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Course 02 · Mission Skills

2-Day UAS Search & Rescue Course

Passing a knowledge test proves you can fly legally. It does not teach you how to run a search. This course closes that gap — grid planning, thermal interpretation, and feeding usable information back to incident command.

Prerequisite: FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate required
FORMAT: CLASSROOM + FIELD LENGTH: 16 HOURS / 2 DAYS AIRCRAFT: BRING YOUR OWN CLASS SIZE: MAX 16

Who this is for

Certified remote pilots at agencies that run, or expect to run, missing-person searches. Rural sheriff's offices, volunteer fire departments, and emergency management personnel who have more ground to cover than people to cover it.

Officers must already hold a Part 107 Remote Pilot Certificate. If nobody at your department does yet, start with the 3-Day Part 107 Course and run this one after.

What we cover

Two days, sixteen hours, split between classroom instruction and hands-on field exercises. The field work is the point — you cannot learn to read a thermal feed from a slide.

Day 1

Planning the search

  • Search pattern planning: grid, expanding square, and when each applies
  • Probability of detection, coverage, and why ad hoc flying misses ground
  • Thermal and low-light search operations: what the sensor sees and what it doesn't
  • Reading a thermal feed — distinguishing a person from a deer from a sun-warmed rock
  • Conditions where thermal fails: dense canopy, high ambient temperature, rain and fog
  • Night operations under §107.29: anti-collision lighting and recurrent training requirements
Day 2

Flying the search

  • Sensor operation for locating missing persons
  • Coordination with ground teams and incident command
  • Communicating a find: getting usable information to searchers, fast
  • Battery management and crew rotation on a long search
  • Hands-on field search exercises

What you leave with

  • The ability to plan and fly a systematic search rather than an improvised one
  • Practical judgment about when to trust a thermal image and when not to
  • A working handoff procedure between the aircraft and incident command
  • Certificate of completion

Logistics

Two days, split between a classroom and a field site. The host agency provides both: a room that seats the group with a projector or large display, and suitable open ground nearby for the search exercises.

Bring your own aircraft

Students fly their own equipment, and you should arrive ready to fly on Day 2 unless conditions are unsafe. That is deliberate. You will spend the rest of your career searching with the aircraft your department actually owns, not with ours, and the time to learn its quirks is in a training exercise rather than at 0200 on a real callout.

Come with the aircraft charged, current on firmware, registered, and Remote ID compliant. If you're unsure whether your airframe is a good fit for the field exercises, ask us before the class rather than on the morning of Day 2.

Class size

Capped at 16 students.

Weather

The field portion is the reason this course exists, so weather matters. Nobody flies in unsafe conditions. If the weather scrubs the exercise, we work with the host agency to reschedule that portion rather than quietly skip it.

What to bring

  • Your aircraft, controller, and enough charged batteries for a working morning
  • A thermal payload if your agency has one — you'll get more out of Day 1's thermal material with a sensor in your hands
  • Your Remote Pilot Certificate
  • Weather-appropriate clothing for field work

Pricing and hosting

$499 per student, flat, whatever the headcount. If your agency hosts the session at its own facility you receive two free seats, and those two seats are in addition to every seat you pay for, not instead of them.

Host this course at your facility and two of your officers train free.

Become a Host Agency →

Related

3-Day Public Safety Part 107 Course →
Read: How drones are changing search and rescue operations →
Read: FAA Part 107 basics for public safety agencies →