McCormick Woods Lab

In class on October 23rd 2018, we were told to meet at McCormick Woods to run missions on communications. We used the orange Unity Drone to complete these missions. When we arrived Evan Hockridge was put in charge of the communications for this flight. Communication for this flight became a little more difficult because the area we were covering was over a very large wooden area. This made keeping visual line of sight difficult for the group. In order to keep visual line of sight for the mission at all times, two groups spread out over the golf course next to the woods and visual line of sight was handed off over the wallkie talkies. It was vital to the integrity of the mission that communication between the flight crew and visual observers was constant and clear. The team did a wonderful job making call outs such as "Drone is in sight for observer crew 1," or "Flight crew has line of sight of the drone." The missions were successful and safe thanks to the great communications between the flight crew and both visual observer teams.

Update: We flew a similar mission at McCormick Woods earlier this week on October 29th 2018. We learned that these missions were being flown to collect data on tree species. The goal was to take video and imagery we RBG cameras in hope to be able to identify the species of trees below using color change. Again, communication was the main part of the lab for most members. We ensured safe flight and operations using procedures that we developed ourselves that seem to fit this mission.