If you live in North Alabama and want to train in Drone SAR techniques

[RCdancer]

The location is:
Mentone Community Church
90 Summerville Rd
Mentone, Alabama 35984

At 9 AM, rain or shine. Hopefully it will be good weather so we can fly. If not, we will stay indoors working with Litchi on a projector. We'll also be talking in general about drone support for SAR operations.

Here is an air sectional with a red circle where we will be training very close to the Georgia/Alabama border ...

 

[FatherXmas]

At 9 AM, rain or shine. Hopefully it will be good weather so we can fly. If not, we will stay indoors working with Litchi on a projector. We'll also be talking in general about drone support for SAR operations.

Here is an air sectional with a red circle where we will be training very close to the Georgia/Alabama border ...

Just a point of information, the grass field at Cloudmont is not there. I'm not sure why it's still on the sectional, the dude's been dead 10 years.

 

[Old Aviator]

Why must one be Part 107 certified to participate in SAR?

 

[FatherXmas]

Why must one be Part 107 certified to participate in SAR?

SAR is not considered hobby/recreational and as such, falls under Part 107. As I understand it, a non-107 pilot can participate and can even be the person flying the drone in some cases. However, there has to be a 107 pilot there acting as the Remote Pilot in Command and able to take over the controls if he/she deems it necessary. The Remote Pilot in Command would assume total responsibility for anything that goes wrong with the mission.

 

[RCdancer]

SAR is not considered hobby/recreational and as such, falls under Part 107. As I understand it, a non-107 pilot can participate and can even be the person flying the drone in some cases. However, there has to be a 107 pilot there acting as the Remote Pilot in Command and able to take over the controls if he/she deems it necessary. The Remote Pilot in Command would assume total responsibility for anything that goes wrong with the mission.

I might add that you would be flying in public service at the behest and under the direction of some public agency (i.e., police, fire, rescue, etc.) You definitely would not be flying as a hobbyist. Additionally you may well be flying in conjunction with manned aircraft; an understanding of airspace management and the law is essential.

 

[crlmjohnson]

My background: I'm retired military and hold a private single-engine certificate with instrument rating, along with a 107 certificate. I'm interested in starting a volunteer drone SAR organization in the Southeast United States.

I'm thinking bimonthly on a Saturday for training is realistic. Meet in a central location for everyone, choosing different terrain each month. Pilots from TN, GA, AL, MS are probably most likely, although further ones are welcome.

Drone requirements can vary widely according to situation. While sophisticated speciality larger SAR drones have their place, fast deployment of first-on-scene small drones also have their place - i.e., rising flood waters and you want to try and identify anyone in jeopardy on rooftops, treetops ..... or someone trapped on a cliff, etc.

Everyone would be encouraged to bring their own drone. Anything from a Spark up is enough for realistic training. Training would include:

• preplanning waypoint flights
• flying waypoint flights
• efficient utilization of drone resources
• Drone search techniques: i.e., Route (line), Grid, Expanding Square, Parallel Line, Creeping Line, Helix, etc.
• multiple drone searches
• techniques for searching different kinds of terrain
• multiple drone operations
• joint operations with ground search teams
• importance of solid incident onsite command structure
• equipment a drone pilot should ideally show up with on a SAR mission
• etc.

Aside from Thunderdrones, if anyone else in the southeast U.S. is interested, message me. I have a web site I'm creating, but an admin deleted the link to it (probably because they mistakenly believed it was a commercial site?) I'll send you the link if you message me.

Would like to try and kick this off on a Sat perhaps in Mar or Apr?

can I get your web site link? I am trying to talk to some individuals here in Indianapolis, to see if I can get enough drone operators for a class

 

[RCdancer]

https://www.dronesar.info/

 

[Turn11]

I wish there was a national certification program. I live in a little town of 40K residence and that many winter then summer visitors. Our SAR folks get a workout. Would love to be able to volunteer services. Wish a program like yours could be made available elsewhere.
Way too many people go out and are unprepared and need to be found.

 

[Former Member]

I wish there was a national certification program. I live in a little town of 40K residence and that many winter then summer visitors. Our SAR folks get a workout. Would love to be able to volunteer services. Wish a program like yours could be made available elsewhere.
Way too many people go out and are unprepared and need to be found.

He is going to see how this one works out, and then possibly expand the training. Right now, it's all volunteer, and he's putting alot of effort into it.

 

[RCdancer]

Current list of participants:

organizer: rcdancer - [email protected]

Robdronesar
FatherXmas
Shane
TR Ganey
crlmjohnson (coming from Indianapolis)
SCK
Shoemaker MP (coming from LA.)
M2P-Firefly
terradriller (coming from St Louis)
kf4pzz

We're allowing a maximum of 20; 10 spots are left for anyone else interested

 

[forrest321]

Hi I'm new here and just saw this. How did it go?

