A call comes in and the drone is already moving before somebody could have driven across town with an aircraft case.
For a police department, that may mean getting a look at an uncertain call before the first officer arrives. On a fire, it may mean command has an overhead view developing while companies are still getting into position. After a major storm, it could eventually mean emergency management starts getting information from damaged areas before crews can safely reach all of them.
A few years ago, that sounded like where public safety UAS might eventually go.
We’re not talking about “eventually” anymore.
Some agencies are already operating versions of Drone as First Responder programs using remotely located aircraft, charging stations and automated routing. The FAA is continuing to work toward broader and more scalable beyond visual line of sight operations. Aircraft and software are becoming capable of handling more of the routine work that used to require constant input from the person behind the controller.
I think there’s a lot to be excited about.
I also think this is probably a good time to remember why we put the drone in the air in the first place.
The aircraft may become easier to launch.
The mission isn’t getting any easier to understand.
That difference matters.
Think about a drone working a structure fire today. The rPIC normally arrives at the same scene as everyone else. Before the aircraft ever leaves the ground, the pilot is already collecting information.
They see where the apparatus is positioned. They hear the radio traffic. They can look at the smoke with their own eyes. They know where command is working and can see crews moving around the incident.
All of that helps the pilot understand what they’re about to see from the air.
Then IC calls over the radio and says, “Give me the Charlie side.”
A pilot who understands fireground operations doesn’t hear that as a request to point the camera toward the back of the building.
There’s usually a reason command wants that view.
Maybe they can’t see whether fire has extended behind them. Maybe conditions are changing over crews. Maybe there’s an exposure on that side. Maybe something at the roofline doesn’t look right from the street.
The drone can fly to the Charlie side.
Knowing what to look for when it gets there comes from the person operating it.
Now imagine the same aircraft launching from a dock several miles away and reaching that fire before a traditional UAS team could arrive.
That could be incredibly useful.
Command gets information sooner. Nobody has to wait for somebody to retrieve a drone, drive to the scene, find a launch location and get established.
But something else changed too.
The person operating that aircraft may no longer be standing in the middle of the incident.
They may not hear the aerial setting up behind them. They may not notice apparatus moving into a position that changes the operation. They may not see the smoke outside the camera view or hear a conversation happening twenty feet away from command.
The technology solved the deployment problem.
It didn’t solve the situational-awareness problem.
Now the operator has to build that awareness differently.
That is why I don’t believe better automation makes the public-safety UAS operator less important. I think it raises the standard.
Law enforcement is going to face the same issue.
Say a remotely launched drone arrives at a reported disturbance before patrol and sees somebody leaving the property.
That could be important.
It could also mean absolutely nothing.
The aircraft can follow the person. The camera may give you a good description and show where they’re going. Software may eventually do an increasingly good job of helping keep them in view.
None of that tells you whether they had anything to do with the call.
You still need context.
What did dispatch receive? What did the caller say? Does the person match the information officers have? What are they doing? Is there an actual reason to keep the aircraft on them?
The ability to see more doesn’t automatically mean we understand more.
That’s an important distinction as these systems become easier to deploy.
I’m not concerned about the drone becoming more capable. I want more capability.
What I don’t want is for us to confuse capability with judgment.
We’ve already learned that lesson with thermal cameras.
Anyone who has spent enough time using thermal knows that the image doesn’t explain itself. A bright object in the woods isn’t automatically the missing person. A warmer area on a roof isn’t automatically fire.
The camera gives us another piece of information.
The operator still has to look at everything else they know and decide what that information means.
I think artificial intelligence and increasingly capable software are going to work much the same way.
If software can help draw my attention toward something I might have missed during a search, I want that help. If it can assist an emergency management team working through a large amount of imagery after a storm, there could be real value there. If it can help maintain a track on something while the operator is managing other parts of the mission, great.
Use it.
But I don’t want someone to stop thinking because software put a box around something on the screen.
The tool should help the operator make a better decision.
It shouldn’t become the decision.
That idea becomes even more important as the FAA continues working toward broader BVLOS operations.
There are public-safety agencies conducting authorized BVLOS operations today, and the FAA has specific pathways that can support them. The agency is also continuing its work toward a more scalable regulatory framework for routine BVLOS operations. What we do not have today is a blanket rule allowing every public-safety agency to simply launch beyond visual line of sight because the mission is important.
That distinction needs to stay clear.
But the direction of travel is pretty obvious.
