Seems like using drones is another tool in S&R -- anyone seen them in use or have good articles?

www.uasvision.com/2012/04/16/holloman-air-force-base-reaper-rescues-lost-kayakers/

Holloman is USAF,but I seriously doubt that they're the only ones running long endurance UAVs CONUS.

This thread is somewhat relevant.
link

I foresee a considerable increase in the use of drones to locate lost or injured persons.
Larger drones that can drop bombs for military purposes, could drop other items of a similar size/weight.
If rescuers cant reach the victim promptly, then dropping supplies such as water, food, a first aid kit, a sleeping bag, etc could preserve life until rescuers can get there.

I agree .. they have great potential in S&R !!

Drones were used in the storm disaster In the Philippines. There are issues about operating a drone with a camera in a foreign country. Those can be worked out.

Pete

I think large drones are not a viable option for civilian use. A quick search at the cost of a reaper is $16.9 million and then you need a lot of money for the operator-pilot, ground crew, maintenance, etc. That’s a lot of money for a drone, with very limited capability. The cost per saved life, makes this a poor choice.

Using military drones for civilian use can be tricky or at least takes forever to get everything arranged...

I think small inexpensive drones is viable, but they are very limited is bad weather and small payload. A manned helicopter or fixed wing is more flexible in usages in both weather and missions (and there for sometimes easier to find funding for).

Civilian agencies, like the NFS, are probably not going to be able to afford the multimillion cost of medium and large RPV systems. But, the military can. And, if you recall, the Navy and Marines were used in the 2014 fires in San Diego. A lesson learned from the administrative SNAFU that prevented them from being used during the 2007 San Diego fires.

If you also recall the Rebel Heart incident, the funds for the rescue came out of the Navy's training budget. Outside of what you do when you find the target, there's probably not a great deal of difference in finding lost adventurers in the western US, and hunting down insurgents in the Mid-East (look at the topographies: Mountains and desert). I can't imagine that the military would balk at being given the chance to use real world incidents (i.e. wilderness and disaster SAR) for training.

EDIT: Speaking of small RPVs for SAR...
http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/Life-Saving-Drones-304946231.html

One of the SAR teams west of my area are in the test phase process of using small drones to assist in SAR searches. Some of these drones are real cutting edge technology in which my DJI Phantom 2 Quadcopter, pales in comparison.

I think that in the next few years, many SAR teams will be adopting drones as part of their searching capability. What most need to keep in mind is that the SAR drones currently being developed and tested are on the small size and in general, should not be compared to the large cost military drones that people think of when they hear the word drone.

The smaller sized SAR drones are meant to give the operator a birds eye view of heavily treed areas, small canyons and ravines, riverbeds etc that cannot be readily searched with helicopters or too dangerous and resource demanding to search by ground teams. Also some of the drones can carry small payloads of first aid kits etc but at the expense of flying time, lift capability, altitude ceiling and so on which means the SAR teams need to balance the usefulness of drones for every search as no 2 searches are ever the same.

Take a look on Youtube, there are some good videos of SAR drone demonstrations.

Any NPS area with access to a UAV system will find many uses for the technology aside from SAR. Nearby parks will probably share systems. It is also fairly predictable that system costs will decline as the technology matures. Remember what calculators used to cost?

Perhaps smart phones will learn to fly, giving new meaning to the term "mobile phone".....

http://www.emergencymgmt.com/safety/Unmanned-Aircraft-Savior-Threat.html There are a number of articles at this magazines website if you enter UAV in to their search box. The comments after the various articles are as illuminating as the articles. Agencies partnering with local hobbyists, who have the vehicles, time, and interest to keep up their operational skills would make the most sense to me. Doing it ahead of time would be useful.