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

Rainmaker Know-how’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 pointers.

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

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

Nevertheless, Rainmaker CEO Augustus Doricko stated an e-mail that all the union’s objections are based mostly on solely the general public discover, slightly than private 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 a substitute, it issued a follow-up request for data, urgent for specifics on operations and security.

In its submitting, Rainmaker proposed utilizing two flare sorts, 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 Site visitors Management to fly inside this bubble.

Rainmaker’s petition says it is going to function in Class G (uncontrolled) airspace until in any other case licensed. ALPA notes the submitting doesn’t clearly state the place flights would happen or what altitudes can be used. Nevertheless, 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 carried out in airspace that’s predetermined to be secure by aviation authorities, “voiding any affordable 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 considerations about overseas object particles and hearth security. ALPA factors out that the petition doesn’t embody trajectory modeling of the ejectable casings or evaluation on the environmental impacts of chemical brokers.

“Relating to their objection to using flares, unbiased our bodies like this administration’s EPA and a number of state departments of pure assets have studied the dispersion and environmental security of supplies utilized in cloud seeding for over 70 years and by no means discovered any antagonistic 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 knowledge 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 risky organics, sulfur oxides, and soot – considerably extra materials than a Rainmaker op.

“Rainmaker is keen on doing the very best, accountable atmospheric analysis and is thus evaluating flares to our proprietary aerosol dispersion system that can change flares and completely emit silver iodide. ALPA’s objection to this exemplifies their restricted understanding of our CONOP, all of which incorporates in depth threat mitigations within the private docs that the FAA is reviewing now,” Doricko stated.

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

Nevertheless, 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 right this moment, largely within the western U.S., with crewed airplanes flown in coordination with state companies. Ski resorts fee the operations to assist maintain 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 overall observe of cloud seeding dates again to the Fifties. By spraying small particles into sure clouds, scientists discovered they might induce precipitation. Sometimes, cloud-seeding operations use silver iodide for the particles, largely 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 kinds, it might develop shortly if circumstances are proper, sooner than a liquid water droplet would in related circumstances. Plus, the fast progress 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 — might show safer in the long term. The corporate factors out that the flight profiles are tightly bounded, overseen by a distant pilot and skilled 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. Nevertheless it’s determined, the company’s response will probably 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.