Can a drone do your job?

[JerryG]

As an Old F*** in the rotary world and a relative newbie in the drone world I'm struggling to find a rotary task that won't be done by drones before a decade has passed. Any ideas?
Cheers
JerryG

[ShyTorque]

As an Old F*** in the rotary world and a relative newbie in the drone world I'm struggling to find a rotary task that won't be done by drones before a decade has passed. Any ideas?
Cheers
JerryG

Fly the Royal Family.

Or me.

[John Eacott]

Hmmm....


Helitack
AAS
Full offshore SAR (long range including visual search)
Rooftop construction load lifting
Police ASTRO
Scenic flights (seriously, would you carry newbie pax and give a sightseeing commentary?)
ENG including journo & cammo to and from the news site in the middle the GAFA


Probably a few more, and no doubt in ten years these tasks will become redundant due to changing times ;)

[Gordy]

Hmmm....
Helitack


I do not think they can do initial attack and buckets, they could do cargo and mapping.

[hookes_joint]

Drones will have the ability to do all the jobs but the only work they will be allowed do in the commercial world will be the patrol, inspection and aerial photography style work. Nothing with any direct human interaction I imagine.

[Robbiee]

It's not a drone who will take your job, but C-3PO :hmm:

[helihub]

JerryG - I guess it depends on whether you mean unmanned, or fully autonomous.

Full offshore SAR (long range including visual search)
Visual search could be achieved now with drones in swarms

Rooftop construction load lifting
The US military had got KMax drones to the stage of having them approved for cargo lifting to pin-pointed locations in Afghanistan over 7 years ago - see AIN article (https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/2011-03-07/heli-expo-2011-unmanned-k-max-deploying-afghanistan-summer)

Helitack
Gordy See above re US military and apply to firefighting

Summary
Technology is advancing much faster than aviation authorities can develop airspace law to cope

[Gordy]

Gordy See above re US military and apply to firefighting

Summary
Technology is advancing much faster than aviation authorities can develop airspace law to cope
Firefighting is too dynamic....yes they can move cargo, but trying to drop water on a moving fire is a little difficult. I saw the video of the K-Max doing the fire fighting demo in Boise and they missed all 3 water drops, and that was in a flat field let alone a mountainside.

[JerryG]

Helihub - I mean unmanned. So your job may not entirely disappear but it does change significantly.

Shy Torque - Fly the Royal Family - Yes with you on that one for the moment. So we'll count that as one so far.

John Eacott and Gordy - Helitack - Why not? Yes it's dynamic but why can't John fly his spotter drone that "designates" the target drop point, right up until the moment of drop, while Gordy monitors his automated water-carrying drone?

Helihub - "Long range swarms for SAR visual search" - Yes, plus thermal IR of course.

Hookes_Joint - "Nothing with any direct human interaction" - Just about every major manufacturer has a human carrying and fully autonomous flying machine that's already left the drawing board.

So let's widen the question to what job and why?

I'm not advocating for all or any of this, I'm just highlighting the fact that the freight train is coming down the tracks SO much quicker than we dare imagine. And BTW it's sometimes a secondary effect. I chaired the Commercial UAV conference in London in November and shared the stage with a senior guy from BP who publicly announced that their declared aim is to make some of their rigs virtually unmanned within two years. That means no helicopters required to carry people backwards and forwards. You can't ignore economics like that.

[megan]

Some unkind folk might suggest drone's have been on the scene for quite some time.drone[drohn]NOUN1. the male of the honeybee and other bees, stingless and making no honey.2. a person who lives on the labor of others; parasitic loafer.3. a drudge.

[Gordy]

John Eacott and Gordy - Helitack - Why not? Yes it's dynamic but why can't John fly his spotter drone that "designates" the target drop point, right up until the moment of drop, while Gordy monitors his automated water-carrying drone?


I said thy could do mapping, cargo and spotting, but NOT water drops. The flames are just too dynamic for that at this stage.

