Search & Rescue operation waivers

[sar104]

An interesting situation arose today on a State SAR mission. We requested a BVLOS waiver, which comes with a TFR to protect the airspace. The FAA approved the request in less than an hour and implemented the TFR, which is as expected. What surprised me was that the TFR made it into the DJI Geo database within a couple of hours and, as a result, grounded several SAR UAVs that do not have blanket TFR exemptions.

On the plus side, the TFR showed up as a regular authorization zone that yielded to the self-unlock process, rather than a restricted zone requiring custom unlocking.

 

[Mav1c]

What type of equipment are you flying for SAR?

 

[sar104]

What type of equipment are you flying for SAR?

If I actually get to fly on missions, which is rarely since I'm generally going to be the IC and there are other sUAS resources available, it's currently going to be a Mavic 2 Pro flying autonomous Litchi grids. There are various other resources in the State with M2E etc., Phantoms and a few M210s.

 

[Mav1c]

I am VERY interested in this. What altitude are you flying at? You then have someone monitoring during the grid flying? What company do you work for?

Sounds like really interesting and rewarding work

 

[sar104]

I am VERY interested in this. What altitude are you flying at? You then have someone monitoring during the grid flying? What company do you work for?

Sounds like really interesting and rewarding work

The 84° FOV camera on the M2P requires staying less than 150 ft AGL or so to be able to resolve clues such as clothing, packs etc. I aim for around 2 px/cm. No monitoring - this is BVLOS flight. SAR in NM is run by the Department of Public Safety through State Police Special Operations, so on SAR missions the Incident Command Staff, who are all (trained) volunteers, are working for DPS/SP. It's not my day job.

 

[Mav1c]

The 84° FOV camera on the M2P requires staying less than 150 ft AGL or so to be able to resolve clues such as clothing, packs etc. I aim for around 2 px/cm. No monitoring - this is BVLOS flight. SAR in NM is run by the Department of Public Safety through State Police Special Operations, so on SAR missions the Incident Command Staff, who are all (trained) volunteers, are working for DPS/SP. It's not my day job.

Oh ok I see. So the sUAS is taking pictures and you analyze those after. I haven’t used litchi before but that sounds like pretty neat stuff. You just send it up and it comes back in 15-20min or so? I would imagine you would be pretty conservative on times due to wind and other factors that could degrade battery life while the drone isn’t being monitored.

Not too many trees to worry about in NM but you must have to study google earth for elevation changes and rock formations before flight.

This sounds like the perfect story for the news to do a story on. I could see this on CBS Sunday morning or something.

Oh and thank you for your service!

 

[sar104]

Oh ok I see. So the sUAS is taking pictures and you analyze those after. I haven’t used litchi before but that sounds like pretty neat stuff. You just send it up and it comes back in 15-20min or so? I would imagine you would be pretty conservative on times due to wind and other factors that could degrade battery life while the drone isn’t being monitored.

Not too many trees to worry about in NM but you must have to study google earth for elevation changes and rock formations before flight.

This sounds like the perfect story for the news to do a story on. I could see this on CBS Sunday morning or something.

Oh and thank you for your service!

That's my method. The missions are relatively fast because I set the flight speed in Litchi and then run the interval timer to take photos every 4 seconds. That gets suitable overlap. Even if it's BVLOS it generally still has a comms link. Other pilots specialize more in manual searching of features like cliff bands.

The waypoints are created automatically by a grid creation routine and altitude is set AGL. I still always do a sanity check in Google Earth. Forested areas are not ideal for sUAS searching - we have plenty of those. And the spruce and fir can easily reach 100 ft.

 

[AMann]

An interesting situation arose today on a State SAR mission. We requested a BVLOS waiver, which comes with a TFR to protect the airspace. The FAA approved the request in less than an hour and implemented the TFR, which is as expected. What surprised me was that the TFR made it into the DJI Geo database within a couple of hours and, as a result, grounded several SAR UAVs that do not have blanket TFR exemptions.

On the plus side, the TFR showed up as a regular authorization zone that yielded to the self-unlock process, rather than a restricted zone requiring custom unlocking.

