Planned purchase of surveillance drones conflicts with Japan’s current aeronautics law

The Japanese Ministry of Defense’s plan to purchase several Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) by 2015 may be facing a problem, and it’s not a financial one.

According to the country’s current Civil Aeronautics Law, it prohibits the deployment and flight of an unmanned aircraft and doesn’t consider planes like the Global Hawk as “fixed-wing planes”.

The ministry announced last month that it was increasing its budget request by 3% for the next fiscal year.

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