LAS VEGAS: Getting America’s National Airspace System (NAS) ready for unmanned aircraft by 2015 will be hard going, but one good sign is that the FAA’s point man positively vibrates with enthusiasm.

“I actually volunteered for this job,” said James Williams, head of the FAA’s recently created Unmanned Air Systems Integration Office, right at the opening of his remarks to the conference of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, (AUVSI). “I’m very excited to be here and to be running this organization.” That said, he added, referring to the many mandates in the 2012 FAA reauthorization bill passed in February, “nobody mentioned that Congress was going to give me pages of instruction on how to do it.” Keep reading →