How To Improve SWAT Operations With FPV Drones
David: Hey everybody, David Plummer and Michael Ferguson here from Aerial Influence. It is time to talk about drones — this is the final blog of this series. We’ll be back with more seasons in the near future, but this one has been focusing specifically on answering your questions; It’s the AI Q+A. Michael’s got a question for us. What is the first question, Michael?
Michael: From Steven, “Put an FPV watch on each of the officers so they can also have the FPV feed as a resource in situations where drones are necessary.”
David: All right, so this is in reference to a video we did a couple of months ago. Basically, I’ve been sort of going down this FPV rabbit hole over the past few months where I’m trying to figure out — while they’re very fun — whether FPV drones can function for professional purposes too. And we were specifically talking about using them for SWAT teams.
We did a whole video where we brought out a guy — a friend of mine named Caesar who I connected with on Facebook — to share his drone-flying expertise. He’s a friend who’s been teaching me all sorts of stuff about FPV. He came out and did a SWAT team exercise showing them what that drone could do — how it can clear entire buildings without ever putting a police officer at risk. I thought that was super, super interesting.
And what Steven here is proposing is interesting. Basically, it would be a watch that would have the live viewpoint from the drone on every SWAT members’ watch so they could see where that drone was at all times as it keeps them safe.
Michael: I think they actually have something like that. Now, obviously we wanted to read this question because it led into a conversation on FPV drones, which you’ve been digging into.
On this subject, we also connected with an officer in Canada, and he’s really trying to spearhead this. When you talk to him, he makes a lot of sense because he explains that FPVs have a very different type of flight — pilots have to know what they’re doing. He says that pilots need to know all the nuances of a SWAT operation on top of how to fly this drone. His main idea, though, is that you really need to address the communication between the FPV officer and the SWAT officer, because you could have a great FPV flier that knows nothing about SWAT; that could be a bad idea.
David: Yeah, it could be detrimental, because that guy could go in not knowing what he’s actually doing.
Michael: Exactly. Returning to the comment, I doubt that the SWAT officers are going to be going in and looking at a watch — whether it’s an IME monocle or something like that. But I agree that communication between these two types of officer is probably the real key to implementing FPV drones effectively.
David: I do think there’s a place for FPV in this world. I think, like you said, the training is going to be different. You’re not going to be able to just take a DJI pilot and say, “Here, go fly this FPV drone.” That’s not the way it works. It takes lots of practice on a flight simulator that anybody can do on their computer, but it does take a lot of work. But eventually I do see this all coming together. Drone teams will potentially consist of more than just a drone pilot in the future — there might be a dedicated FPV drone pilot specifically executing certain procedures. Great question. I think it is just going to continue to grow and continue to make things safer for different police officers around the country.
We wanted to finish this series off with one more question. This comes from Matt Horowich. Matt says, “Where do you fellas teach drone classes? I’m an old UFC fighter interested in learning drones and robotics.”
We do teach classes here at our location in Elburn, Ill. — It’s about 45 minutes west of Chicago. We also will go on call; we will go anywhere in the country. We would just have to come up with the proper pricing on that and make sure that you’re getting what you need from us. Not only that, but we’re available for virtual classes as well. We can hook up to you from our location to anywhere around the world and answer any questions.
We are grateful for all the people that submitted these questions or comments. We’re sorry we’re not better at getting around to them, but we figured this would be a good way to take care of some of this stuff. We’re going to be back with season five. We’re pretty sure, we’re just waiting for our financers to let us know if they’re going to back a new series. I think we’re going to do it. I think we’re going to get it. I hope so too.
We are so excited about how drones can help your business or farm. Make sure to send us an email or contact us for a consultation if you’d like to learn how to incorporate drones into your work. As always, thank you for reading. We’re excited to share the future of drones with you.