Unmanned aircraft company working with CTEC; was 80 acres on Verde campus considered?
Patrick Whitehurst of the Prescott Daily Courier reports that a new program is under development at the Chino Valley campus of Yavapai Community College that involves drones and a partnership with SWIFT Radioplanes. Swift Radio planes is a local Prescott business that manufactures unmanned aircraft. The unmanned aircraft systems, known as drones, would be used for safety programs, “including fire sciences, emergency management and agricultural studies.”
CTEC and Chino Valley campus dean John Morgan, was quoted as saying that “It’s been kind of a long process because we had to get a COA (certificate of authorization) from the FAA. That process took us a couple of years to do. We’re going to take the bulk of this year to try to develop this program. . . . The largest portion of everything we’re going to be doing is really data
According to the Community College, it “will initially lease a Lynx radio-controlled aircraft manufactured by Swift Radioplanes, LLC to conduct scheduled flights that will collect imagery to be analyzed for training in existing academic programs. The Lynx is a fixed-wing electric motor aircraft with an 8-foot wingspan that can carry a variety of equipment, such as multi-spectral and thermal-imaging cameras.” The aircraft will be flown only over the Chino Valley campus and will be operated below 400 feet, under line-of-site radio control.
Dean Morgan explained that “It is . . . emerging as a very critical tool. People are just now starting to think about all the applications. Everybody equates the applications to what the early phases were, which was primarily military, but now things are changing globally. Now people are seeing tremendous opportunity.” Source: Prescott Courrier.