Water Rescue

Joe Marrone · Jan 19, 2018

Today on the news I saw a story about a drone dropping flotation devices to swimmers in trouble. It looked like they were in the ocean out from the beach. Did anyone else see this story? I am wondering about this application of drones, and if anyone has developed a mechanism to drop items from a drone, such as in this story. If the drone pilot responsible is a member of this forum, a full report would be appreciated. I'm also wondering how the rescue turned out.

Joe

Deleted member 98 · Jan 19, 2018

I saw this too. Watching....

This drone rescued two people from rough seas off the coast of Australia

BigAl07 · Jan 19, 2018

We use the STORK system on our Inspire 1 UAS and have "trained" dropping a 2-way radio, medical pack, life vest, and other small items.

Florida Drone Supply · Jan 19, 2018

This is great stuff. A couple years ago I saw a study about a drone designed to pick up and carry life preservers and drop they to people needing rescue in the water. I think they must have been closer because I recall the comparison to a rescue swimmer being more like :30 for the drone and close to 3:00 for the rescue swimmer. And the drone was able to carry multiple life preserver rings. This is good stuff.

ArrUnTuS · Jan 19, 2018

A long time ago I saw something similar but for mountain rescue in difficult access areas. The first aid kit was unhooked from the drone with a thin rope reaching the injured

PaulAB · Feb 4, 2018

Checkout SwellPro splash drone.

The auto 3 is the latest version and it has an accessory or two or three that will drop a kit or inflatable or fishing bait/ hook; alternatively, it can land on a water body and even move about on it while looking for fish or submerged objects and lift back off and return of course. Slightly larger than Phantom 4 and costing about the same, it will only cary less than 2lbs. Enough to do the search and rescue or deliveries of first aid/ trauma kits needed. Completely waterproof and bright orange they carry 4K cameras and can be optioned with FLIR.
Cheers

Johnny C! · Jun 19, 2019

This interests me greatly for a couple of
reasons. Anyone here have any experience
with these?

Thanks!

John

PaulAB said:
Checkout SwellPro splash drone.

The auto 3 is the latest version and it has an accessory or two or three that will drop a kit or inflatable or fishing bait/ hook; alternatively, it can land on a water body and even move about on it while looking for fish or submerged objects and lift back off and return of course. Slightly larger than Phantom 4 and costing about the same, it will only cary less than 2lbs. Enough to do the search and rescue or deliveries of first aid/ trauma kits needed. Completely waterproof and bright orange they carry 4K cameras and can be optioned with FLIR.
Cheers

BigAl07 · Jun 19, 2019

Johnny C! said:
This interests me greatly for a couple of
reasons. Anyone here have any experience
with these?

Thanks!

John

We DEMO'd a pair at a training event last fall. To be honest, it was a flop. We had two units and out of three days we got a total of 4 flights. (1 never flew and was returned to the factory...). The one that did fly was heavy and felt "clunky". As far as "lifting ability" it would have to be something very light because the aircraft didn't have a lot of power to spare.

My fellow instructor said, "I've heard it called the flying Pumpkin and I thought it was because it was orange but now I know it's because it flies like a pumpkin..."

While I do like the concept I'm afraid all the waterproofing and additional safe guards for aquatic operation has added too much weight to the system.

If it were as good as advertised we would see a LOT more of them.

Just my 2 cents. . .

Johnny C! · Jun 19, 2019

Understood.

I am looking for a way to drop feeder lines
for a local tree cutting company. I am not
thrilled about trying to add an accessory to
my DJi's.

I'll start looking for fishing drones.

Thanks Al!

John

BigAl07 · Jun 20, 2019

Johnny C! said:
Understood.

I am looking for a way to drop feeder lines
for a local tree cutting company. I am not
thrilled about trying to add an accessory to
my DJi's.

I'll start looking for fishing drones.

Thanks Al!

John

Sorry to the OP for the slight HiJack coming up . . .

John what aircraft are you flying?

I've done this type of thing for HAM operators in the area. We "Delivered" the Lead Line for them to be able to pull their "Cable Antennae" through the tree canopy. I did this with a DJI Inspire 1 V2 using a STORK Payload Release system. It worked great and I could definitely see this working in your scenario or at least the little bit I understand what you're doing.

