Drone Fire-Fighting Tested in Nebraska (ap.org)

An anonymous reader writes: Friday Researchers at the University of Nebraska flew a drone over a prairie test site, dropping small containers the size of ping-pong balls to ignite controlled fires. "The fires clear out brush to make it easier to control wildfires on the prairie," reports the Associated Press, citing a National Park Service spokesperson who believes it could help clear overgrown vegetation in hard-to-reach areas. "The technology is already used by helicopters to start controlled burns," reports the AP, "but researchers note that the drone is cheaper and more portable. 'You could afford one of these on the back of your fire truck, whereas you probably can't afford to have a full-sized helicopter parked at your fire station,' said Carrick Detweiler, a member of the Nebraska research team."
One engineering professor tells the AP, "Imagine them having this in their backpack, pulling it out and telling it, 'Hey, go scout out there. Check whether it's hot. Check whether it's safe..." And this Omaha news site has video footage of the drone fire-fighting test.

Comments

Drone Regulations

[Anonymous Coward]

I actually know Carrick and a couple of other people in the Nimbus Lab. They do some cool stuff with rotary wing aircraft, described in a previous comment on this story. Their lab includes an indoor facility surrounded by nets that's used to test the drones. I am familiar with what they do, though I don't work with them, I use drones to study thunderstorms. My work uses fixed wing aircraft to sample thunderstorms and their environments, with the goal of using drones to aid in forecasting tornadoes.

It's tiresome to see drones given a bad reputation by the media. They're portrayed in one of three ways usually: 1) weapons to attack enemy combatants, 2) tools for spying and otherwise harassing people, and 3) irresponsibly used aircraft that are serious hazards to manned aircraft. There are a lot of really good uses for drones, but I fear that the technology won't be allowed to develop because of the bad reputation drones are getting.

Anyway, I believe in order to test their drones outside of the safety of the indoor facility, they need to get authorization from the FAA. That's because their flights are for engineering research instead of recreation. The approval process results in getting a Certification of Authorization (COA) from the FAA. I assume because their applications don't involve flying that high or over large areas, the process of obtaining a COA is relatively straightforward. For my work, it's a challenge to predict exactly where the storms will occur. For thunderstorm forecasting, it's likely that data above 400 feet is also valuable. The COAs are bigger and taller than those the FAA normally issues, so the process is more difficult. It can take months to obtain a COA, and it's not a straightforward process.

And this is why many people ignore drone regulations. It's a pain in the ass to work with the FAA to get approval. That's especially true if what you're doing is novel and in any way unusual. The people who actually notify the FAA of their plans and try to obtain the proper authorization are probably among the least likely drone operators to pose a hazard to other aviation. I think it's far more likely that a scientist or engineer using drones for research will operate in a safe and legal manner than someone who's flying for recreational purposes and doesn't have experience as a pilot. Because it's unlikely for a person to get caught and the approval process sucks, people end up ignoring the regulations and doing whatever the hell they want. When there's an incident, the regulations get tightened. The people who play by the rules get punished while those who ignore them continue ignoring them.

It's an asinine approach to regulation. The people who do the most novel things with drones and those who play by the rules get screwed over. Meanwhile, the people flying for fun who are ignorant of the rules are don't care continue to do whatever they want. As long as drones keep getting so much bad press relative to interesting research like this, it's going to continue to get worse.