UAVs

In searching for what UAVs are being used for in the civilian world, I found an interesting article by James Carroll of the Vision-Systems website - that he gathered from an issue of the National Geographic regarding the matter: http://www.vision-systems.com/articles/2013/06/five-ways-uavs-are-being-used-by-civilians.html

In summary of what James mentioned, UAVs are being used in the civilian world for:

-Hurricane Hunting by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the Northrop Grumman team.

-3D Mapping by Pix4D (a Switzerland-based software company)

-Wildlife Protection by the U.S. Government

-Agriculture. In Japan they have been flying UAVs for 20 years to allow farmers to treat an acre of land in just five minutes.

-Search and Rescue. Canada uses these to find people using heat sensing equipment on their UAVs

From what I can understand, the NAS will definitely make use of the UAVs. Since the NAS already hold air traffic controllers under their 'wing', this may trigger a larger integration of unmanned aerial vehicles in the commercial and airline community. Using UAVs for this purpose is not available right now, but according to an article I found (http://www.providencejournal.com/breaking-news/content/20130922-ewave-future-of-drone-use-appears-to-be-wide-open.ece) this may be practiced in the decades to come. This means that even though a pilot will not be onboard the aircraft, there will still be a specific pilot controlling the airplane from the ground. The FAA is not allowing such a thing right now, saying that there is still too much risk involved with this procedure. In my opinion, I believe that the FAA is so far against integrating this right now in order to protect pilot jobs. There will come a time when UAVs will be the "main way to travel" and the FAA will allow this because of the push of just one airline to integrate such a program into their aircraft. Of course, if this goes well with one airline, and they end up saving even a little bit of money, the other airlines will be sure to follow suit. Maybe they could start this by having one pilot onboard "just in case" something happens, but even that probably will not happen for a few decades. 

Military integration of UAVs have been going on for a while now, and it seems this is definitely good procedure. From spying missions to bombing, UAVs are used as a great way to keep our soldiers from being in danger - since the UAVs are small enough to evade enemy radar, and can be controlled from home. Depending on the type of UAV, the price range costs from a few thousand dollars to tens of millions of dollars. This can be costly, but to protect potential loss of the lives of soldiers, it is well worth it.

I have found quite a few jobs available in UAV aviation. For example: Director of Domestic Growth (which integrates international plans into UAV strategy), UAV repair, UAV operator, Human Factors Engineer (which tests UAVs in terms of how the human factors aspect can be applied to the use of these programs), among many others. So, there are definitely opportunities to work with UAVs out there right now.