Kent Fire Rescues Hiker, DroneResponders Award, and DJI M350 Release

Welcome to this week's webcast from the Unmanned Tactical Group and Pilot Institute's Public Safety News Update. In this webcast, we're going to discuss how Kent Fire was able to find a missing woman who had been lost for eight hours with a broken leg. We'll delve into how that operation took place, discuss the DJI M350 release and its implications for public safety, and congratulate DroneResponders on winning first place for AUVSI's Excellence Public Safety Award.

Thermal drone locates missing female with broken leg

First up, we're going to talk about a significant victory from some of our First Responders on the other side of the pond. Kent Fire and Rescue Services were requested by the Kent Police Department to assist with a search shortly after midnight on Sunday, May 14th. Kent Fire Rescue Services sent a technical rescue unit and two drone pilots out to assist with this search. After two hours of searching for this woman, they were able to locate her. She had been missing for eight hours and had a broken leg.

The pilot who located the woman, Ali Gilfilman, was able to communicate with the ground crew and coordinate the woman's location. Once they arrived on the scene, they were able to create a makeshift splint and transport her to a roadway nearly a thousand feet away. We commend the outstanding work of the Kent Fire and Rescue Services.

The technical rescue supervisor, Jim Chaston, stated about the event, “The drones are a fantastic piece of kit that we use quite often these days. It's awesome to hear that they're being used a lot, whether that's helping to locate missing people, flying over fires to get a better view and understanding of the fire spread, searching for hot spots, assessing damage and structural stability, or providing evidence for fire investigation.” It sounds like they're utilizing drones for all types of different kinds of fire and rescue incidents. Keep up the outstanding work, guys!

DroneResponders first place in AUVSI Excellence Public Safety Award

DroneResponders won first place in this year's AUVSI Excellence in Public Safety Award. They were awarded this honor at this year's AUVSI Xponential in Denver, Colorado. They were selected as the winner of this year's award out of many different applicants due to their tireless efforts to develop strategic partnerships, such as those with NASA, MITER, NIST, and many others, to create free and easily accessible resources for public safety.

They also work very hard with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to advance information and regulatory changes to enhance public safety UAS operations. Outstanding work, DroneResponders, and special congratulations to Chief Warner. Good job, guys!

DJI Matrice 350 drone release

Next up, we have DJI's big release on the DJI M350. This is going to be the next version of the DJI M300 series. This system is a little bit beefier than the M300 series. What's great about it is that it comes with the DJI RC Pro. It also has a couple of new features built into it as well, and we're going to talk a little bit about those.

First and foremost, it has a 55-minute flight time. That's huge! The battery systems that they're running, the TB65s, are a little bit bigger. What's great about those is that they charge really well in the battery case, and that battery case supports the old TB60s. So that's an outstanding upgrade there for a little bit of extra flight time.

It's also IP55 rated this time instead of the IP43 rating that the M300 had prior to this. This gives you a little bit better all-weather resistance. So, in the event that you're flying in inclement weather, this system can handle it a lot better.

It has a six-pound payload capacity, so it does a little bit better job at lifting certain equipment. If you're looking to carry PFDs, maybe an IFAC, some type of first aid kit, this system can handle it a little bit better than the M300 can. It also has a 23,000 feet max altitude flight range. It can handle up to 23 knots for wind speed, so it is a little bit better, a little bit beefier platform.

The temperature range is also a huge one for me. It shows that the system can handle weather from negative four degrees all the way up to 122 degrees Fahrenheit. With me being in the Houston region, the hot temperature range was always an issue for us. We ran through the gauntlet with Mavics. We've also had some issues with the Matrice running in the very hot summers that we have, so seeing that it can get up to 122 degrees is a really welcome sign here.

But one of the biggest things I love about this is the DJI RC Plus compatibility with the M300 series. No longer are we required to stick with the smart controller enterprise with a really small screen. Now we have that really nice big monitor with the M30 series with the DJI RC Plus. That's a huge benefit there, and I'm excited to see what that's going to look like and start utilizing that DJI RC Pro with our M300 series that we currently have. Nice work, DJI! I look forward to trying it out.

Thanks for attending this week's webcast. Don't forget to head over to Unmanned Tactical Group's webpage and check out the upcoming courses we have. We have courses literally all over the United States coming up throughout the rest of the year for operations such as 107 and first responder operations, tactical operations, aerial crash crime scene reconstruction, and many more.

We also are diligently working towards getting some online courses for you direct through the Pilot Institute. So in the meantime, head over to the Pilot Institute's page and keep utilizing their online resources that they have as well.

Look forward to seeing you all in the next one.