Drones and Fires and Crowdfunding

I've been putting off making this thread because I keep saying "After I finish _____...", but I really need to start on this aspect of my new project. It's late and I just got back from a fire, so forgive me if the thoughts are scattered. I'll clean up/clarify anything in the morning if need be.

I'm looking for someone to help with a crowdfunding campaign on indiegogo.

The overview: I work for a small rural fire department in Oregon. Eventually, I would like to have the ability to launch a drone to a dispatch and have an aerial view of the scene before responders arrive. Additionally, I have plans to attach to our wildfire comms trailer for night monitoring. While the technology has been commercially available for some time, FAA policy is the only hiccup for multiple reasons.

In the short term, there are ways that I can provide a service for a fee to government and educational institutions. The agriculture industry in the area also provides for some great opportunities. Restricted in some ways by the FAA currently, but coming down the pipe fast.

I know that is somewhat-vague, but this is two months brainstorming heavily condensed.

At the moment, I have a high end hobby grade sUAS that is capable of being marginally useful in some select situations.
While I've made a lot of inquiries and contacts in the last few months, these are the ones that have been most helpful and are willing to offer support:
The local Fire and Police chief
Our newspaper liaison
The viticulture program at the college
the director of the nearest FAA sUAS test site, as well as his boss.
Multiple local vineyards and farmers
and the most helpful by far has been a gentleman that works for an aviation company and heads up their UAS division. He's not yet able to fly his drones in the USA because of their size, but he has given a lot of direction and support. "I admire anyone that tries to get into this industry the right way, and competition is what will drive it forward"
I also have an in-law that is a business consultant and a family friend that was part of fire command for the forest service for 30 years, both of which have been giving great input.

I'm also in contact with multiple other people, including the chairman of the UAS Advisory group for the forest and the director of aviation for the DOI for my area. These contacts are great for information about upcoming procedures, but they're probably not going to "help" as much as the ones listed above.


I have a habit of getting long winded and not proof-reading, so I'll cut the summary off there. I would like to see if anyone is interested in helping with an indiegogo campaign and wants to talk about some kind of arrangement. The main purpose is to get out of the hobby grade drones and into the professional grade. While the drones themselves are marginally better, the sensors are often 85% of the price tag.

If you have any questions, please post here or PM me. I'll edit the OP with more specific information if needed.

edit: Also, I've started an LLC and registered some domains. Currently have an old friend working on the logo. I was told to work on the web presence a little bit before launching the campaign, but not to wait too long.


Some random articles and snippets:

History/Timeline- The 2/15/15 entry is important
Explanation on NDVI images
NIR & agriculture
USFS UAV advisory group presentation
Forbes article on the 2/15/15 FAA notice
Police using drones

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Tuco_sl said:

Do you have any more technical information and videos of your hobby system? What does your system do that the different UAVs out there can't ex:
5 drone technologies for firefighting | Fire Chief

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My system can't do anything that other UAS (the FAA's preferred term) can't do, if we're talking about commercial systems. Let me expand on a few things first, then I'll go into what I'm looking for.
First off, EVERYONE is limited to an elevation of 400ft AGL, recently raised to 500ft AGL. All operations must be done during daylight hours, be performed within unaided visual line of sight (VLOS), more than 5 miles from an airport, and not for compensation.
Know before you fly

There are 2 ways to fly other than for recreational purposes.
1. Obtain aCertificate of Authorization(COA) from the FAA as a public entity or educational institution.
2. Obtain asection 333 exemptionfrom the FAA, as well as a COA.

My original plan was to go straight for a section 333, but the que has gone from about 200 when I first looked to over 600 when I last looked. Also, the approval process is longer and more selective. The contact that I made that has the larger UAS advised me to get a COA for a public entity and then lease my UAS to them. The police chief and fire chief are both on board with this, and I'm working on concreting it with the university.


