WFFD Firebird 1 Flight Debrief Date: 7-3-2018 Flight Time: 1 hour Mission Goals: Assist fire command and law enforcement in any way possible with actionable information during large public Town event. What Went Well: The following items were conducted without incident: An excellent landing zone was identified, secured, and used for the event. Video footage was obtained for use by ... Read More »
Here is an interesting issue that will slow the use of UAS Traffic Management (UTM) to allow us to fly beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS). Politico says, “About 90 percent of registered drones are for recreational purposes, putting them outside the reach of FAA rules, so any remote identification rule the agency passed would be next to worthless under ... Read More »
WFFD Firebird 1 Flight Debrief Flight Time: 1 hour Mission Goals: Assist command and firefighters in any way possible with actionable information. What Went Well: The following items were conducted without incident: Although the incident location was off limits by the time I arrived due to the water supply was running down the road, a safe landing zone (LZ) was ... Read More »
NASA’s remotely-piloted Ikhana aircraft, based at the agency’s Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California, successfully flew its first mission in the National Airspace System without a safety chase aircraft on Tuesday. This historic flight moves the United States one step closer to normalizing unmanned aircraft operations in the airspace used by commercial and private pilots. Flying these large remotely-piloted ... Read More »
The Government Accounting Office has released a report on Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems that contains some interesting information about approval for UAS flight over people and beyond line of sight. The report says the, “FAA is developing standards designed to routinely and safely allow small UAS operations over people who are not directly involved in the operation of the aircraft ... Read More »
The FAA has just announced new guidance on flight over United States Penitentiary facilities and United States Coast Guard installations. The notice says, “At the request of federal security partners, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been using its existing authority under Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations (14 CFR)§ 99.7 – “Special Security Instructions” – to address ... Read More »
New public safety drone pilots face a severe problem in their early flight years. They lack the experience and confidence to say “no” to flying. As a UAS pilot, we can never forget FAR 91.3 that says “The pilot in command of an aircraft is directly responsible for, and is the final authority as to, the operation of that aircraft.” ... Read More »
Like everything else in out flying world, nothing is ever clearcut. Yesterday I was at an operation that was a public demonstration that was located up against a small airport (43). But could Part 107 UAS pilots fly over the airport? I made the call they could not for the following reasons but I welcome your feedback and discussion if ... Read More »
From Wayne Bailey & Brent Hayner at Broad River Fire & Rescue. Flight Debrief – Failures and Lessons learned from Mudslide flight incident on May 19, 2018 Sharing lessons learned from flights are meant to help others learn from our mistakes and victories. Date: May 19, 2018 NFIRS Incident: 2018065 Location: Tryon, North Carolina Total Flight Time 4 minutes for ... Read More »
Just recently a rather worrisome issue has arisen regarding UAS anti-collision lights. It does not matter what you have seen in advertisements regarding strobes, all strobes are non-compliant. There is a lot of advertising out there which claims strobes for UAS meet the standards. But I got curious why none of the ads advertised the strobes coming with the appropriate ... Read More »
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