MAWWFRS trains new drone pilots
The UK’s Mid and West Wales Fire and Rescue Service (MAWWFRS) has trained an additional seven drone pilots
The pilots undertook a training course between 10 and 14 June run by Aviation Systems Group at the Wales Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) Training Centre in Earlswood, south Wales.
The course covered a range of topics, including laws related to drone operations, the principles of flight, emergency procedures, human factors, and flight safety.
It also included a practical flight assessment at Margam Country Park near Port Talbot, which required the trainees to operate drones within visual line of sight while demonstrating what they’d learned about procedures for various emergency situations.
The additional pilots will enhance the operations of MAWWFRS’s response, with the organization stating that in recent years “the use of drones by emergency services has increased significantly”.
The expanded program will support MAWWFRS’s ability to offer situational awareness to first responders during incidents such as “wildfires, commercial and domestic structural fires, water-borne incidents, missing person searches, collapsed structures, and more”.
Wales Air Ambulance Charity recently announced that it would replace two of its existing bases with a new one located in central north Wales, due to open in 2026.
Oliver Cuenca
Oliver Cuenca is a Junior Editor at AirMed&Rescue. 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.