Framed by the diagonal street that connects the main gate of EAA AirVenture to the forums area is a triangle of land that over the years has proven to be a prism that spotlights a newest member of the aviation community before it mixes invisibly into the larger community.
Now named Aviation Gateway Park, this prism was borne with the arrival of light sport aircraft, which now exhibit with and among the rest of kit and airframe manufacturers. This year the spotlight illuminated drones, which flew almost constant demonstrations in the three-story cage sponsored by Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. Long, always filled bleachers faced the alfresco end of the cage. It was even harder to find an air conditioned seat that faced the cage from that end of the Innovation Center.
Full bleachers were just one way to measure the popularity drone integration at AirVenture. Roughly half the floor space in the Innovation Center was filled with drone sellers large and small, and the crowds around them reminded me of the Garmin booth when it introduced is GPS products in the early 1990s. And many of the visitors there were not leaving empty handed.
Love them or hate them, drones are part of the aviation community, and AirVenture’s Gateway Park did its part to make their integration with the larger aviation community safe. The cage that defined their flight area addressed the immediate concern, and the narrators expanded that message during the demonstrations, at least at the half dozen demonstrations I watched. As part of their descriptions of each drone’s capabilities and uses, they explained where and how to fly them safely.
Certainly, these few words about flying safely will not immediately cure the drone incursion problem that seems to be now growing larger. But it is the pebble in the pond of knowledge that will expand in concentric circles as enthusiasts and new drone owners share their passion for unmanned aircraft systems when they return home.
The larger pool of drone aficionados is fed by the vast ocean of technology, not aviation. At AirVenture this was certainly not the case, because many in the bleachers looked up and away from their smart phones to find the source of an interesting airplane sound. With some familiarity with aviation, they will contribute to the safe operation of drones as they explain how see-and-avoid works to their fellow technophiles.
Time will tell if this actually happens before some unfortunate meeting between these two aviation communities grounds those without pilots on board. But from what I saw at AirVenture’s Gateway Park, I’m optimistic. I’m not sure how I feel about the irony witnessed at one demonstration, however. Before it started, most of people in the bleachers were absorbed, head down in their smart phones. When the demonstration started, they looked up with purpose to watch the flight of a drone…controlled by a smart phone. — Scott Spangler, Editor