This home of alleged Amazon delivery drones and serious Boeing drone lobbying had filed an application to become an FAA test site for unmanned aerial vehicles.
The six winners, chosen from a field of 25, included Griffiss International Airport, a former Air Force base near Rome, N.Y., which will fly some tests from Cape Cod in Massachusetts, and Virginia Tech, which will fly in Virginia and has an agreement with Rutgers University in New Jersey for testing there as well. Virginia Tech plans to conduct âfailure modeâ testing â finding out what happens if the aircraftâs control link is lost.
The other winners were the University of Alaska, which plans to test in Hawaii and Oregon as well as Alaska, the State of Nevada, the North Dakota Department of Commerce, and Texas A&M University Corpus Christi. Michael P. Huerta, the administrator of the F.A.A., said the sites provided diverse geography, climate and air traffic density.
The aim is to begin integrating drones into the national airspace by 2015.