[Cyclic Hotline]

I beg to differ.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/news/a17879/k-max-unmanned-helicopter-firefighting-demo/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=38&v=ZZQlPu-Dqb0

[Helisweet]

Unmanned needs a big ground crew, it is cheaper a mannned aircraft today, but in 15/20 years we will see the unmanned revolution everywhere.

[Nubian]

I beg to differ.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/news/a17879/k-max-unmanned-helicopter-firefighting-demo/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=38&v=ZZQlPu-Dqb0

A video of a TEST of a bambi-bucket, not even with any flames and surely no water hitting a visible target??? Try again.... THAT is what Gordy is talking about when he refer to fires being dynamic. He also mentioned being present at at demo WITH flames, where they missed all the attempts on flat grounds...

Now, power line construction where everything from foundation work up to finishing stringing works with people, not robots on the ground/in the towers, I'd say none will be accepting to work under heavy lift drones for a very long time if ever due to the same reasons.

[SuperF]

Agricultural work, around stock. Good luck getting a drone to do that, faster and cheaper than a human.

fire fighting, actual bucketing, not going to happen, simply because the drones/kmax costs so much more than a human doing the work.

Maybe you will will tell me it’s not all about money, but for farmers, price and reliability of service, along with not hurting their hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of stock are all important.

on firefighting, as Gordy said, they cannot hit a target on a flat paddock on a calm day, not sure how they will handle picking the target, which changes every time, then hitting it in swirling winds on a hillside. Often the best view of what to hit is by the guy closest, so that means the computer has to find the target, then decide which is the best to hit then actually hit it. Good luck

[SuperF]

Just thought of another one.

Trains, they only deal in one dimension forward and reverse. Do they still have drivers??

cars, forward reverse, left and right, driverless yet?

aeroplanes, runway to runway, programmed routes in the sky, surely they can that without pilots,

and you you think that the first thing to go driverless will be helicopters, which take off and land at in planned, unsurveyed places, doing often unplanned operations onto moving targets is what we should worry about.

i will start thinking about it when my car can drive me to the pub, wait for me while I have a few, then safely deliver me home again.

[Fareastdriver]

When something goes wrong who are they going to blame if there isn't a pilot?

[Jeffory]

The future has a tendency to be less ground-breaking than initially perceived. Has always been the case.

Also, most fire fighting aircraft are old gear, so who's going to front up with the capital to buy shiny new machines with all this tech to save nothing more than a pilots wage, but likely add a technicians wage in the process? Still flying 50+ year old airframes on fire grounds with excellent results.

Passengers on board? Not likely. How will you ever place fault on anyone if lives are lost?

Some jobs will disappear if the price point is right, but hardly worth getting worked up about. The boom and bust nature of the industry as a whole is enough to deter an operator from investing in the technology in the first place.

[Bravo73]

aeroplanes, runway to runway, programmed routes in the sky, surely they can that without pilots,

Don’t forget about the old joke about the airline crew of the future: it will consist of one man/woman and one dog. The ‘pilot’ is there to feed the dog and the dog is there to bite the pilot in case they try to touch a control.

[Gordy]

I beg to differ.

https://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/news/a17879/k-max-unmanned-helicopter-firefighting-demo/


Ha....you make me laugh....you see the flames in that video ONE time, in a flat meadow and they missed, they over shot. Then no more flames. On flat ground you can catch fire with dozers and do not even need a helicopter.

his is the demo I was talking about. It was conducted on the Boise National Forest about 2 years ago I believe. They had the press about a mile away---that is the video you see. The Boise Helitack personnel were the 2 people up closer to the flames---friends of mine. So yeah, dropping water on a moving fire in the mountains not going to happen anytime soon.

