We've been busy in the best way. SkyTap is honored by the invite from NBAA to speak at the 2016 Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition. Come see one of our founders speak on Thursday Morning in S330 C/D. See you there!
Come meet us at National Business Aviation Association: Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition (NBAA:BACE) in Orlando, FL on Nov. 1-3.
"Taylor Butterfield, an unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) pilot, also will speak at the general session. A vice-president and co-founder of SkyTap, Inc., a company that manages large, commercial UAS flight operations, Butterfield has a background in aviation research and training, and will share his insights into UAS technology and the many career opportunities it offers to young professionals in this field."
We will see you there to talk about Sourcing the Sky!
Last Monday an aircraft was spotted hovering overhead near Virginia Tech. It descended to about 10 feet, hovered over a grass patch and then lowered a large white package to the ground on a string. The drone then flew away, leaving the package and string on the ground.
During a Bay Area demo broadcast via Periscope, Zipline CEO Keller Rinaudo and other executives showed how they plan to use mini-planes launched with compressed air to deliver blood and medical supplies in Rwanda starting in July.
What if you could touch an area on your tablet map, and that area would be highlighted in your goggles as you fly towards it? Not only that, your camera responds in real time to movements of your head so you can look for traffic and obstacles that are highlighted and labeled based on integration with your tablet and synthetic vision.
When you think of the up-and-coming players in the commercial drone market, you might think of Amazon, or Google … but how about AT&T?
"You could move your head and look for traffic just as though you were scanning for traffic from a seat in the aircraft. Except Aero Glass would be even better, because you could augment that reality with overlays to highlight and indicate trend vectors to any air traffic in the area with tail numbers, distances, relative speeds, any parameters that would be useful."
The railroad also has a compelling business case. The Latitude HQ-40 drone that Graetz supervises has a six-foot wingspan and is equipped with cameras that when paired with special software can potentially detect track anomalies more quickly, possibly preventing derailments. The flights, from just outside of Playas, New Mexico, lay the groundwork for drone inspections of other fixed infrastructure, such as pipelines and power lines.
BEREA, Ohio – The Ohio Turnpike and Infrastructure Commission in September will complete its first bridge inspection using an unmanned aircraft system, or drone.
The drone will be used to inspect the Sandusky River Bridge, a 970-foot-long bridge in Sandusky County on either Sept. 13 or Sept. 14, depending on the weather.
Typically, the bridge receives a hands-on inspection by engineering firm AECOM. However, that can prove challenging given the length and width – 102 feet – of the bridge, according to Randy Cole, executive director of the turnpike.
Cole, who lives in Aurora, for days drove by the inspection of the Cuyahoga Valley Bridge and thought, "there has to be a better way," as he watched inspectors dangle under bridges in snooper trucks – trucks with a bucket attached to an arm that can extend under a bridge.
So, when the opportunity came up to work with the Ohio/Indiana UAS Center, the Ohio Department of Transportation and a UAS company, senseFly, on a drone bridge inspection, he was on board.
"We hope to determine if the use of a drone may reduce the time and expense and increase safety when performing these types of inspections on the turnpike and on the ODOT system," Cole said Monday during a turnpike commission meeting.
The turnpike commission will compare the results of the drone inspection with those garnered by AECOM's in-person inspection.
"It's safer for our motorists. It's safer for the people doing it. What we want to validate is that the data is as good or better than we would get by human visual inspection," Cole said.
During snooper truck inspections, part of the turnpike has to be shut down and crews have to establish work zones. Using a drone could eliminate the need for such work zones during inspections.
If the drone bridge inspection proves successful, the turnpike will consider allowing contractors to use drones for other activities, such as construction services and for emergency response, Cole said.
"In a large pile-up that happens on any of our interstates in this country, getting a drone through the traffic to see what's happening at the point of impact is safer and faster than trying to get humans and trucks through," Cole said.
He made note of the Fulton County accident on the toll road in June that involved a truck carrying liquid hydrogen. Humans couldn't get near the truck, which caught fire after the crash, but a drone could have had better access to check the temperature of the truck to to gauge its fuel levels, he said.
"There's nothing that would have stopped a drone from getting as close as possible," Cole said.
Source: Cleveland.com
“The Department expects to use these aircraft for a diverse set of missions including, wildlife and vegetation surveys, fire management, search and rescue, hydrologic study, cultural resource inventory, and surface mining monitoring, just to name a few,” said the Department’s Office of Aviation Service Director Mark Bathrick. “These UAS will not only provide us with better science and reduce the risk to our employees, but they will result in cost savings and better service for the Department and the American people.”
Why Bother?
In aviation, if you receive ANY form of compensation for flying, that flight falls into the category of a commercial operation. That's right, even if that compensation is only gas money, or a cold beverage.
It is part of the FAA's mandate to protect the public, and this is one of the ways that they can do that. When the regulations were written, they were protecting people IN the airplanes. It's no secret that regulating Drones is and will continue to be difficult within a framework of regulations built for traditional aviation. Hence, Part 107...which is honestly a great step forward.
Internet access can offer life-changing opportunities and experiences to all of us, but there are still 4 billion people without it. That’s 60% of the global population. As many as 1.6 billion of those unconnected people live in remote locations with no access to mobile broadband networks, where implementing existing network technologies is so challenging and costly that it will take years to bring everyone affordable access. As part of our commitment to Internet.org, we formed the Facebook Connectivity Lab to build new technologies — including aircraft, satellites, and wireless communications systems — to help solve this problem more quickly.
The Flying Wing will carry Ground Penetrating Radar, High Definition video and still, Infrared, thermal and Light Detection and Ranging sensors, amongst others. It can take off and land anywhere, travel up to 150km, at speeds of up to 60kph and change direction to precisely map the same route over and over, regardless of weather conditions. It also has the added benefit of capturing data in real time and streaming it live to a data processing engine.
3DR has truly been impressing us at SkyTap with their intuitive control system and advanced movements made into simple control modes.
Exhibit A from 3DR's Colin Guinn :
The efficiencies that you see here are applicable to numerous other industries. Here's to what #3DR comes up with next!
NASA’s Two Month UAS Flight Test Series Concludes
As the wheels of NASA’s Ikhana Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) touched down on Thursday, June 30, a two-month flight test series came to a close, concluding an essential stage in the agency’s research into technologies that support safe integration of UAS into the National Airspace System (NAS).
Press Release – DOT and FAA Finalize Rules for Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems
Regulations will create new opportunities for business and government to use drones
WASHINGTON – Today, the Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration has finalized the first operational rules (PDF) for routine commercial use of small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS or “drones”), opening pathways towards fully integrating UAS into the nation’s airspace. These new regulations work to harness new innovations safely, to spur job growth, advance critical scientific research and save lives.
Urgently needed medical supplies can be moved from clinics to remote locations by Remotely Piloted Aircraft (drones). Fosters + Partners see the need for an infrastructure leap with Africa's population boom expected to double to 2.2 Billion by 2050.
Will this system scale up to an Air Ambulance?
DARPA STO has released the CONverged Collaborative Elements for RF Task Operations (CONCERTO) BAA, DARPA-BAA-16-28.
The goal of the CONCERTO program is “for the design, realization, programming, and control of a new converged RF architecture supporting all critical uses of the RF spectrum over a tactically useful performance range. System prototypes will be designed and developed for compact unmanned aircraft systems (UAS).”
