BVLOS drone approval for police in Elk Grove, California
California’s Elk Grove Police Department has received beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) approval from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
The waiver will allow the department to fly its drones beyond the sight of ground-based human observers on a case-by-case basis.
It will support the Elk Grove police’s drone-as-first-responder (DFR) program, and allow them to fly the drones autonomously across their 42-square-mile (108.8km2) jurisdiction to heights of up to 400ft (122 meters).
The DFR program was launched last year, and has conducted over 1,000 flights since then.
Police in Oxnard, California, and Hempstead, New York, both announced plans to expand their own DFR programs earlier this year.
Oliver Cuenca
Oliver Cuenca is a Junior Editor at the Voyageur Group. He was previously a News and Features Journalist for the rail magazine IRJ until 2021, and studied MA Magazine Journalism at Cardiff University. His favourite helicopter is the AW169 – the workhorse of the UK air ambulance sector! He also led the creation of Waypoint: The AirMed&Rescue podcast, serving as its Production Editor and co-host.