I'm in Birmingham and just passed the 107. I'm interested in volunteering for SAR. There have been several cases recently where I've really wanted to be able to jump in the car with a drone and go search, but without a certificate and all the warnings about staying out of the way of first responders, I've not pursued the idea further.

 

[FatherXmas]

Hi I'm new here and just saw this. How did it go?

I'm in Birmingham and just passed the 107. I'm interested in volunteering for SAR. There have been several cases recently where I've really wanted to be able to jump in the car with a drone and go search, but without a certificate and all the warnings about staying out of the way of first responders, I've not pursued the idea further.

The first session is this coming Saturday. We're limiting the number of participants to 20 to make sure everyone gets to participate. The current plan is to do it once a quarter, so keep an eye out for the next announcement, we'd be glad to have you.

 

[GulfCoastAerialRescue]

If you live in North Alabama (or southeast), are Part 107 certified and want to train with us in Drone SAR (search/rescue) techniques, please message me. (Non-certified are welcome to train with us but cannot fly real-world SAR missions.)

Not a SAR company. Trying to start up Drone SAR volunteer capability in the southeast U.S. Live in Huntsville.

I run a SAR wing that operates at the statewide level. We are located in the Gulf side of the state. Plenty of mutual aids with a lot of the PSA’s (Public Saftey Agencies or Political Subdivision Agencies) and AFO’s (Affiliated Volunteers Organizations). We also coordinate SAR operations for PSA’s as well. We work with VDC and train both PIC’s and GTC’s (GroundTeam Coordinators). Would love to see what we can help you out with.

 

[RCdancer]

I run a SAR wing that operates at the statewide level. We are located in the Gulf side of the state. Plenty of mutual aids with a lot of the PSA’s (Public Saftey Agencies or Political Subdivision Agencies) and AFO’s (Affiliated Volunteers Organizations). We also coordinate SAR operations for PSA’s as well. We work with VDC and train both PIC’s and GTC’s (GroundTeam Coordinators). Would love to see what we can help you out with.

Thanks. We're now a registered 501(c)(3) organization and have our 2nd training session scheduled for June 8th in North GA at Lake Acworth. We'd be glad to add your trained 107 pilots to the National Registry that are willing to volunteer. All I need is their contact info. We never publish the registry to prevent spam.

www.dronesar.info

 

[HawkDriver]

This looks great, I will be taking the 107 at some point and look forward to conducting this training and taking part. I live in the Huntsville area as well.

 

[RCdancer]

Hawkdriver,

Ne need for 107 certification to participate in training. We welcome all pilots regardless of experience. We'd love to have you.

Bob
www.dronesar.info

Tentative Schedule for SAR training on Jun 8th at Acworth Beach, GA

The schedule is coming together for the SAR training on June 8th at Acworth Beach in north GA: Lessons learned by Tim Ganey from his recent 3 days of SAR ops in the Bankhead National Forest Presentation on drone night operations Practical flight exercise - grid search over open water Practical...

mavicpilots.com

 

[HawkDriver]

Hawkdriver,

Ne need for 107 certification to participate in training. We welcome all pilots regardless of experience. We'd love to have you.

Bob
www.dronesar.info

Tentative Schedule for SAR training on Jun 8th at Acworth Beach, GA

The schedule is coming together for the SAR training on June 8th at Acworth Beach in north GA: Lessons learned by Tim Ganey from his recent 3 days of SAR ops in the Bankhead National Forest Presentation on drone night operations Practical flight exercise - grid search over open water Practical...

mavicpilots.com

Great, is there a schedule of events for Saturday or a place where more details are posted?

 

[RCdancer]

Great, is there a schedule of events for Saturday or a place where more details are posted?

This thread has the info as well as a link where to sign up.

Tentative Schedule for SAR training on Jun 8th at Acworth Beach, GA

The schedule is coming together for the SAR training on June 8th at Acworth Beach in north GA: Lessons learned by Tim Ganey from his recent 3 days of SAR ops in the Bankhead National Forest Presentation on drone night operations Practical flight exercise - grid search over open water Practical...

mavicpilots.com

 

[HawkDriver]

Hawkdriver,

Ne need for 107 certification to participate in training. We welcome all pilots regardless of experience. We'd love to have you.

Bob
www.dronesar.info

Tentative Schedule for SAR training on Jun 8th at Acworth Beach, GA

The schedule is coming together for the SAR training on June 8th at Acworth Beach in north GA: Lessons learned by Tim Ganey from his recent 3 days of SAR ops in the Bankhead National Forest Presentation on drone night operations Practical flight exercise - grid search over open water Practical...

mavicpilots.com

I signed up, didn't see the place to pay however.

What time are we kicking off that day?

 

[Former Member]

@HawkDriver I just sent you a Paypal invoice. Please let me know if it gets to you.

Best,

Rob