More aircraft are going to operate remotely. Docked systems will become more common where they make operational sense. Software will handle more of the mechanics of getting an aircraft from one place to another.
That opens some interesting possibilities for public safety.
Imagine a jurisdiction where an aircraft doesn’t have to travel in the back of somebody’s vehicle before every mission.
Maybe a police department can get eyes on certain priority calls several minutes sooner. Maybe a fire department can get an early exterior picture of a large commercial building while companies are still arriving. Maybe emergency management can begin assessing areas after a storm from aircraft positioned around the jurisdiction instead of having to deploy every drone from one location.
That could change how quickly we build situational awareness.
But faster isn’t automatically better unless the information arriving on the other end is useful.
That is where I think some agencies could get distracted.
It’s easy to watch a dock open, see the drone take off and look at a live camera feed on a big screen and think, “We need this.”
Maybe you do.
But I’d want to know what happens on the second call, not just during the demonstration.
I’d want to know whether getting that aircraft airborne sooner actually changes anything operationally.
Does it give officers information they can use before they arrive?
Does it give a fireground IC something they couldn’t see from the street?
Does it help emergency management make a better decision about where to send resources?
If it does, now we’re talking about capability.
If all we’ve done is get a drone over the incident faster, we’ve solved the easiest part of the problem.
That’s something department leadership needs to keep in mind because there is going to be no shortage of impressive technology coming our way.
And I’m not against any of it.
I want better aircraft.
I want better cameras.
I want automation that reduces unnecessary workload.
I want software that helps a pilot find something sooner.
I want systems that can put an aircraft where it is needed without requiring somebody to drive thirty minutes just to launch it.
But public safety has to be disciplined enough to ask why we need it.
The mission should still drive the technology.
Not the other way around.
That brings us back to the people.
As aircraft become more automated, I think the best public-safety UAS operators may spend less time worrying about every individual movement of the sticks and more time managing everything around the flight.
They’ll still need to understand aviation. They’ll still need to understand the weather, airspace, aircraft limitations and the rules governing the operation.
But that may become only part of the job.
They’ll also need to understand what command is trying to accomplish.
They’ll need to know when something on the screen is worth interrupting the radio traffic for and when it isn’t.
They’ll need to recognize when the aircraft cannot answer the question being asked.
They’ll need to understand what firefighters are doing beneath them, why officers established the perimeter where they did or what information emergency management actually needs from hundreds of images coming in after a storm.
In other words, we may automate more of the flying while placing even greater value on the operator who understands the mission.
That’s a future I can get behind.
I don’t think an Incident Commander wants to manage a drone today, and I certainly don’t think they’re going to want to manage an automated UAS system tomorrow.
They want information.
The patrol supervisor trying to manage an unfolding incident doesn’t need another piece of technology demanding their attention.
They need somebody to tell them what matters.
Emergency management doesn’t need another screen filled with live video after a major storm.
They need somebody to help turn that information into a picture they can act on.
That is where the UAS operation earns its place.
Not because the aircraft flew farther.
Not because it launched from a dock.
Not because AI identified something.
It earns its place when all of that capability turns into information that makes the people running the incident better informed.
And that’s why I think agencies should be investing just as much attention in their people as they are in whatever technology comes next.
Let your pilots work real incidents.
Let them spend time around command.
Make sure they understand the operations they’re supporting instead of only understanding the aircraft.
A fireground shouldn’t look foreign to the person providing the overhead picture. A law enforcement operation shouldn’t be reduced to dots moving around a screen. A disaster response shouldn’t become an exercise in collecting thousands of images nobody has time to review.
We need people who understand why the aircraft is there.
That experience is going to survive every technology change coming our way.
The aircraft sitting in your case today probably won’t be the one your agency is using ten years from now.
The controller will change.
The software will change.
Some agencies will have docked aircraft. Some may build mature DFR operations. BVLOS authority will continue evolving. Artificial intelligence will become more capable and probably find its way into parts of the operation we haven’t even considered yet.
Some of those changes will be incredibly useful.
Others may turn out to be solutions looking for a problem.
We don’t have to know which is which today.
What we can do is build programs and people who know the difference when the technology arrives.
Because no matter how advanced the aircraft becomes, somebody still has to understand why it was launched.
Somebody has to know what command is really asking for.
Somebody has to recognize when what they’re seeing matters.
And somebody has to turn all of that technology into something useful for the people actually doing the job.
The drone may launch itself.
The mission still needs a pilot.