wrote:
Lets think about this. No approved type certicate, does this sound
familar? We should go to the FAA and demand all aircraft that lack
approved type certificates be grounded because they are obviously
unsafe. How many sailplanes fly under experimental certificates?
Lots. Homebuilts of course and quite a few Libelles, discuses and
LS-3s since the original owners imported them before they received
approval from the FAA. I imagine if the experimental certificates
were cancelled you could eventually get an approved type certificate
after some paperwork and maybe retrofitting some equipment required by
the ATC. Of course some of the open class ship would be out of luck
since they never received an ATC as well as others. Wouldn't it be
better to figure out what safety issues the Predator has,if any, and
campaign to have them fixed?

According to the NTSB report, the Predator had no airworthiness
certificate whatsoever and was flying on an FAA waiver. All of the
gliders discussed above fly with special airworthiness certificates.
The situations are simply not comparable.

Several smaller companies are having a great deal of difficulty getting
public use (law enforcement, search and rescue, etc.) airworthiness
certificates for UAVs which are in many cases no larger than your
typical model airplane. The DHS and a large defense contractor can
simply invoke "national security", which allows them to get away with
behavior that would be quite illegal for anyone else...

Marc