Cleared for action: THE role of drones in search and rescue

helicopter service (SAR) for HM Coastguard. The CAMCOPTER® S-100 (VTOL) UAS needs no prepared area or supporting launch or recovery equipment. It operates day and night, under adverse weather conditions with a range of payloads, out to 200 km, both on land and at sea.

Difficult to access environments, bad weather, treacherous mountains, avalanches, or stranded at sea, all add up to emergency response challenges of varying degrees.

The recent tragedies following the deadly earthquakes in Southern Turkey and Northern Syria, are current examples of the difficulties that first responders face, with the sheer volume of requests for help, and the daunting race against the clock to find survivors.

Now, with drones becoming increasingly common currency with blue light services, there is an immediate response available, able to replace or augment manned aircraft and tactics that require more time to access search patterns or affected areas. Drones, of course, come in all shapes and sizes from small quadcopters through to uncrewed helicopters/VTOL (Vertical Takeoff and Landing) and fixed wing UAVs with payloads more than 25kg; with obvious use for medical deliveries, logistics of military applications. Drones can carry different types of payloads that can be used in different situations. Two of the popular payloads are the 4K wide-angle camera and the thermal camera that are extensively used during search and rescue missions.

No better example of how drones can be integrated, comes in the form of the recent announcement of a 10-year contract awarded to Bristow, the global leader in vertical flight, by the UK Maritime Coastguard Agency (MCA) to deliver the Second-Generation Search and Rescue (UKSAR2G) programme. The contract includes the operational deployment of Schiebel's CAMCOPTER® S-100 Unmanned Air System (UAS).

The new contract expands and builds on the existing capabilities Bristow has delivered to the MCA since 2015, most notably the life-saving search and rescue

At the other end of the scale, Buxton Mountain Rescue Team became the first Mountain Rescue England and Wales team to be granted approval by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) for the use of drones. The team has eight trained pilots, known locally as the "Drone Team", ready to be tasked to searching for missing persons on call outs. Last year Derbyshire Constabulary's Drone Unit donated a DJI Mavic 2 drone to Buxton Mountain Rescue Team to help in the search for vulnerable or missing people.

By Philip Hicks of disruptive tech consultancy Pravo Consulting and Graham Brown Chair of ARPAS-UK, the UK drone industry association

IEDO association

Founded in 2018, the international non-profit association IEDO is the only community in the world composed solely of first responders using drones to save and protect the population.

This community has grown over the years to reach in 2023 just under 800 members from 55 countries (firefighters, civilian and military police, volunteers from rescue associations, customs officers, coast guards, paramedics, etc.) . The objective of this community is to meet the needs and expectations of first responders saving lives by drone.

IEDO is supported by 2 international federations: the International Police Association representing 400,000 police officers and the CTIF (International Association of Fire and Rescue Services) representing 4 million firefighters. In addition, this organization supports