The Missing Hiker and the Incident Commander's Request
You are the instructor supervising a public-safety UAS team supporting a search for a missing hiker in a 3,200-acre mixed forest and meadow area. The incident commander requests that your team fly a 1.2-mile linear search along a drainage at 250 ft AGL to look for a red jacket. Your team has two aircraft, one with a thermal payload and one with a zoom camera, and four certified operators. A sheriff's helicopter is conducting a parallel search at 500 ft AGL in the same area, and a ground team is moving along the drainage. The area has a temporary flight restriction for the search, and your team's COA authorizes operations up to 400 ft AGL within the TFR with prior coordination through the incident commander. Wind is 12 knots gusting to 18, and the thermal payload's battery is at 55 percent. The incident commander wants the thermal aircraft launched within 10 minutes.
1. What coordination must occur before launch, and what is the instructor's role in it?
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Before launch, the team must confirm deconfliction with the sheriff's helicopter: altitude separation, geographic boundaries, and a common radio frequency with the helicopter and the incident commander. The instructor's role is to ensure the coordination is explicit and documented, not assumed. The team should confirm that the helicopter knows the UAS will operate at or below 250 ft AGL along the drainage, that the ground team knows the UAS's flight path and will not enter it, and that the incident commander has acknowledged the launch. The instructor should also verify the TFR coordination is complete and that the thermal aircraft's battery and wind limits are acceptable. The key teaching point is that the incident commander's urgency does not substitute for deconfliction; the instructor is the person who slows the launch just enough to make it safe, then supports the launch.
2. The thermal aircraft's battery is at 55 percent and wind is gusting to 18 knots. How should the instructor advise the launch decision?
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The instructor should advise a bounded launch: fly the highest-value segment of the drainage first, set a conservative return threshold, and keep the second aircraft ready as a relief asset. At 55 percent battery, the thermal aircraft has limited endurance, so the plan should prioritize the segment where the ground team's search is thinnest and where thermal contrast is best. Gusts to 18 knots are within many small UAS limits but reduce stability and increase power draw, so the instructor should recommend a lower altitude where the aircraft is easier to keep in the search box and a shorter first sortie. The decision should be framed as a risk-benefit trade: the search value is high, so a bounded sortie is justified, but the team must not commit the only thermal asset to a sortie that leaves no margin for the return and landing.
3. How should the instructor manage the ground team's proximity to the flight path?
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The instructor should establish a clear separation plan before launch: a defined lateral buffer along the drainage, a briefing to the ground team leader on the UAS's altitude and path, and a radio check so the ground team can call a pause if it needs to enter the search box. The instructor should also designate one operator as the ground-team liaison so communication does not compete with the pilot's workload. If the ground team must move through the drainage, the UAS should hold or orbit outside the buffer until the team clears. The teaching point is that public-safety integration is a coordination problem, not a technology problem: the aircraft is safe only if the people on the ground know where it is and can stop it.