Export-Import Bank

The Ex-Im Bank is supposed to aid the export of American goods and services by providing loans to companies who can not or are not willing to afford the fees and political risks inherent in these transactions. It has been a self sustaining federal government agency since 1945. It is regulated by the Congress of the United States.

Any company that wished to secure a loan submits an application and it goes through an approval process.

The specific issue that aviation companies have with the Bank is that they are not supposed to favor certain companies. In order for them to be fair, a mandate has been set for them to offer 20% of their loans to small businesses. This may sound like a viable plan, but heres the kicker, They have largely supported Boeing and Enron. In 2007 -2008, 65% of their loan guarantees went to companies purchasing Boeing aircraft. In 2012, 82% of their guarantees went to Boeing customers.

I do not particularly care who the bank gives money to, as long as they do not have a high default rate which affects me as a taxpayer. It unnerves me that this is a governmental agency. It needs to be a private agency where ultimately I am not paying the salaries and it is not wasting the time of my civil servants who could be processing more pressing matters for the United States. They need to let it be privately owned and run, a regular business with no bail out potential.

In the revitalization agreement that Obama signed, it has negotiations. In its second set of negotiations , it aims to reduce and eventually eliminate export credit financing for all aircraft covered by the 2007 sector. The link for these aircraft describes what this specifically means. I feel they are finding their own temporary solutions to quell the anger in the aviation industry, but feel this is only a temporary fix for a permanent problem, the bank needs to be private.

UAVs

Practical applications of the UAV are wide and varied. I think I came up with a pretty comprehensive list;
Military Reconnaissance, instant access to intelligence, emergency response, search and rescue, forensics, traffic accident reconstruction, GIS mapping, arial surveys, environmental monitoring and crowd control.
The civilian purposes that the UAV is currently used for in the United States are; Hurricane hunting, 3-D mapping, Protecting wildlife populations and wildlife management. In other countries they are used for treating farmland (Japan) and Search and Rescue (Canada).
Civilian UAVs are regulated with a Certificate of Authorization given by the FAA. This is currently only granted to federal, state and local governments. It is also restricted so that they can only be flown in specified areas. The restrictions are; Flight below 400 ft. AGL, Daytime ops in VFR, Range limited to visual line of sight and greater than 5 miles from an airport.
Today the FAA is fighting to allow commercial drones in NAS by 2015. They hope to have 7,500 of them certified to be in air space by 2020. According to a report done by aeryon.com on May 14, 2012, the FAA is actively trying to integrate unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). Their main focus is on safety and streamlining the process for the Certificate of Authorization (COA). They are promoting the UAS for public safety use such as search and rescue. They say this is a viable option. I think the logistical problems would be making sure that they are used by professionals, not recreationally, so they can control their useable space.  That way they will not cause problems with civilian safety. I believe the perception would be that they are being used to invade our privacy. I think Americans are very particular about the invasion of privacy by the government.
The UAVs have transformed our military strategy when they became lethal. The traditional mission was intelligence gathering and guiding weapons to their targets. Now the focus is on intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, suppression of enemy air defense and counter-air. Now that we can attack with it, it seems easier to be misused because their is no moral or ethical lines that may be blurred by seeing the aftermath of your attack.
Integration would be efficient financially because the initial cost and operating expenses are low. However because we need to regulate these and have safety concerns, the cost would be significantly higher because of the need for trained professionals to fly and operate them. Ethically I feel there is too much room to abuse these. Americans are not typically responsible with using things recreationally in a safe and effective manner. Once the door opens, it is hard to keep tight controls and safety standards. UAVs are wonderful for being able to get information quickly and efficiently in the field. Being unable to easily control a UAV causes problems with being able to complete a task properly and getting the data that needs to be used.
There are current jobs available for civilian use of UAVs in flight and in management at jobs.uavjobbank.com.