The NYS Police have added another tool to the box that will assist in many different law enforcement missions.
18 drones have been purchased for use across NYS.
9 NYS Troop locations will have two drones available to use in disaster response, traffic safety and law enforcement missions.
At first, two commercially available drones, made by DJI, were purchased by the State, 16 more were then purchased by the Trooper Foundation. The cost for each was $7,000. They can remain airborne for about 30 minutes before a battery change is needed.
So far 4 troopers have been trained to operate them across the state.
Several more will complete their training in March and be ready to operate the systems in April.
The State Police are required to comply with all FAA regulations and the troopers selected for the program are pilot certified and are also required to take a 49 hour class at the State Preparedness Center.
According to Captain Scott Reichel/SP Albany, they have already been deployed on several missions around the state.
“We’ve used it already for damage assessment and flood assessment with ice jams and it was also used in a missing person operation.”
State Police are also looking in to using the drones for accident reconstruction capabilities, which requires additional technology.
“You can quickly document the accident scene, clear it, then do measurements via software, as opposed to doing it on the ground, the drone offers us the opportunity to make that quicker.”
The drone can fly no higher than 400 feet and would not fly directly over people or vehicles because of safety considerations, if a drone was lost it would not land on people.
The drone also must remain in the line of sight of the operator, they have to be careful to stay in range to prevent a fly away.
The drone will be locked into coordinates using GPS.
Each Troop plans to have 4-6 trained pilots.