Welcome Inspire Pilots!
Join our free DJI Inspire community today!
Sign up

Public Safety Trainiing

Joined
Mar 2, 2017
Messages
42
Reaction score
16
Age
69
Location
North Central Minnesota
I'm a part 107 pilot and a retired law enforcement officer with an active security clearance. I''m considering offering my services (Inspire 2) to local law enforcement agencies on a contract basis (I already do non-UAS contract work for one larger local sheriff's office and a Federal agency) so they don't have to dedicate an officer to do UAS work. The part 107 vs COA is a bit confusing to me. Is the COA something that the agency gets or can a Part 107 pilot also get one to get access to the SGI through the SOSC? Anyone know an appropriate knowledge path for the above?
Much appreciated.
 
I'm a part 107 pilot and a retired law enforcement officer with an active security clearance. I''m considering offering my services (Inspire 2) to local law enforcement agencies on a contract basis (I already do non-UAS contract work for one larger local sheriff's office and a Federal agency) so they don't have to dedicate an officer to do UAS work. The part 107 vs COA is a bit confusing to me. Is the COA something that the agency gets or can a Part 107 pilot also get one to get access to the SGI through the SOSC? Anyone know an appropriate knowledge path for the above?
Much appreciated.
I cant' even begin to answer your question. I'm not sure if everyone else will know what all your acronyms stand for. You may want to consider spelling them out for the audience.

Since I can rig for thermal I would love to support law and fire departments but the FAA hasn't accepted my day time waiver request and I have to come up with a few dozen scenarios to satisfy their rejection letter.
 
Start my getting your CFR Part 107 training. There are many options for that. One is Remote Pilot 101. Pass the test; get licensed. Then you will need to get a waiver for daytime operation. It is much better to get training for that, a class cert. and detailed instructions on how to apply. Without the training, it is unlikely you will get the waiver.
Fly, fly, fly. Get a lot of hours under your belt under different conditions/situations. There is no substitute for experience. Good luck.
 
Start my getting your CFR Part 107 training. There are many options for that. One is Remote Pilot 101. Pass the test; get licensed. Then you will need to get a waiver for daytime operation. It is much better to get training for that, a class cert. and detailed instructions on how to apply. Without the training, it is unlikely you will get the waiver.
Fly, fly, fly. Get a lot of hours under your belt under different conditions/situations. There is no substitute for experience. Good luck.
He's already a 107 pilot. What "training" is there for applying for daytime waivers?
 
I'm a part 107 pilot and a retired law enforcement officer with an active security clearance. I''m considering offering my services (Inspire 2) to local law enforcement agencies on a contract basis (I already do non-UAS contract work for one larger local sheriff's office and a Federal agency) so they don't have to dedicate an officer to do UAS work. The part 107 vs COA is a bit confusing to me. Is the COA something that the agency gets or can a Part 107 pilot also get one to get access to the SGI through the SOSC? Anyone know an appropriate knowledge path for the above?
Much appreciated.

COA - Certificate of Authorization
SGI Special Governmental Interest
SOSC
I cant' even begin to answer your question. I'm not sure if everyone else will know what all your acronyms stand for. You may want to consider spelling them out for the audience.

Since I can rig for thermal I would love to support law and fire departments but the FAA hasn't accepted my day time waiver request and I have to come up with a few dozen scenarios to satisfy their rejection letter.

COA - Certificate of Authorization
SGI Special Governmental Interest
SOSC - FAA's Systems Operational Support Center

From FAA's Emergency Operations website
Special Governmental Interest (SGI) process. Operations that may be considered include:

  • Firefighting
  • Search and Rescue
  • Law Enforcement
  • Utility or Other Critical Infrastructure Restoration
  • Incident Awareness and Analysis
  • Damage Assessments Supporting Disaster Recovery Related Insurance Claims
  • Media Coverage Providing Crucial Information to the Public
To apply for a waiver through the SGI process you must be an existing Part 107 Remote Pilot with a current certificate OR you must have an existing Certificate of Waiver or Authorization (COA). To submit a waiver through this process, fill out the Emergency Operation Request Form (MS Word) and send to the FAA's System Operations Support Center (SOSC) at [email protected]. If approved, the FAA will add an amendment to your existing COA or Remote Pilot Certificate that authorizes you to fly under certain conditions for the specified operation. If denied, operators should NOT fly outside the provisions of their existing COA or part 107. Operators have the option to amend their requests.
 
