General Discussion

Hello,

We are preparing for our first fourth of July with our new drone program. Essentially, the team will be primarily responsible for crowd management/mass gathering, fireworks enforcement, and fire spotting.

My question in this is to inquire about other agencies' SOP in fireworks enforcement. The long/short is with people's willingness to turn fireworks into rapid-fire missiles towards patrol cars, we are looking for new ways to respond to these calls safely. Any insight is valuable! I am from Northern California. I have read that some Central California agencies have been extremely successful in these missions.

My department wants to open up the drone program to non-sworn employees. One of the possible hurdles would be the non-sworn union (SEIU) pushing back and not allowing this without compensation of some sort.

Have any CA agencies had issues with union push back? I would also like an idea of how many have civilian staffing supplementing the drone program and have not received pushback. Plus, how the issue was resolved.

All,

I received a message today from a PhD at Liberty University who is working on conducting a comparison between DJI/Autel and US made drones. He is compiling data in a meaningful way to demonstrate the disparity between platforms and is seeking help from public safety members that have used both types of platforms for context. Please see the below request:

Are DJI drones better? I will be conducting research to address that question, and I'm looking for police officers willing to participate by sharing their knowledge and experience regarding the differences between drone manufacturers' products. If you are a police officer who has used drones from DJI and other companies for law enforcement purposes, please consider participating in my study. Participation will be confidential and involve an interview conducted via Zoom or Microsoft Teams, after which you will be sent a transcript of the conversation to review for accuracy.

Hey all,

I wanted to give everyone an update on this rule making process and let you know that we are working on it with several other organizations to bring comments to the FAA related to public safety. We are pouring through the document, but it's lengthy at over 700 pages. I have met with Greg Reverdiau from Pilot Institute about it and will meet with DRONERESPONDERS and the Airborne Public Safety Association soon. We plan to work together to bring a united voice to the FAA in attempt to mold the rule making process in our favor.

My understanding is that Part 108 won't affect part 91 COA BVLOS waivers, so if you're operating under part 91 and desire to continue working that way, it won't affect your operations for BVLOS. If you have current Part 107 BVLOS waivers, they will be nullified and you will be pushed t…