T
HE POTENTIAL RANCH USES FOR UNMANNED AERIAL vehicles (UAV), commonly known as drones, are almost unlimited.
Among the applications are locating and inspect-
ing livestock, looking at pasture conditions, spraying pesticides, checking crops, inspecting oil pipelines and watching mines, etc. Even Amazon has hopes of using drones to deliver packages. Most drones are powered with helicopter-type
rotors that function exactly the same way as a heli- copter. They will usually have at least 4 rotors, but can have as many as 8 or more. Other drones are built like a regular winged airplane, just remotely controlled by a person operating a control box, much like fl ying a model airplane. The U.S. Air Force has been using drones since
the early 1960s, so piloting aircraft from remote lo- cations is nothing new.
You, the rancher, are fortunate in that you can see
what the drone you are fl ying is doing. You can see it with actual perspective in its spatial relationship to what is going on around it. The Air Force operators of remotely piloted air-
craft (RPA) may be fl ying drones around the world, but they are operating them from just a few places in the U.S. Imagery from the drones is fed to com- puter monitors, showing the pilot where the drone is fl ying. The U.S. Army has been using drones controlled by the soldier’s laptop computer to ob- serve enemy locations and drop light ordinance on enemy positions. Entrepreneurs are springing up in many areas of
the drone business, from manufacturing to consult- ing and obtaining Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) permits. But the legal right to fl y them is still in limbo. Commercial fl ights of unmanned aircraft
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