As far as capabilities, I'm looking for something that IknowI can legally fly over the next two years. Tuco, I've read that article and emailed a few of the manufacturers. 1 of the 5 is a ground station and 2 of the 5 are over the 55lb sUAS limit (3 of 5 if you go by the 4.4lb additional division). I've looked at the sensefly and it's on my list of "good candidates".
Specific capabilities that I'm looking for now that would be useful without disqualifying it's use:
Live video to ground station
Multi spectral imaging that can be ported to GIS software
Under 4.4lbs preferably, or at least under 55lbs
Waypoints
Already have a current COA on file, if possible

In the very near future, the ability to fly beyond VLOS is what will make this very useful for us, so I would like to maintain that ability. Many of the systems I've been looking at have the ability to fly to around 25km away from the base station.

I'm not expecting much compensations/reimbursement from the Fire or Police departments (and I'm hesitant to use the police department in crowdfunding), but they'll be able to cover costs. The university is how I'm planning to make a profit.
The crowdfunding idea came from a friend that owns a few businesses, one of them dealing with start-ups and advertising. The fact that I'm a firefighter in a small district and have the ability to promote the campaign through multiple outlets that are eager for "proof that Drones are good" to expedite the FAA process convinced him that a crowdfunding campaign would be pretty damn successful.

Intrinsic_sl said:

CyPhy Works | Revolutionary Robotsis also another company that uses tethered drones for some of these applications.

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I haven't seen those, but I don't think that's what I'm looking for. The optical sensors look good, but the tethered flight prevents them from doing 90% of what I'm looking for. Once we're cleared to fly beyond VLOS, I'd like the ability for dispatch to launch the UAS from it's hanger by tying in to a 3rd party program, likeActive911, and transmit first-on-scene images to dispatch and the responders.

Right, the 333 exemption isn't dealing with upcoming regs, but a "in the mean time..." way to commercially operate a drone by asking to be excused from specific regs.

Initially, there were dome exemptions issued for people that asked to be exempted from having a private licence on uavs less than 4.4 lbs. The faa seems to be going away from that in the last few I've read.

And yes, I have a family member and a coworker with private licenses, which the faa has accepted every time, as far as i've seen.

The funding is 100% for an existing platform that is capable of being competitive when the gold rush comes.
I'm aware of the current FAA restrictions and have been speaking to the Portland office, as well as the UAS office in DC. I have the opportunity to take advantage of multiple public entity COAs, negating the 333 exemption. If I find spare time before the legislation drops, I'll begin working on the 333. If not, I'm able to generate an income in a round-a-bout way.

Unless this kicks in first.
Senator Cory Booker To Introduce Commercial Drone Legislation Following FAA's Amazon Ruling - Forbes

Also, I'm not manufacturing systems, I'm operating. I'm not sure what you mean by reinventing the wheel.

Palum_sl said:

Yea it's so ill-defined it's impossible to guess, but I'd figure you'd need commercial certificate if you were going to fly a drone 'for profit' once the training wheels are off? The whole thing is so ass backwards anyway. On one hand you have an upsized parrot drone controlled deftly via computer, but on the other for decades you've had 1/4, 1/3 scale RC aircraft that are so big they can kill people and all you need for them is a lot of money and a good lawyer if you murder someone with your crazy project.

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The proposed/speculated requirements involve an airman's medical exam and a general knowledge test, similar to ground school. There is also a soft separation at 4.4lbs.

I'm all for proper safety and regulation, but the FAA has put the US way behind the global market, and even then we're still going to have to fight through regulations that are designed for the dumbest common denominator.

I'm just planning to have all my Ps and Qs in order by the time they roll it out.

I decided against the crowdfunding campaign because it seemed like a lot of work for a gamble, and more publicity than I prefer.

So after 4 days of door-knocking on businesses, I made back the price of the drone.

I have a pretty cheap DIY shopping list for a UAS that is better suited for profit, and I should have enough for all the parts after 3 more jobs with the current uas. If it continues to be this easy, I should have a fire-scouting flying robot in no time. It does help that I work full time, so I can put 100% of the money from this back into it.

If anyone is interested, I'll post some pictures of the process. I think I'll wait until it's airborne to post anything else, though. I don't want to post the building process and then try to sneak off in shame when it Challenger '86s after launch.