I've since sold that system and moved the payload drop tasks over to my Yuneec H520 with a home-made Payload drop system. It's very simple and cheap to make.

Here's a short DEMO I did of it dropping a 2-way radio for our Emergency Services operations (in my back yard btw LOL)

Johnny C! · Jun 20, 2019

Al,
I currently have 2 Sparks. I am still looking to
move up to something larger. Probably to a
M2P, but I was waiting to see what I might
have gleaned from the DSAR class. But I was
just looking at a refurb Inspire 1 Pro. No firm
decisions yet.

I think I have devised a simple way to do this
with a simple attachment to drone with no
moving or controllable parts. I am interested
in using a Spark for this application because
of it's lower price point and also it's smaller
envelope in being able to navigate up in the
tree canopy.

A release mechanism is easy on the transformable
drones.

John

BigAl07 · Jun 20, 2019

There's an I1V2 for sale in the classifieds.. I can't vouch for it but it sounds like a good possibility.

Inspire 1 v2.0

Like new only about 12 flights on it . Comes in the factory hard case and all included accessories that came from it when purchased from Dynexx . Just bought a M2ED and I’m not using this one. Zen muse x3 camera . One battery Only problem is the zipper on the case came off track so I just use...

commercialdronepilots.com

Johnny C! · Jun 25, 2019

I have looked into the Inspire system. Just too
much cost involved for me to invest in at this
time. I'm back to the M2P probably.

I have other questions but I'll start another thread.

John

miturnbo · Mar 9, 2020

BigAl07 said:
We use the STORK system on our Inspire 1 UAS and have "trained" dropping a 2-way radio, medical pack, life vest, and other small items.

We are using the same kind of system on our Inspire 1. But the Inspire 1 is very dated and the in the cooler weather the batteries will fail to allow to take off until they are warmed. We are probably going to replace this system with a M210 that will have a drop system on it. But for the price of this build, we could probably buy 10 Inspires... :-|

BigAl07 · Mar 9, 2020

miturnbo said:
We are using the same kind of system on our Inspire 1. But the Inspire 1 is very dated and the in the cooler weather the batteries will fail to allow to take off until they are warmed. We are probably going to replace this system with a M210 that will have a drop system on it. But for the price of this build, we could probably buy 10 Inspires... :-|

Yes that system is getting very much dated. I have since sold my Inspire system and gone with the Yuneec H520 for those tasks now.

miturnbo · Mar 18, 2021

BigAl07 said:
We use the STORK system on our Inspire 1 UAS and have "trained" dropping a 2-way radio, medical pack, life vest, and other small items.

Yes, we do the same but drop a life vest and have a water rescue team. Hadn't considered dropping a radio but that's a great idea.

BigAl07 · Mar 19, 2021

miturnbo said:
Yes, we do the same but drop a life vest and have a water rescue team. Hadn't considered dropping a radio but that's a great idea.

Yea we found several light weight items to keep in our UAS GO Box to have available to drop.

miturnbo · Jun 24, 2021

BigAl07 said:
Yea we found several light weight items to keep in our UAS GO Box to have available to drop.

Curious if you know how much weight the EVO II Dual could lift and drop? I've seen a flood light and drop device attachment for that drone and it has a lot of features we want in a drone anyway.

BigAl07 · Jun 27, 2021

miturnbo said:
Curious if you know how much weight the EVO II Dual could lift and drop? I've seen a flood light and drop device attachment for that drone and it has a lot of features we want in a drone anyway.

I have no experience with that aircraft. We did all of ours with either an Inspire or a Matrice.

L5Imaging · Jun 28, 2021

The Gannet bait releases can be used to drop payloads and are probably the best in the business. The EXO System for Autel drones features payload drop and it's very solid from what I've been told. The way to go if you want an Evo 2 anyway

Gannet manufactures the best drones for fishing/payload drop if you want something dedicated for this purpose. I have a Gannet Pro but have been too jammed up on time to get it up in the air and try out payload drops over water.

Hope that helps!

L-5 Imaging::L-5 Imaging, Carrollton, TX