Warwick, Rhode Island has slipped past the launch window its police chief set in March, and the reason sits at the end of the runway. Col. Michael G. Lima told the Providence Journal that the city’s Drone as First Responder program is waiting on Federal Aviation Administration airspace approvals that could take another 30 to 60 days. In March he had hoped to be flying within about two months.
The aircraft is a Flock Safety Alpha, bought under a three-year, $150,000 contract the City Council approved in March. It will live in a dock on the police headquarters roof and fly itself to 911 calls. Warwick is also home to Rhode Island T.F. Green International Airport, the busiest in the state, and the FAA’s facility map for the airspace around it reads zero feet in grid after grid.
In March, WPRI reported the drone had received special permission to operate near T.F. Green, and Lima said then that the FAA was sure it would not interfere with planes around the runway. Seven months later, the airspace submissions are still on an FAA desk.
FAA facility maps put zero-foot grids over much of Warwick
The FAA’s UAS Facility Maps divide controlled airspace into grid squares, each carrying the maximum altitude the agency approves without further review. Around T.F. Green, several squares read zero feet. Any flight there needs further review and coordination inside the FAA, as does any request above a grid’s number…