Narrative:

A global hawk aircraft was filed too close to a restricted area. The unmanned aircraft system (uas) program; as well as all remote programs; are growing exponentially. The military; and soon to be private sector; are pushing hard to get as many flights a day airborne as possible to further their testing of these aircraft. The FAA's position is cautionary as controllers attention shouldn't be distracted by flights above FL450. While they often use restricted airspace for testing; some of the recent flight plans are expansive and are completely outside special use (sua) airspace. This will bring an increasing workload on the controllers and the national airspace system (NAS). Confining them to sua airspace and only allowing transit to and from is something the FAA will need to consider as flights per day increase. The other option is to create ultra ultra high sectors to deal with uas aircraft. The military doesn't understand how the rules and regulations apply to uas aircraft. Quite simply; they think they don't need to 'play' by the same rules since they are the only ones 'up there.' next generation aircraft; private sector uas; and military programs will all be vying for this newly accessible airspace. This report pertains to the massive amount of data to file flight plans for these uas aircraft; and the lack of proper flight planning and deconfliction by the military for these flights which create several concerns on every flight. Fl500b600 requires a minimum of 6 miles laterally from restricted airspace.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A Controller commented that military Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) usage is growing rapidly. As aircraft expand beyond restricted airspace at altitudes above FL450 procedures need to be developed to prevent conflicts with other aircraft.

Narrative: A Global Hawk aircraft was filed too close to a restricted area. The Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) program; as well as all remote programs; are growing exponentially. The military; and soon to be private sector; are pushing hard to get as many flights a day airborne as possible to further their testing of these aircraft. The FAA's position is cautionary as controllers attention shouldn't be distracted by flights above FL450. While they often use restricted airspace for testing; some of the recent flight plans are expansive and are completely outside Special Use (SUA) airspace. This will bring an increasing workload on the controllers and the National Airspace System (NAS). Confining them to SUA airspace and only allowing transit to and from is something the FAA will need to consider as flights per day increase. The other option is to create ultra ultra high sectors to deal with UAS aircraft. The military doesn't understand how the rules and regulations apply to UAS aircraft. Quite simply; they think they don't need to 'play' by the same rules since they are the only ones 'up there.' Next generation aircraft; private sector UAS; and military programs will all be vying for this newly accessible airspace. This report pertains to the massive amount of data to file flight plans for these UAS aircraft; and the lack of proper flight planning and deconfliction by the military for these flights which create several concerns on every flight. FL500B600 requires a minimum of 6 miles laterally from restricted airspace.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.