UAV's

UAV's are used for many different civilian purposes world-wide. Some of these include hurricane hunting, 3D mapping, Wildlife protection, agriculture, and search and rescue just to name a few. Within the NAS (National Airspace System) UAV's operate under strict guidelines. They typically operate from ground level all the way up to FL500. However one major restriction with UAV's are that they may NOT operate in class B airspace.

As said by Vision-systems, UAV's are already integrated in to the NAS. As far as problems with this, I do not foresee any immediate issues. These Unmanned vehicles are very technologically advanced and I believe that they would be equipped with technology to scan for traffic as well as terrain. This hopefully would eliminate any sort of collision issues. A potential problem would be not having that live human in the cockpit if an emergency arrises. If an engine failure occurs over a populated area, will the machine know to guide the UAV away from the populated area? It is small things like this that you can't teach a machine.

As for military, UAV's dramatically transformed military operations. An example would be that they have limited American casualties from hostile areas. They have helped in recon missions as well as areal photography and eliminating targets without putting American lives in danger.  They have also reduced the budget for the military as well. As far as it being ethical... well that depends on who you are asking. In my own opinion, I do believe it is ethical because you are not putting an American life at risk. When a fighter jet enters hostile territory, they run the risk of being shot down. Using a UAV to do that while having the operator safely placed somewhere else will eliminate the risk of one more casualty.

I have found a few UAV operator jobs. Most of them are in Palmdale, CA and Falls Church, VA. The job listings are as described, deployable, non-deployable, and test pilot. Most of these positions are for government contracting. I have yet to come across one civilian operating job posting. The source I used did show some UAV engineering position, but one requirement is that he/she has flying experience and ratings to operate a UAV.


References:

http://www.vision-systems.com/articles/2013/06/five-ways-uavs-are-being-used-by-civilians.html

http://www.simplyhired.com/k-uav-pilot-jobs.html

https://www.faa.gov/uas/