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NASA brings UAV to fires

NASA Ikhana UAV. A predator drone used for gathering data about wildfires.

From a NASA press release issued today:

...Snip

Jim Brass, NASA's co-project manager of the Wildfire Research and Applications Partnership, said the plane was designed to put in hours of service under conditions that would be too "dull, dirty and dangerous" for human pilots.

"We're flying through a lot of smoke - a pretty dangerous place to have a pilot flying for a long period of time," he told me. Today, Ikhana was scheduled to fly for 10 hours straight, going as high as 23,000 feet in altitude. It will likely be sent out for another long shift on Thursday.

Brass recalled an earlier tryout of the Ikhana system in the Bay Area, where a fire manager breathed a sigh of relief after seeing the airborne imagery. He said the team leader told him, "This has saved us a million dollars, and I can sleep tonight because I know our backfire has worked."

"His next question was, 'Can we trust this?'" Brass said. "Yes, you can."

...End Snip.

UAV's at work, saving millions of dollars and providing quality data in a timely fashion right on the front lines.

Just one more example of the slow and inept response to this emergency by the Federal goverment under George W. Bush.

Posted @ October 25, 2007 08:11 AM | Aviation