SYRACUSE — A group of New York and Massachusetts organizations led by CenterState CEO started its engines Feb. 21 in a competition to land a federal test site for unmanned aircraft.
The group calls itself the Northeast Unmanned Aircraft Systems Airspace Integration Research Alliance (NUAIR). It’s made up of over 40 public, private, and academic organizations ranging from Cicero’s SRC, Inc. to Griffiss International Airport in Rome to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. CenterState CEO is leading the effort along with the Massachusetts finance and development agency MassDevelopment.
NUAIR is competing for a site that will test technology to incorporate unmanned aircraft systems into U.S. airspace by 2015. The FAA started a screening process on Feb. 14 to help it pick six test sites to research safely adding unmanned planes to the country’s skies.
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Sites that are selected will examine unmanned aircraft for both civil and commercial use. NUAIR’s proposal calls for establishing testing facilities at Fort Drum in New York and at the Massachusetts Military Reservation on Cape Cod. But Oneida County’s Griffiss International Airport will submit NUAIR’s application to the FAA.
“These test sites present enormous economic-development opportunity and are expected to create thousands of jobs and attract billions in investment for the states that win a designation,” CenterState CEO President Rob Simpson said in a news release. Simpson is also chairman of the NUAIR alliance.
Unmanned aerial vehicles will create 23,000 related jobs in the country by 2025, according to a 2010 assessment from the international nonprofit Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International. And a 2012 study from The Teal Group of Virginia projected the worldwide market for the systems will reach $94 billion in the next decade.
NUAIR expects the FAA to pick test sites by the end of 2013. Its partner organizations include DeWitt’s Saab Sensis, SRC, Massachusetts–based Raytheon Co., Maryland–based Lockheed Martin, Rochester Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Syracuse University, Clarkson University, and Northeastern University.
Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com
