small unmanned aerial vehicles. Performing

passive defense measure also provides fewest negative consequences and is

probably the lowest expense choice among the options. Naturally, it will not

always be possible to host an event indoors, however, the risk can be mitigated

through and through active defense measures. Radar assets can be added as an
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aid to detect these threats, allowing for early warning that heightens passive

defense. As well, electronic jamming can be applied as part of an active defense

to disable unmanned aerial vehicles once they were discovered entering into a

restricted area. Lastly, by supervising the ones who purchase autopilots and

COTS UAVs that have built-in autopilots and a certain load capability can help

intelligence operations and law enforcement can help them disclose, beforehand,

those who will use the technology, among other tools, to harm anyone.

Unluckily, the reality is that unmanned aerial vehicles complicate issues

regarding security and safety of anybody. They introduce democratic reforms of

airpower, forcing the conditions of the third-dimension when it comes to the

potential threats to high-risk personnel and events. The advantages brought in by

utilizing unmanned aerial vehicles will doubtlessly attract terrorists to possible

targets that will now be more accessible for them. Though the resources may be

limited to adequately defend an immense number of potential targets, small-scale

unmanned aerial vehicles is one of a growing threat and one for which the

aviation authorities and the public should be always prepared for.

References:

Zubeida, O. (2014): Une réponse technologique à la menace terroriste.

Les drônes ont-ils une âme ?, Le Un no 36

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Chamayou, G. (2014): Le monde comme terrain de chasse. Les drônes

ont-ils une âme ?, Le Un no 36

UAV Coach (2019) https://uavcoach.com/drone-laws-in-philippines/

Gerner, J. (2014): Repères, des drones à tout faire. Les drônes ont-ils une

âme ? Le Un no 36

A. Rogers and J. Hill, (2014) Unmanned Drone Warfare and Global

Security

S. Tsach, J. Chemla, D. Penn and D. Budianu, ‘History of UAV

development in IAI & road ahead’, paper presented at the 24th International

Congress of the Aeronautical Sciences, Yokohama, Japan, 29 August–3

September 2004, p. 2.

Conrad Electronic, Reely Quadrocopter 450 ARF," (2011). [Online].

Available: http://www.conrad.com/QUADROCOPTER-450-ARF-35-

MHz.htm?websale7=conrad-int&pi=208000&ci=SHOP_AREA_19776_1208043,

last checked October 26th 2011.

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Parrot, AR.Drone - the ying video game," (2011). [Online]. Available:

http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/en/, last checked October 26th 2011.

MB. Card, USAFR (Spring 2018)Terror from Above:How the Commercial

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Revolution Threatens the US Threshold

B. Jackson, D. Frelinger, M. Lostumbo, and R. Button, (March 2, 2008)

Evaluating NovelThreats to the Homeland: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Cruise

Missiles, Rand Corporation: National DefenseResearch Institute,

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG626.html.

EASA (Concept of Operations for DronesA risk based approach to

regulation of unmanned aircraft

P. Hruby (14 March 2012) “Out of ‘Hobby’ Class, Drones Lifting Off for

Personal, Commercial Use,” WashingtonTimes,

,http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/14/out-of-hobby-class-drones-

lifting-off-for-personal/?page=all.

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A. Marshall (4 September 2017), “Above Devastated Houston, Armies of

Drones Prove Their Worth,” Wired.com , https://www.wired.com/story/houston-

recovery-drones/.

A. Lele and A. Mishra (July 2009), “Aerial Terrorism and the Threat from

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles,”Journal of Defense Studies 3:3 (July 2009): 54–65,

http://skyjack.co.il/pdf/jds_3_3_alele_amishra.pdf.

Agoria (May 2018) A drone’s eye view

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