Drone News: Air 3 & Mini 4 DOC, Percepto Drone Swarm Waiver, Defibrillator Drones, and Texas Zoning

John McBride: Welcome to your weekly UAS Newsy updatey thing. Apparently we have a lot of drone stuff to talk about. I have no idea what we’re talking about, but let me go get the guy.

Greg: John, are you playing with the set again? Welcome to your weekly UAS News update. That’s how you say it. We have four stories for you this week. The Air 3 and the Mini 4 Pro are finally added to the DOC list. Percepto gets a drone swarm Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)waiver, that’s a big deal. Defibrillator drones are actually faster than ambulances, we’ll see the study here. And then the City of Plano in Texas is doing something weird with drones. Let’s get to it.

DJI Air 3 and the Mini 4 Pro are finally on the Remote ID DOC list

Greg: Alright, first up this week is the Air 3 and the Mini 4 Pro from DJI that are finally on the Remote ID DOC list, DOC, Declaration of Compliance. This means that you no longer need to have a remote ID module on the Air 3 or the Mini 4 if you were using one. If you’ve been waiting for the Air 3 or Mini 4 to be approved this is this is the time to buy it. Now, we had a lot of questions from people. Now, you may be wondering, why did it take so long? These drones have been released for a while, they’ve been broadcasting remote ID, they just were not on the DOC list. This primarily, apparently, from what we’ve been told, had to do with a bug in the system with the FAA. It looks like they finally fixed it. Also this week we saw DJI releasing a Firmware Update for the Phantom 4 Pro V2 that makes it broadcast remote ID, but at this stage, it’s not on the DOC list, so hopefully it’s going to be in there pretty soon and then it’s going to make you compliant, but you can still download the firmware if you want to have the drone actually broadcast and then wait for the FAA to put it on that list. Here’s hoping, quite frankly, that the FAA and DJI, over time, makes this a bit more efficient, so that when you get a new drone, you can actually go and fly it, legally with having Remote ID on it.

John McBride: The rug really tied the room together, did it not? Freaking A. This guy peed on it. Donny, please.

Percepto Drone Swarm Waiver

Greg: Next up this week is Percepto, who has received a waiver allowing them to operate up to 30 drones, 30 drones from a single operator beyond visual line of sight. The waiver is actually designed for drone in a box system. So the operator would be located at a distance from where the drone is actually located. And then the drone would be flying to inspect infrastructure or power lines. In this case the waiver doesn’t appear to be in the Part 107 waiver on the FAA website. So we can’t really find the specifics, but it’s actually a pretty cool development allowing what many people in the industry consider to be the holy grail of drone wavers. So we’ll keep you updated if we get any updates on that in the future. And

John McBride: next up in your news update

Drones Faster Than Ambulances

Greg: is a study out of Sweden where they tested 55 drones responding to cardiac emergencies. Over the 11 months study, the drones responded to 72 emergencies, of those 55 actually delivered AEDs, and the study found that the drones had a much quicker response from dispatch to arrive on scene, and 37 out of the 55 times the drone got there first, and then in two cases, they actually had a shock delivered prior to the ambulance arriving on site. So it’s a super interesting study. We’ll have to see if this is something that can be applied en masse if you want for emergency services to deliver supplies such as

John McBride: And here’s Greg with your final story.

Plano Texas Does Something Weird With Drones

Greg: The city of Plano in Texas that is looking to add an ordinance to regulate possibly drones and AAM. This comes in response to DroneUp that is operating in that area using through Walmart, and they’re not apparently using any formal permit from the city. The councilman, his name is Rick Horn, he said that they were concerned about noise and privacy they also may be looking into zoning changes, because apparently their current zoning ordinance doesn’t really know how to classify the kind of activity that’s being done, and according to their director of planning, She said that if the zoning ordinance is enforced, it is basically not allowed, it’s disallowed. There’s another meeting that’s going to be scheduled for February 26, 2024. The mayor, his name is John Mons he said that during the meeting and I quote, we had the opportunity as a council to meet in person to see the operation in two different areas, one in Frisco and then one in Plano. Unfortunately, it was a couple of days before Thanksgiving, so we had a lot of us gone. He said, we still need some of that information and we’re respectfully hoping that we can table this item until we can get some real data that can be analyzed and explained to us. If we could get that information and come back with a much better understanding of what you’re asking for. And you being, I’m guessing DroneUp in this case. So we’ll keep you updated if we hear more from Plano, but yeah, this is an interesting thing where local municipalities are getting very involved with this kind of operation. And that’s it. That’s it. We’ll see you on next week. Possibly somebody else, because I’m actually taking a week off vacation. Dude. You’ll have a surprise guest. But next time, have a great weekend. See you in two weeks, myself.

John McBride: I don’t know who would even come up with that idea. I do look quite amazing in my coat. I’m just letting you know, being who I is, Drone Jesus guy I think I look fantastic. I think I could easily take Greg’s job. Oh, yeah. Easily.

Greg: Oh, yes. I know you’re looking for a job, but this one is not open.

John McBride: Yeah, that’s just like your opinion, man. I already put in my application, Sir. I was approved by HQ. It is in Review. It is in review.

Greg: We’ll let you know.

John McBride: Dude, where is my white Russian to go with my white coat? I’m just saying.