View attachment 70095

Nice update!

 

[JakeRobinson]

That's my method. The missions are relatively fast because I set the flight speed in Litchi and then run the interval timer to take photos every 4 seconds. That gets suitable overlap. Even if it's BVLOS it generally still has a comms link. Other pilots specialize more in manual searching of features like cliff bands.

The waypoints are created automatically by a grid creation routine and altitude is set AGL. I still always do a sanity check in Google Earth. Forested areas are not ideal for sUAS searching - we have plenty of those. And the spruce and fir can easily reach 100 ft.

When you say "no monitoring" do you mean no third party watching the camera? Do you ever cast to a connected monitor for 3rd party observation for potential targets? Is it more productive to download photos and have experienced observers scour them for evidence?

 

[sar104]

When you say "no monitoring" do you mean no third party watching the camera? Do you ever cast to a connected monitor for 3rd party observation for potential targets? Is it more productive to download photos and have experienced observers scour them for evidence?

Maybe I misunderstood the question about monitoring - I thought it referred to visual observers. If it referred to watching the video feed then yes - I try to have someone watching. I haven't used a second monitor but I have tested it with goggles. We have used monitors with manual flight searching.

 

[JakeRobinson]

Maybe I misunderstood the question about monitoring - I thought it referred to visual observers. If it referred to watching the video feed then yes - I try to have someone watching. I haven't used a second monitor but I have tested it with goggles. We have used monitors with manual flight searching.

Maybe I misunderstood the question about monitoring - I thought it referred to visual observers. If it referred to watching the video feed then yes - I try to have someone watching. I haven't used a second monitor but I have tested it with goggles. We have used monitors with manual flight searching.

Yeah, I would think a decent size LED Monitor cabled from the controller/tablet would allow for concentration on the flight as several observers could all be tracking specific areas of the field of view for maximum force multiplier

 

[Bryce steiner]

I tried getting a waiver before with the FAA for SAR.

I can't seem to get them approved. Is there something magical that needs done or am I going to the wrong site? I use the FAA Dronezone that can take up to 90 days.

We've done 3 searches in the last 2 weeks and I've been using our local LE to watch but sometimes they ask me to go low to inspect and then we lose VLOS until it comes back up from the river area.

 

[sar104]

I tried getting a waiver before with the FAA for SAR.

I can't seem to get them approved. Is there something magical that needs done or am I going to the wrong site? I use the FAA Dronezone that can take up to 90 days.

We've done 3 searches in the last 2 weeks and I've been using our local LE to watch but sometimes they ask me to go low to inspect and then we lose VLOS until it comes back up from the river area.

Do you mean a regular waiver for VLOS via the waiver system? If so, that won't get approved. You would need to submit an agency request via the SGI process.

Emergency Situations

www.faa.gov

 

[Bryce steiner]

Do you mean a regular waiver for VLOS via the waiver system? If so, that won't get approved. You would need to submit an agency request via the SGI process.

Emergency Situations

www.faa.gov

That's helpful because I have not been using the SGI Process. Is that something I can do or do I need to LE do that? They contract with me right now to be on call for this. None of them have a Part 107 (or drone for that matter).

 

[BigAl07]

That's helpful because I have not been using the SGI Process. Is that something I can do or do I need to LE do that? They contract with me right now to be on call for this. None of them have a Part 107 (or drone for that matter).

You'll need to coordinate with the Agency Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) over the event. Someone from that agency will need to be involved.

 

[sar104]

That's helpful because I have not been using the SGI Process. Is that something I can do or do I need to LE do that? They contract with me right now to be on call for this. None of them have a Part 107 (or drone for that matter).

You'll need to coordinate with the Agency Having Jurisdiction (AHJ) over the event. Someone from that agency will need to be involved.

Any government LE or safety agency (local or federal) can apply for an SGI waiver, but it cannot (technically) be done by an individual contracted by them, at least until they know you well enough to assume that you are acting for the agency. You may have noticed that the paperwork states that the applicant must be a Part 107 pilot, but that's not actually how they are doing it - any agency representative who knows how to fill out the paperwork can submit it and make the phone call.