COA - Certificate of Authorization
SGI Special Governmental Interest
SOSC


COA - Certificate of Authorization
SGI Special Governmental Interest
SOSC - FAA's Systems Operational Support Center

From FAA's Emergency Operations website
Special Governmental Interest (SGI) process. Operations that may be considered include:

  • Firefighting
  • Search and Rescue
  • Law Enforcement
  • Utility or Other Critical Infrastructure Restoration
  • Incident Awareness and Analysis
  • Damage Assessments Supporting Disaster Recovery Related Insurance Claims
  • Media Coverage Providing Crucial Information to the Public
To apply for a waiver through the SGI process you must be an existing Part 107 Remote Pilot with a current certificate OR you must have an existing Certificate of Waiver or Authorization (COA). To submit a waiver through this process, fill out the Emergency Operation Request Form (MS Word) and send to the FAA's System Operations Support Center (SOSC) at [email protected]. If approved, the FAA will add an amendment to your existing COA or Remote Pilot Certificate that authorizes you to fly under certain conditions for the specified operation. If denied, operators should NOT fly outside the provisions of their existing COA or part 107. Operators have the option to amend their requests.
Thanks for all the info. I'm still not able to help you out any. I would have thought some of the agencies you're supporting could shed some light on it(?)
 
I had the same question a little while ago, so I applied for one. The response I received pretty much explains it.

Mr. XXXX

As an introduction, I am a contractor with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) working for the Federal Aviation Administration Unmanned Aircraft Systems Tactical Operations Section, Emerging Technologies Team, AJV-115. I am the Air Traffic Office (ATO) coordinator for all law enforcement (LEA) Fire, and First Responder Agencies that are interested in implementing Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) technologies that need to be certificated by the FAA in order to operate within the National Airspace System (NAS). Along with my counterparts, Mr. John Meehan, Management and Program Analyst with the Unmanned Aircraft Integration Office, AUS-430, and Mr. Dave Bear, Aviation Safety Inspector, Flight Standards Service, General Aviation and Commercial Division (AFS-800), we handle law enforcement/fire and first responder Agency UAS requests.

To operate under a certificate of waiver/authorization as a public aircraft operator you must be a public agency. I am not aware of the public status of 2 Veteran Services LLC however it appears 2 Veteran Service LLC provides drone services for compensation and hire and as such would not qualify as a public aircraft operator and would need to operate under 14 CFR Part 107 for civil and commercial operations.

Please let me know if this is not correct.

Respectfully.

Steve Pansky/SAIC
Senior Aviation Analyst-AVS Safety Technical Services Support contract
Air Traffic and Public Safety/SAC-EC Liaison
Supporting Federal Aviation Administration Unmanned Aircraft
Systems Tactical Operations Section, AUS 430/AJV-115
 
  • Like
Reactions: Shamus
Deploy time is too long. Bad guys don't wait for a permit. And without top-of-the-line FLIR, even SAR is impracticable. Dollars to doughnuts, there's no way to "sell" your drone services to law enforcement. And if you volunteer, I would bet another dollar you get called once or twice a year, and probably for SAR operations.

Anyone wanna second me on this?

D
 
  • Like
Reactions: Shamus
Deploy time is too long. Bad guys don't wait for a permit. And without top-of-the-line FLIR, even SAR is impracticable. Dollars to doughnuts, there's no way to "sell" your drone services to law enforcement. And if you volunteer, I would bet another dollar you get called once or twice a year, and probably for SAR operations.

Anyone wanna second me on this?

D
When I was taking my thermal Level One certification class, our instructor turned down a night thermal mission one of the local cops asked him to fly. Might have better luck with volunteer fire departments just for the flight time experience.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Shamus
I would like to reiterate that I'm not trying to be Mr. Gloom and Doom. I'm not here to crush your dreams. I can just honestly say that after flying professionally for 6 years, I've considered and breached quite a few markets. In addition, I've been knee deep in the drone community for as many years. I honestly don't recall a single professional drone pilot who did any note-worthy police work. Yes, police precincts have PURCHASED drones, and then set up a "task force," but then the drone sits around, collects dust, and the task force just fades away.

Consider this; Despite the literally millions of drones all over the world, I've yet to hear a single "the drone got the bad guy" story or "the drone was paramount to the investigation" story. Have you? At best, a drone would be good for gathering aerial footage of a traffic accident scene, but that's probably NOT the contribution you were thinking of.

Very early in my career I was hired by a legal firm to gather evidence, which was essentially to film a guy's property looking for stolen goods. I worked for them twice never to do that kind of work ever again. Beyond that, I honestly can't think of any use that wouldn't be squashed by the fact that it simply takes too much time to deploy. I always thought an aerial view of a shootout might be useful, but I've yet to see that come to fruition, so perhaps not.

The stark reality as that the I2 was build for filming. It's my understanding that it does that well. But even then, it's a niche market because some other guy has an M600 Pro with a Red Epic or an Alta 8 with an ARRI Alexa who can do "real cinematography." It's too much drone for mapping (use P4P for that) or real estate (use Mavic Pro for that).

Anyway...best of luck to you. Please keep us informed if you get anything. In this instance, I would love to be wrong.

D
 

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
22,277
Messages
210,655
Members
34,319
Latest member
MaricruzRa