fire patrol detection to go the way of the...

[oldncold]

With the explosion. In drone technology the years are numbered for fire patrol. The Canadian forest fire co ordination center and bc forest services are actively researching drone tech as a cost effective replacement to fire patrols.

Internal docs. Have a outline for full replacement in a 10yr time line. With trials to begin by 2017.
The ability to fly long patrols using Gps and thermal imaging technology combined with nap of earth ground mapping. Is forecast to bring substantial savings. A fotemote benefit is liability cost reduction and lawsuits arising from accidents of forest service personal onboard manned aircraft.

[iflyforpie]

It would be interesting to see a source article for that. All patrols are done by contracted personnel here in my part of BC. Very few BCFS personnel ever go on a patrol aircraft.

Then there is the problem of control and communications. Its tough enough to get a duplex repeater signal through for voice... now you're going to try and do it for digital with enough bandwidth to provide useful real-time info from a drone? This isn't mapping where you can download data later.... you need accurate info now... and not just fire size and location, but access, values threatened, water available (how many times it shows a lake on a map when there is only a dry slough--better hope you have a relay tank on the list), etc etc.

Finally, I can't remember the last time a plane went down on patrol. I can think of tons of air tankers, but no patrol planes.

[oldncold]

My understanding is it would be downloaded in real time to a central control center then relayed to the fire districts. The thermal imaging is tasked with size.other cameras will be installed to give 3d. Fuel type etc nap of earth to pinpoint exact location and prevent loss of drone in mountain regions. Like my previous post the. Tech is there now. It will just be a matter of time, money to implement . The opportunity will be imho those biz that rely on fire patrol as a part or major part of their revenue stream to embrace the tech of drones and be pro active, contract there aviation expertise in fire patrol and apply it to become operators of the drone tech..

[oldncold]

The last patrol aircraft I can remember in bc being lost was in the early to mid 2000's. In the nelson district (I'm not 100% sure it was fire patrol related) was ce337. Mary's river (east side kootenay lake) or tributaries there of hit the hillside.
My point is this drones are coming to places in traditional aviation areas that in general. Pilots as a group are vulnerable to being replaced / just like the automobile replaced the horse and buggy a. Hundred yrs ago. Get ready

[Heliian]

Yup, as soon as you can make it affordable, which won't be for a while and what about operating restrictions of a drone over habitations? We are still decades away.

[complexintentions]

Hmmm I dunno. I have argued in the past against the imminent introduction of commercial passenger drones, and still stand by that. (The "imminent" part).

But unmanned fire patrol would actually seem to be a pretty ideal use of the technology. No pax, much of the flight over unpopulated or sparsely populated areas. They are already using drones for geological survey and from what I saw, they're pretty much autonomous once programmed. Not that hard to have them fly a grid. Perhaps they won't replace the manned flights, but supplement them. (Or more likely, the manned ones would supplement the drones).

The high bandwidth required for the real-time imagery would be an obstacle, to be sure, but not an insurmountable one. Manned fisheries patrols have been sending high-def images back to land for ship identification, for years.

Don't get me wrong, I hate anything that leads to less opportunities for pilots but it does seem logical. Perhaps not yet but I think it will be sooner than decades for this particular application. It's certainly miles more feasible that Amazon's concept of fleets of delivery drones whizzing around large cities.

Pilots won't be "replaced", they may just not be sitting in the a/c anymore...

[Changes in Latitudes]

Get ready

I'm scared, someone hold me.

[DrSpaceman]

http://youtu.be/7Pq-S557XQU

[Stinky]

Yup, as soon as you can make it affordable, which won't be for a while and what about operating restrictions of a drone over habitations? We are still decades away.

This is happening very quickly. Here's one operation that already has FAA approval. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/201 ... -over-land

The FAA is moving quickly to make this a reality. Have a read through this FAA roadmap to UAS integration into the airspace system.

https://nppa.org/sites/default/files/UA ... p_2013.pdf

There are already six test sites operational.

[human garbage]

Its coming but it won't be for a while. Drones bring their own complications as IFFP mentioned about data transmissions. Current aerial cameras produce images a gigabyte per photo. Love to see the downlink technology to support that amount of data.

At least one of the major drone operators here subcontracts any job larger than a football field to manned survey aircraft. Until drones can be operated up high, the footprint will always be ridiculously small. Why do a job with a glorified toy that produces thousands of images for post process when it can be covered in two or three images from a conventional aircraft?

