Pilot union urges FAA to reject Rainmaker’s drone cloud-seeding plan

Rainmaker Expertise’s bid to deploy cloud-seeding flares on small drones is being met by resistance from the airline pilots union, which has urged the Federal Aviation Administration to contemplate denying the startup’s request until it meets stricter security tips.

The FAA’s resolution will sign how the regulator views climate modification by unmanned aerial techniques going ahead. Rainmaker’s wager on small drones hangs within the stability.

The Air Line Pilots Affiliation (ALPA) instructed the FAA that Rainmaker’s petition “fails to display an equal degree of security” and poses “an excessive security threat.”

Nonetheless, Rainmaker CEO Augustus Doricko stated an e-mail that all the union’s objections are based mostly on solely the general public discover, relatively than personal paperwork submitted to the FAA that define all the firm’s security knowledge and threat mitigations.

Rainmaker is in search of an exemption from guidelines that bar small drones from carrying hazardous supplies. The startup filed in July, and the FAA has but to rule. As an alternative, it issued a follow-up request for data, urgent for specifics on operations and security.

In its submitting, Rainmaker proposed utilizing two flare varieties, one “burn-in-place” and the opposite ejectable, on its Elijah quadcopter, to disperse particles that stimulate precipitation. Elijah has a most altitude of 15,000 toes MSL (measured from sea degree), which sits inside managed airspace the place industrial airliners routinely fly. Drones want permission from Air Visitors Management to fly inside this bubble.

Rainmaker’s petition says it can function in Class G (uncontrolled) airspace until in any other case approved. ALPA notes the submitting doesn’t clearly state the place flights would happen or what altitudes can be used. Nonetheless, Doricko stated the paperwork submitted to the FAA disclosed that along with the flights being constrained to a max altitude of 15,000 toes MSL, they are going to be performed in airspace that’s predetermined to be protected by aviation authorities, “voiding any cheap concern about excessive altitude flight or airspace coordination.” ALPA didn’t reply to TechCrunch’s requests for remark. 

The union additionally objects to the flares themselves, citing issues about overseas object particles and fireplace security. ALPA factors out that the petition doesn’t embrace trajectory modeling of the ejectable casings or evaluation on the environmental impacts of chemical brokers.

“Relating to their objection to the usage of flares, unbiased our bodies like this administration’s EPA and a number of state departments of pure sources have studied the dispersion and environmental security of supplies utilized in cloud seeding for over 70 years and by no means discovered any hostile impact from cloud seeding,” Doricko stated.

Sam Kim, Rainmaker’s aviation regulatory supervisor, stated the corporate respects the pilot’s union and hopes to “proceed to strengthen our relationship with the group,” however claimed the objection “reveals a lack of information of why Rainmaker has filed for this exemption.”

“Our use of flares in unmanned techniques is solely for analysis functions in a managed flying setting and isn’t part of our bigger ongoing operations,” Kim added.

Doricko stated {that a} typical Rainmaker operation disperses 50-100 grams of silver iodide, and much lower than that in a flight with flares, whereas one hour of flight of a industrial airplane releases kilograms of uncombusted unstable organics, sulfur oxides, and soot – considerably extra materials than a Rainmaker op.

“Rainmaker is occupied with doing one of the best, accountable atmospheric analysis and is thus evaluating flares to our proprietary aerosol dispersion system that may exchange flares and solely emit silver iodide. ALPA’s objection to this exemplifies their restricted understanding of our CONOP, all of which comprises in depth threat mitigations within the personal docs that the FAA is reviewing now,” Doricko stated.

“Relating to ALPA’s issues about coordination with aviation authorities and airspace, our flight operations encompass broadcasting indicators, intentional coordination with native ATC, licensed pilots, and a collision avoidance system that entails digital and bodily observers,” he stated.

Nonetheless, Rainmaker says the flights will happen over rural areas and over properties owned by personal landlords “with whom Rainmaker has developed shut working relationships.”

Cloud-seeding already occurs at the moment, largely within the western U.S., with crewed airplanes flown in coordination with state companies. Ski resorts fee the operations to assist preserve their runs white, and irrigation and water districts fly them to construct snowpack within the winter to assist feed their reservoirs throughout the spring soften.

The final apply of cloud seeding dates again to the Fifties. By spraying small particles into sure clouds, scientists discovered they might induce precipitation. Usually, cloud-seeding operations use silver iodide for the particles, principally as a result of they mimic the form of ice crystals.

When a silver iodide particle bumps into droplets of water which are super-cooled, they trigger the droplet to quickly freeze as a result of its water is already beneath the freezing level. As soon as the ice crystal varieties, it may develop rapidly if circumstances are proper, quicker than a liquid water droplet would in related circumstances. Plus, the fast development helps the crystals stick round longer than a water droplet, which could evaporate earlier than it has an opportunity to fall as precipitation.

Rainmaker’s twist — doing this work with drones as an alternative of pilots — may show safer in the long run. The corporate factors out that the flight profiles are tightly bounded, overseen by a distant pilot and educated crews, over rural areas, with different security checks in place.

What occurs subsequent hinges on whether or not the FAA thinks these mitigations are ample. Nonetheless it’s determined, the company’s response will doubtless set the tone for novel cloud-seeding approaches.

9/13/2025: The story has been up to date to incorporate Rainmaker’s feedback from Augustus Doricko, founder and CEO, and Sam Kim, Rainmaker’s aviation regulatory supervisor.