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BBC:
Drones are expected to play a role in coastguard search and rescue (SAR) operations in the near future.
The [UK's] Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) wants to make greater use of the technology as part of a new SAR contract to be awarded in 2024.
The contract also covers the continued provision of rescue helicopters, including those based in Scotland, and search planes.
[...] The coastguard said unmanned aircraft could potentially visit rescue sites ahead of air, sea or land-based recovery teams.
Images and other information gathered by drones could help develop the emergency services response to a situation.
How long before terrestrial drones follow their airborne brethren into service?
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UK Coastguard Plans to Add Drones to Air Fleet
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(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday May 29 2020, @09:04PM (3 children)
I wonder if a fleet of drones might do better than flying manned aircraft over a large area looking for a boat or persons in need of assistance.
Similarly on land, a fleet of drones might do better than flying manned aircraft over a large area looking for anyone acting differently than the norm, who is in need of assistance.
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(Score: 3, Interesting) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday May 29 2020, @09:46PM (2 children)
Depends on how you define, "better." (I'm not reading TFA at the moment).... Can analog eyes resolve targets better than digital sensors? Not today, for most values of that. There at least three other potential advantages: 1) With something like a RATO assist (dunno if they have that), I could see being able to carry and launch multiple drones from a ship's helipad (i.e. more deployment capability for ships with helipads.) Wherever they are deployed, they take less weight and space than a comparable manned aircraft. 2) They are almost always cheaper to operate than the equivalent aircraft role. 3) The Reaper has 36 hours endurance ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-9_Reaper [wikipedia.org] ). They can stay on station much longer than any crewed rescue aircraft can because the reliefs are aboard ship or on land. (Yes, you could theoretically swap crews and aerial refuel any aircraft with more than one pilot and do the search cameras remotely probably, and search operations are often called off at night as is. Still, it's easier to keep it flying longer).
And the big downside: You really don't think they'll stop at SAR missions, do you? That which applies to SAR can usually be applied to any form of reconnaissance, threat environment notwithstanding.
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(Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Saturday May 30 2020, @03:42PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Wednesday June 03 2020, @04:21PM
There often is.... both.
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