I don't argue that there day is coming, but there is a lot that needs to be worked out before they will be remotely competitive with what already exists. The FAA may be pressing ahead, but TC may not move as fast. Right now, line of sight, maximum heights of less than 100m, and built up area overflight rules hamstring remote technology pretty well...

[timel]

To operate a drone, you need a human to monitor the equipment. This guy won't work for free, and since there is no walk with shinny gallons in some fancy terminal, he will probably ask for a decent pay.
I don't understand it anyway, in Quebec pilots pay 3000$ for their type rating on 182RG, 400$ for company exams and they earn like 6000-7000$ for the whole season. Hard to beat the costs, even with a drone.




I liked the video, humanity will decide where it wants to go.

If we decide automatization and robots is what we want, it will not only be for aviation but for everything, we will all become programmers, our handling and abilities will be reduced with the use of technology, we will become dependant, more then what we are now.

I have seen researches showing that our brain use and development is already reduced because of how we use technology.

What is a mouse eat all the wires? What do you do?
What if operators decide to reduce their cost and extend use of parts? Toys work fine when they are brand new...

[Heliian]

But we aren't just talking about toys here, there are systems right now the size of a light twin being tested. In reality, when you factor in the systems cost and then service and then an operator and.........insurance!, it's going to be cost prohibitive for a long time.

The majour advantage right now is that drones can go places where it isn't safe for a piloted a/c.

[Cat Driver]

The majour advantage right now is that drones can go places where it isn't safe for a piloted a/c.

Like Shamattawa?

[Stinky]

I would think insurance cost would be lower if nobody is risking their lives and the drone is being operated over an uninhabited area.

It would be lighter and more fuel efficient too since there's no pilot on board. It could also fly much longer, even if there are duty regs (I'm sure there will be), the operators could change shifts without returning the aircraft to base.

[fish4life]

http://youtu.be/hyGJBV1xnJI

This was 2 years ago these things are learning and fully automated and I've seen them playing catch. To think where they might be 5 years from now is mind blowing.

[cncpc]

I think Iflyforpie was pretty accurate in his comments. I used to fly patrols and bug mapping in the Koots and I really can't see some flimsy drone operating in those mountains in strong winds and vertical air currents and the need to go down on fires. Maybe patrols like Wood Buffalo, but not BC mountains.

I do think the manned aircraft like the Bugsmashers could do with technology upgrades to send real time imagery back to fire bases like Castlegar, though. Or that choppers like a R44 would do a better job, especially in fire assessment, and would provide greater overall utility in fire season.

The crash in St. Mary's pass was a private aircraft back around 2000. An Aircoupe, I think. The 337 operator who did fly patrols out of Castlegar unfortunately lost his life somewhere around the lake side of the pass in the fall of 2013, I think. CFIT in a 337, but not on patrol, he was on a trip to Saskatchewan on private business.

[DonutHole]

I did the nocl for that ercoupe, it was in mid 2000s. The 337 that went down was a fire patrol guy that was a few summers ago, the 337 in the mid late 90s was on fire patrol and I believe a casara aircraft also went down on the search. If I remember correctly the 337 that went down on fire patrol was orange and white

Edit. As we get older the time flies. 1997 accident report
https://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&sour ... FAlDMAOuAw

[iflyforpie]

That accident report reminds me of another reactionary policy that BCFS was trying to implement years ago. They wanted to make all patrol aircraft twin-engined for safety purposes... until it was pointed out that every crash thus far had been in twin engine aircraft.

[New_PIC]

... Current aerial cameras produce images a gigabyte per photo. Love to see the downlink technology to support that amount of data...

Just spitballing here but couldn't some on board computer image analysis filter out a lot of that?

[threepoint]

OK, to add some actual knowledge to the discussion. There have been plenty of fire patrol aircraft that have crashed in BC over the years. Some have been twins, some have been inline twins, and some have been single-engine aircraft. Not everybody survived. Victims included the pilot, sometimes a trainee from the aircraft operator (as in the 1997 crash referenced above) and BCFS staff have perished as well.

The BCFS did not make a serious effort to mandate patrol flights be conducted in twins. Ever. The primary reason the birddog aircraft progressed from single to twin (C210 to Aerostar) was for speed purposes, not safety. The 210 could not match the DC-6 airtanker on a long dispatch. Today, there are two Caravans on contract as birddog aircraft with FS personnel assigned to them all season.

