Using a C-astral Bramor PPX for search and rescue

Introduction

When a person goes missing for any period it can be a troublesome situation. In this scenario, a person has been reported missing in Yellowstone National Park. They were reported missing after not returning home and have been missing for over 24 hours with no sign of where they could have gone. Due to the lack of information on where the person is missing this search and rescue (SAR) will be more a more endurance-based operation. Due to the perceived length of this mission, a fixed-wing will be the best choice, so for this mission, the C-Astral Bramor PPX will be used. This also plays into the type of search and rescue operation, there are two types, hasty or exhaustive. Being that the missing person has been missing for 24 hrs and there is no sign of where they were heading, an exhaustive search will yield the best results. This will give systematic coverage over Yellowstone to ensure that no location is missed and giving the best chance at finding the missing person.

Method
Flight location
As this is a national park flying traditionally would be restricted, so attaining a waiver to fly in the area is a necessity. This can both complicate things and provide benefits, as gaining the waiver will require time, it will also mean the airspace will be clear of other drones (which minimizes a collision risk). Before any flight, it is good practice to always check the sectional chart of the area to determine any flight hazards that need to be avoided. As Yellowstone is a national park the airspace is pretty clear when compared to somewhere like a city. This makes the search and rescue plan (from an airborne perspective) relatively straight forward

Figure 1, The airspace around Yellowstone

Current Conditions

This scenario that was given's goal is to be as real as possible and in search and rescue, one does not always get to wait until clear weather. To determine the weather in the area a METAR is needed, and to get that an identifier is needed for the nearest weather station. In this case, it is the box-like airport to the left of Yellowstone Lake. Its name is West Yellowstone, and its identifier is KWYS, this was conveniently gathered off Skyvector.com, which is the same place where Figure 1 is from. Figure 2 is the raw METAR which gives all of the information needed to fly safely in a confined format.

Figure 2

In the previous blog post, it was covered how to decode a standard METAR. Some of the quick things of this one are that there are 13-knot winds with visibility down to 1 statute mile (SM) and some light snow. The rest of the excess of information will be in figure 3, a full decoded version of the METAR.

Figure 3

With winds at 13 knots, it is really important to consider the max wind speed of the UAS platform used. This will ensure that control will be kept the duration of the flight with no "sketchy" moments. There is also light snow, which is also really important to keep in mind for all the equipment that is onboard the aircraft and if they can get wet. As the system is used the parts will get warm which will melt the snow and allow for the water to seep into cracks. What can also occur is the snow will melt, then refreeze on the airframe, so checking the airframe between launches and keeping a close eye onto its flight characteristics will be required. This will be hard with visibility at 1 SM and most likely require a live video feed from the aircraft to the ground station to help monitor the aircraft.

Aircraft

When choosing a platform for extended SAR it is important to keep in mind the operating characteristics of the common types of airframes. Whether it is a fixed-wing or multi-rotor, they each have their pros and cons. Given that this is a long-running operation a fixed-wing will provide the longest flight time while also allowing us to carry the necessary equipment. For this operation, a C-astral Bramor PPX is going to be used. This aircraft has a maximum wind speed of 23 knots which is below the current conditions, it also can be operated in extreme cold (-25 degrees Celius). Due to the rough conditions that the operation will be running in it is important to make sure that the aircraft will not be pushed to extremes and preform outside its envelope.

The Aircraft, C-Astral Bramor PPX

Sensor

There are two options with the Bramor when it comes to sensors an Altum Multispec and Sony RX1. They are both good cameras but because of the fact that there many trees around Yellowstone the ability to color filter the images post-process will make for an easier time to decipher the missing person from a tree.

Search Area

With a bit of searching online, one can find that an average healthy person can walk 20 to 30 miles a day. As Yellowstone is known for being mountainous and hard to traverse it is reasonable to assume that the person covered about half that area, this gives us a search area of about 15 miles. Depending on where the individual was when he went missing is going to change where the search area will be. Given the two circles in figure 4, one has its center around Old Faithful (the red circle), this is a common tourist attraction and it is likely that they visited the attraction and they could have gone missing from there. The second orange circle is centered around the "West Thumb" by the lake assuming that they might have been nearby the lake and they got lost around there.

Figure 4

Discussion

Due to the fact that this person has been missing for longer than 24 hours, it is important to cover an area that is larger than the area they could have walked in that time. This will require a base camp and area to launch and recover the Bramor. The Bramor will fly in a lawnmower pattern that will slowly cover the entire search area. This is to ensure that no area is missed and provide the largest chance at finding the missing person. The process of the SAR will be to launch the aircraft, have it fly a portion of the search area, land and download the data then relaunch the aircraft. When the data is downloaded it is to be processed and then looked over to search for the missing person. After the data is processed there will be points of the data in which the missing person will potentially be, it is then the job of the base team to direct the rescuers from the base camp to the missing person. This process is to be repeated until either the search area has been exhausted or the person has been found.

Conclusion

With the support of an unmanned platform a search and rescue operation that would have included multiple full-sized aircraft and provided a large bill to go with. Using an unmanned platform will allow the operation to cover the area quicker and gather data that is even more accurate than what can be gathered with a more expensive aircraft. By using an unmanned platform SAR operations can be completed quicker, cheaper and with less disruption to current daily airspace operations.