By Aila Boyd
aboyd@mainstreetnewspapers.com
uAvionix and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced the appointment of Christian Ramsey, president of uAvionix, to the FAA’s Drone Advisory Committee (DAC) last month. Ramsey, a Botetourt County native, will fill an existing vacancy on the DAC representing UAS Hardware Component Manufacturers. His appointment is for a two-year term.
“I’m excited to be a part of the team,” said Ramsey. “As a pioneer of low-SWaP avionics for UAS, I think uAvionix can bring a perspective to the DAC that has been missing to-date. We want to help get the unmanned industry off the ground – literally – by providing avionics that regulators have confidence in that allow routine Beyond Visual Line of Sight operations and type certification of unmanned aircraft. Currently, there isn’t a mechanism that communicates the needs of regulators to industry to guide investment in critical technologies. I hope to be a conduit to improve the understanding of those regulatory needs and drive industry-developed solutions allowing UAS to achieve its promise.”
Ramsey, who is a private pilot and licensed UAS pilot under FAA Part 107, said that his interest in aviation has been a constant in his life.
“I’ve always been interested in aviation. It’s something I’ve been doing ever since college when I got my private pilot license,” he explained.
After studying computer science at James Madison University, he built flight simulators for pilot training for military and commercial pilots at an aviation technology company. “Ever since then I’ve always been in aviation technologies,” he said.
Five years ago, he was with a different company and started doing research and development programs that were focused on “detect and avoid,” a function of a drone that replaces the pilot’s capability to see and avoid other aircrafts. “That’s when I got very interested in drones. It coincided with the surge in discussions about drones in the airspace,” he said.
“Since about 2015, the topic of drones has really become an urgent topic in aviation mainly because the technologies have increased dramatically,” he explained. “The drones that are in operation today far exceed the capabilities that regulators imagined.”
Originally, he said, drones were primarily envisioned for military use but have since evolved. “No one would have thought that small drones that might have been considered toys just a few years ago would have the capabilities that they have now,” he said.
He noted that drones can be used for good when it comes to search and rescue, disaster recovery, and medical supply delivery.
The FAA’s DAC is a broad-based, long-term federal advisory committee that provides FAA with advice on key UAS integration issues by helping to identify challenges and prioritize improvements. The committee helps to create broad support for an overall integration strategy and vision. Membership is comprised of CEO/COO-level executives from a cross section of stakeholders representing the wide variety of UAS interests, including industry, research and academia, retail, and technology.
Ramsey is part of the second DAC cohort.
uAvionix was founded in 2015 with the mission of bringing safety solutions to the unmanned aviation industry in order to aid in the integration of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into the National Airspace System (NAS). A fundamental principle of that mission is to provide solutions that allow all airspace users a common situational awareness of the airspace. Through the evolution of the company, it pioneered and now offers low SWaP TSO certified and uncertified ADS-B and GPS solutions for general aviation markets. The company is based in Bigfork, Mont. and Leesburg, Va.
“We don’t build drones or fly drones, rather we build things that go on drones. We produce detect and avoid functions, communications radios, and other types of sensors,” Ramsey said of the company.
Submitted Photo
