CALIFORNIA FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014, OR THEREAFTER
FOR RELEASE: TUESDAY, JANUARY 21, 2014, OR THEREAFTER
BY THOMAS D. ELIAS
“UNDERSTANDING DRONE DECISION SIMPLE AS ABC”
It turns out that understanding the
federal government’s late-December decision on where to site the testing of
unmanned aircraft in U.S. skies is as simple as ABC: Anywhere but California.
Other
rationales will be offered for the fact that California, the state with more
manufacturers of drone aircraft than any other and more experience testing new
aircraft than the rest of America combined, will not get any of this new
program.
That’s a new manifestation of the
“ABC.” attitude which previously resulted in the ludicrous choice of Buffalo,
NY, for a major federal earthquake study
center, when Buffalo had not felt a quake in modern times. The government also
tried to put the superconducting supercollider advanced physics facility in
Austin, Texas, when both the Stanford Linear Accelerator Project and UC Berkeley’s
Lawrence Livermore Laboratory would have provided far more Nobel Prize-winning
talent to run it. No surprise, that program achieved nothing before it was
cancelled.
And
the Defense Department has deactivated far more California military reserves in
each round of base closings than in any other state.
So it is that New York, New Jersey and
Virginia, states with few wide-open air spaces, will get major pieces of this
pie, along with Nevada, Alaska and North Dakota, which have plenty of open
space, but little of the academic talent usually deployed in major pilot
programs.
States chosen as test sites lost no
time bragging about their leg up toward winning many of the estimated 70,000
jobs the domestic unmanned aircraft industry is forecast to produce over the
next 10 years.
“Our state is now on the world map
when it comes to this exciting technology,” said Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark
Begich of Alaska, who will use his state’s win as he fights for political
survival in that normally Republican state.
And Nevada’s Republican Gov. Brian
Sandoval called the selection of the University of Nevada at Reno as a test
center a “historic moment” for his state. It surely didn’t hurt that the Senate
Democratic leader, Harry Reid, hails from Nevada.
None of that explains why the Federal
Aviation Administration passed on California, home of Edwards Air Force Base,
where most new military aircraft – including drones – have long been tested.
The state also hosts testing for military drone makers like AeroVironment of
Monrovia, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems of Poway, along with Lockheed
Martin Corp. and Northrup Grumman Corp., both in Palmdale.
Weaknesses are obvious in the FAA’s
selections. For one, given its size, California will see more drone aircraft deliveries
of goods to homes and businesses than any other state if the technology becomes
common, as – for example – Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos predicts.
So skipping California makes no sense.
Nor does the so-called explanation offered by FAA Administrator Michael Huerta,
who said his agency considered factors like geographic diversity, availability
of ground infrastructure and the volume of air traffic near test sites.
“What
we were really looking for was how do we select six that give us the broadest
base of (these things) and different climates,” Huerta said.
No
state offers more of those items than California, with its varied landscape of
deserts, cities, coastlines, mountains and forests. But it is out, even though
by Huerta’s criteria it could easily quality to host the entire program.
The
good thing about the two California bids for parts of this program was that
both got cooperation from Gov. Jerry Brown’s Office of Business and Economic
Development and neither experienced the kinds of permitting hang-ups that have
sometimes plagued businesses here.
It is also comforting to know the
military does not usually site its testing by political criteria, as was
plainly the case with this civilian program. Which means military drone makers
will almost certainly stay put, even as some of their affiliates experiment in
the new test sites.
The bottom line: Until California’s
largest-in-the-nation congressional delegation of 55 men and women begins
acting with unity to benefit the state and make sure it gets projects like
this, other states will gang up to seize money and projects that rightfully
belong here. But there are no signs of any such cooperation coming soon.
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Elias is author of the current book “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It,” now available in an updated third edition. His email address is tdelias@aol.com. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net
Elias is author of the current book “The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It,” now available in an updated third edition. His email address is tdelias@aol.com. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net
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