COURTESY MAAP


said they don’t anticipate incorporating any UAS missions into their operations or services in the next year. Turning away from drones “may not be the


best decision to make unless you just want to give up that mission set in your organization,” Burgess said. He went on to stress that the UAS industry is just getting started. Te FAA rule permitting operations over people and at night without special waivers took effect in April 2021, and Burgess expects beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS), large cargo-carrying, and passenger transport operations by remotely piloted vehicles to one day be routine.


Finding Efficiencies When Mark Gibson, president of Timberland Helicopters in Ashland, Oregon, saw that UAS operators were beginning to compete with his company for jobs, he decided he had no choice


but to get involved in UAS operations. Gibson has been in the helicopter business for 35 years, and his company, like many operators, provides a wide range of services—from tours and charters to firefighting and logging. He found that drones could capably handle the power-line, pipeline, and other utility patrol services that he provides with helicopters. Te first mission his company took on with


drones was finding part numbers on suspect hardware on towers. “Land and facility surveys are probably more efficient with UASs [than with helicopters],” he told webinar attendees. His drones have also carried external loads and pulled a utility line over a short section of river. Early on, Timberland didn’t have a focus for


its UAS operations but instead was testing what it could accomplish in the UAS arena. “So we ended up with a whole building full of


UAS products that, frankly, we probably didn’t really need,” Gibson said. He added that it was easy, however, to justify the expense of this experiment because UAS equipment costs so much less than certificated aircraft and related components. Another lesson learned from Timberland’s


experience is that UAS operations should be conducted with the same rigor as those using helicopters. After the company had crashed a UAS, resulting in the destruction of the aircraft but no injuries, “we stepped back and said, ‘We really need to look at this as just another seg- ment of our manned aviation program,’” Gibson said.


Te company response to the crash was to


implement better pilot training, perform pre- flight risk assessments and post-flight debriefs, and increase the maintenance regimen for its UASs. Timberland made flight safety and quality


SEPTEMBER 2021 ROTOR 41


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