Public Safety Drone Flight

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 »

This is a tough article for me to write because I know off the bat many people are going to discount what I’m about to share. It’s not because it is wrong but because it flies in the face of assumptions and changing beliefs is difficult. Plus talking at length about UAS, COA, and public aircraft operations may make your ... Read More »

I received a communication from the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) to all members that brings up some points which are perfect for the wave of public safety UAS pilots. You see it is all about being professional pilots and professionalism in flying. I think the points it raises are excellent for new public safety drone pilots. This is what the ... Read More »

The FAA launched its much-anticipated Low Altitude Authorization and Notification Capability (LAANC) system. The program, currently in beta, includes 300 air traffic facilities covering approximately 500 airports. May 24th: Western North June 21st: Western South July 19th: Eastern South August 16th: Eastern North September 13th: Central North The first wave of airports online are: April 30: South Central USA – ... Read More »