Brandon Karr is from Pearland, Texas, and is currently the Chief Pilot, UAS Program Coordinator, and night shift patrolman for the Pearland Police Department. And I thought I had a full plate.

Brandon is another guest that has a different perspective on public safety drone operations because he has been a manned aircraft pilot since 2006. He worked hard and earned his commercial pilot rating as well as becoming a Certified Flight Instructor for single-engine airplanes, multi-engine airplanes, and trains instrument pilots. That is quite an accomplishment.

But that's not all. Brandon is also the head honcho of the Gulf Coast Regional Public Safety UAS Response Task Force in Texas that is comprised of over 85 agencies and 250 pilots that fly to assist police, fire, or other agencies with natural disasters and major incidents.

In this podcast, we cover a number of topics. Including:

Why it is imperative to maintain VLOS with the Matrice 300 because when the app crashes you are blinded.  

Things manned aircraft pilots can do to share aviation experience with new drone pilots.

Learning from the oh crap moments.

Hard lessons learned from the experience of flying drones in public safety. 

Why you don’t want to have to type the letter, “Dear Chief, nobody was more surprised than I was…”

Why flying outside the regulations can ruin probable cause.

Dealing with counter-UAS operations while on a public safety flight. 

Good flight attitudes to fly with.

How to tell risk from reward when you are asked to fly.

The three skills public safety pilots should learn. 

And much more.

FDNY lieutenant Fred Carlson started as a fireman on Queens Ladder 151 in November 2006 and has risen through the ranks since then. Promoted to lieutenant at the end of 2019 he now serves as in leadership of the FDNY Command Tactical Unit (the drone program).

Fred comes from a family aviation background. His mother and brother both hold Part 61 pilot certificates. His dad, uncle, and cousin served in the Air Force.

Fred and his pilots fly in some of the busiest airspaces in the United States and have found a way to make things work.

The unit Fred is with manages all sorts of robotics from underwater, ground-based, and airborne.

• One thing most new pilots don't know but should.
• How to filter marketing messages from reality.
• Words of wisdom for new departments.
• Thinking about compliance.
• Tethered drone systems and if they are helpful.
• What makes someone a good public safety drone pilot.
• Tips to start a drone program. 
• How to help more people with a flight.
• The Incident Command App that FDNY uses.
• What happens when you put a monitor in front of the Incident Commander to watch a drone feed.
• What the most important skill drone pilots need to develop and it's not flying.
• The role of internal public relations for the drone program.
• How to say it is not safe to fly.
• Why it is important to avoid flying over people and how to get your drone into position.
• Visual Observers are mandatory.
• Integrating manned and unmanned aircraft.
• The challenges of managing the airspace.
• Dealing with news helicopters.
• What is coming to drones in public safety?
• How to avoid mistakes.
• Checklists. 

When it comes to someone with an extensive resume in law enforcement, Tom Madigan has a bio that reads like the book of an expert. His experience runs from find them, catch them, extract them, test them, to lock them up. In other words, patrol, detective, SWAT, crime lab, and corrections. Today we can aviation to that list.

With 25 years under his belt, he has finally landed as the Assistant Sheriff at the Alameda County Sheriff's Office in California. He is responsible for the aviation program that includes a big fleet of drones, pilots, airplanes, and helicopters. Tom is a private pilot and holds a Part 107 certificate.

Assistant Sheriff Madigan has been critically involved in many efforts to integrate drones into public safety. If there is an important group to present to or advise, he's done it.

I invited Tom on to pick his brain about what an exceptional COA flight program looks like in law enforcement so others can follow his lead.

• Doing what you want under a COA as a public safety flight operation.
• Aircraft integration.
• Airspace considerations.
• Not every single person makes a good public safety pilot.
• Checklists.
• Not every flight is smart to do.
• Officers and deputies are flying FAA-recognized aircraft and precautions need to be taken. 
• Using drones as a force multiplier.
• Why buying inexpensive drones makes the most sense right now.
• Look at drones priced so they are disposable and avoid expensive drones right now.
• Using multiple UAS at a scene.
• Drones will not take the jobs of manned pilots.
• Top lessons all departments should know before launching into a UAS program.
• The importance of internal and community PR awareness of your drone program.
• You can pursue Part 107 training and a COA at the same time.

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You can read the show transcript here.