At present, I'm not aware of anything beyond curious fact-finding related to using drones to detect fires. I'm sure we'll see them employed for image gathering and mapping purposes, but there's lots to iron out beforehand in terms of airspace management, operator training & fireline access etc. One large, but never talked-about, disadvantage of removing firefighter staff from observing within fire patrol aircraft is that these staff do not gain exposure to the aviation environment before being expected to fill roles as helicopter and air attack coordinators. They are great firefighters, but need help from the pilot in operating the radio package and have little to zero appreciation of the rules of the air. Also, many detection pilots are expected to fill both roles of pilot and fire assessor. Task saturation, especially in the low & slow environment, has been determined as a high safety risk, and a contributing factor in more than one accident.

[I_Drive_Planes]

When I was at the SARSCENE national search and rescue conference in Chilliwack in 2013 I had a good chat with the people who sell this technology:




I saw some real potential there in the search and rescue application, and I think it would work great for finding fires. This unit will image at high speed and automatically flag likely targets. It forwards the image of the likely target to a human operator for analysis, the human operator decides if each target is to be investigated or ignored. I would think, that with the sensitivity levels set to detect fires, the likelihood of false positives would be fairly low.

This particular unit is designed to be mounted to and operated from a manned aircraft but I don't think it would be that great of a leap for the technology to be placed on a UAV with a satellite link to send images of likely targets to a ground station.

I think Iflyforpie was pretty accurate in his comments. I used to fly patrols and bug mapping in the Koots and I really can't see some flimsy drone operating in those mountains in strong winds and vertical air currents and the need to go down on fires. Maybe patrols like Wood Buffalo, but not BC mountains.

The usual image that comes to mind when we hear the word "drone" or "UAV" is the goofy looking quadcopter thing that perverts use to look in apartment windows, but that's not the future of this technology. One has only to look at the equipment that the US military has been using for years to see where the technology is going. I think that fire patrol as we know it is relatively safe for now, but as the trickle down of military technology occurs and regulators catch up we'll see manned patrols largely replaced by drones.

[iflyforpie]

OK, to add some actual knowledge to the discussion.

You're on par with everyone but Donuthole for conjecture, here.

[threepoint]

You're on par with everyone but Donuthole for conjecture, here.

Ha - unlikely, PieBoy. Did you know David or Jan from Nelson? How about Cyril or Larry from Salmon Arm? I bet Geoff from Hope was before your time. All these gentlemen died in BC while conducting fire patrol flights. I can provide you detailed information about what they were doing, why they crashed and what the ramifications of each accident were. I can recount - although I'd rather not - what I saw and felt as I attended one of the smoldering scenes as a young firefighter.

reminds me of another reactionary policy that BCFS was trying to implement years ago. They wanted to make all patrol aircraft twin-engined for safety purposes... until it was pointed out that every crash thus far had been in twin engine aircraft.

This comment displays your misunderstandings; two of the three accidents above occurred in single-engine aircraft.

So before you dismiss contributions as 'conjecture', perhaps we all might be better served if you remember the responsibilities of contributing to an anonymous online forum, and never assume that you know more than anybody else. Because with certain topics (like this one), you don't.

[iflyforpie]

Conjecture is stuff that can either be true or false because there is no evidence. You still havent offered up any accident reports, and those names mean nothing to me. I also asked for a source for the subjects of this thread, but still nothing. Notice that I said you were 'par with everyone' including me. Your post was obviously directed at me, and here, in this somewhat anonymous forum, you have the same credibility as anyone else unless you offer up some hard evidence.

Saying "to add some actual knowledge" is absolutely meaningless and comes off as arrogant. Maybe I'll just say, "no... ILL add some actual knowledge".

Don C, the former head of air ops for South East Fire Center, wanted all patrols in the SE to be done on twin engine aircraft. At the time, in the South East, all patrol plane crashes (possibly excluding ones from ancient history) were twins. Two twins that have been used for fire patrols have also crashed doing other things within the last 7 years.

That info is second hand, but very similar to lots of other schemes and policies they've had but didn't follow through with, and I figured it fit perfectly with the current subject.

Better?

[shimmydampner]

Pretty silly ruler with which to measure your dongs there, boys.