[nosequel]

Clearance was really hard back in 2002 when Global Hawk was coming out of test phase and into production. There wasn't another autonomous plane, so it was the first to do what it was trying to do. That wasn't really my field, but I know it was truly painful to get FAA approval for lots of things. They were really concerned with some autonomous plane flying over cities, so most of our long flights avoided flying over populations. That was pretty easy in CONUS, but flying into Germany for the Euro Hawk was super painful apparently. There isn't exactly un-populated areas around there. Regarding voice, yes there was someone in the ground station on comms, and to any other airplane, they appeared to be coming from the aircraft and not the ground. Altitude makes a lot of things easier, plus the military has a lot of restricted airspace. I honestly have no idea how a civilian autonomous aircraft will pull it off. I'm sure a lot has changed in 20-ish years, so maybe it is not a painful now. With the FAA, I'm sure it'll still be a headache.