California Unmanned Aircraft Systems Portal (Cal UAS) engineering design team has established an Area of Operations within California’s vast Aerospace environment to research concepts, evaluate performance, and safely operate unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) within California to provide data to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) as they work toward enabling the safe integration of UAS into the National Airspace System (NAS). The FAA’s efforts are in response to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 and the FAA Modernization Act of 2012 requiring the FAA to determine safe ways to integrate UAS into the NAS by 2015. The Cal UAS Portal Consortium stands ready to support this National Agency in meeting that goal. However, recently a competing group from Ventura has submitted a proposal which places not only our state economy in jeopardy but also the year of work and coordination to bring a FAA test site to California. The CALUAS proposal has several site advantages including: Close Proximity to Federal and Industrial RDT&E Assets, Diversity of climates, Adjacent to military restricted airspace (within line of site visual range in some cases), Mostly located in Military Operating Areas (MOA), Multiple, pristine runways to accommodate all types and sizes of aircraft, FAA ASR-8 surveillance radar on site, Fiber connectivity via CA Broadband 'Digital 395' on-site (hub at IYK), On-airport facilities available for move-in (hangars, office space, rapid prototyping, technical support), Full time fire station on-site, Commercial air service to support logistics, FedEx and UPS flights deliver directly to IYK for logistic support, Room for infrastructure development, and Extensive UAS experience beginning in mid-70’s We, the petitioners, believe that a single unified proposal from the State of California in support of a single site is critical to successfully winning one of these test sites. We are requesting that the Governor Brown state his support for UAS development in the State of California and for the CALUAS team which has the most complete, efficient, and diverse proposal prepared for the FAA to ensure the successful awarding of a test site for California. More information on CALUAS can be found at: http://caluas.com/

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