[megan]

Japanese farms are of small acreage and they have been using RC helos for some time crop spraying. A well developed industry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thmzXw-1KKY

[helihub]

SuperF
Agricultural work, around stock. Good luck getting a drone to do that, faster and cheaper than a human
I don't think we are necessarily talking faster or cheaper, but the preservation of human life is obviously key in the world of cattle mustering. Drones are expendable, pilots are not

Trains, they only deal in one dimension forward and reverse. Do they still have drivers??
example - Driverless trains have been around since 1987 in London (Docklands Light Railway)

cars, forward reverse, left and right, driverless yet?
example - Tesla can do full autonomous driving (and a contact of mine has validated the technology on the M25 near Heathrow!). Cars are very well advanced in autonomy - my own car reads the speed limit off the signposts and shows the current limit in the corner of my digital dashboard, and it has an AmazonAlexa style voice command system so I am 100% hands on the steering wheel.

aeroplanes, runway to runway, programmed routes in the sky, surely they can that without pilots,
example, MQ-9 Reaper in the USAF. Civvy flying held back by public perception and regulations

unplanned operations onto moving targets is what we should worry about.
I suspect this just needs to be demonstrated. If a robot can Find Waldo ("Find Wally" in some countries) then it's possible to follow a fire.
Check this

i will start thinking about it when my car can drive me to the pub, wait for me while I have a few, then safely deliver me home again.
Only the regulations stand in the way. The technology is here now

Here are a few other examples of drone technology already in use where it may have been done by other modes of transport in the past

Crop surveying (https://nimbus.unl.edu/projects/crop-surveying-using-aerial-robots/)
Blood delivery to hospitals (https://flyzipline.com/about/) (with Rwanda leading the way with fixed-wing drones)
Powerline survey, LiDAR etc (https://www.skyrevolutions.co.uk/Drone-Surveys.html)
.
JerryG - Given your film flying experience, what's your estimate for the % of helicopter film flying already lost to drones being used?

the freight train is coming down the tracks SO much quicker than we dare imagine
I'm right with you, and I'm surprised at the ostriches here. As with my last contribution on this thread, my closing note was.... "Technology is advancing much faster than aviation authorities can develop airspace law to cope"

[edited to tidy up the way the YouTube video showed up!]

[Robbiee]

Eventually the only helicopter pilots left will be hobbyist pulling their old, beat up, self maintained Robbies out of the garage for a weekend joyride. :{ :8

[Non-PC Plod]

Apparently my job as a trainer is "ticking boxes" according to my erudite boss. Therefore, I am sure a drone, robot, or chimpanzee could probably do it.
#Feeling Valued

[GrayHorizonsHeli]

I'm convinced some tasks will be easily taken over by drones.
m not so worried yet, as itll still be a slow process to implement all of the safely and efficiently.
but to all those making these things can there be a nagging voice, after every flight, just complaining about stuff. Pump it over a loudhailer if possible.
I'm not sure I can start work until I've been thoroughly nagged about little things.

[JerryG]

I'm totally with you Helihub.

Given the pace at which the law moves it's interesting that SELF regulation from within the drone industry, by virtue of that same technology, often appears to be the answer. By that I mean that Gatwick initiated a lot of head scratching about regulations and anti-drone measures - meanwhile the manufacturer with over 80% of the world market (DJI - Chinese - first time I've seen original technology coming from there, but that's a whole other discussion) has already initiated geo-fencing in their products. BTW that's an immediate retrofit to all their products out there; you can't fly unless you've upgraded.

Ref Given your film flying experience, what's your estimate for the % of helicopter film flying already lost to drones being used?
If I was being conservative I'd say 50% but it's probably more than that in the last three years. Once again there's a secondary effect happening. Just for one simple example it used to be that a newspaper or TV station would hire a helicopter to capture a major road-crash, flood, or other newsworthy disaster but why do that if a local citizen has already offered photos or video of the scene that's been captured from his drone?

So far I agree with "Carrying the Royal Family" (somewhat tongue-in-cheek!) and I can see the argument for bucketing over fires (except you can buy an awful lot of expendable drones for the cost of the Skycrane currently languishing in a Victorian dam!). But I haven't yet seen any other tasks in this thread that are currently manned and unlikely to be impacted by drones.

Jeffory, ref Some jobs will disappear if the price point is right, but hardly worth getting worked up about.
I think you just won the ostrich prize of the month!