sUAS

During the recent AE weekend in Onida, 14 cadets from six SD Wing squadrons earned their Cadet sUAS badges. 

South Dakota Wing, CAP, has been assigned the newest Uncrewed Aerial System (UAS or drone) by CAP’s National Headquarters. The X10D is the latest military-grade UAS produced by Skydio, a US based company. It has the most advanced IR camera on the market today and the company boasts that the color camera will zoom to 160 times a normal image.

FEMA praised SD Wing for the quality of its drone photography after responding to a call for aerial imaging after deadly tornados in Iowa in May. Iowa Wing requested support from the South Dakota drone (UAS) team. A FEMA official said the Wingtra results were the best UAS imagery they've ever seen from Civil Air Patrol, yielding a resolution of less than two inches per photo pixel.

C/CMSgt Jordan Weiand became the first South Dakota Wing cadet to earn the technician rating for CAP’s Uncrewed Aerial Systems, known informally as drones. She is among only 13 members currently certified UAS technicians in South Dakota Wing.

CAP’s South Dakota Wing B-1B Lancer crash photography mission was “pivotal” and “groundbreaking,” according to the president of the Air Force Safety Investigation board studying the mishap.

Civil Air Patrol’s South Dakota Wing flew aircraft and drone photography surveys over Ellsworth Air Force Base to document the scene where a B-1 crashed on Jan. 4. Acting in its role as the auxiliary of the Air Force, Civil Air Patrol was tasked by the Air Force Interim Safety Board to fly photography surveys around the area of the crash, which happened as the bomber was attempting to land.

CAP members from around the state participated in a training exercise in Pierre. The mission included air visual and electronic (ELT) search, aircraft to ground team communication, and unmanned photography drone 3D building mapping.

Col. Mike Beason, South Dakota Wing Civil Air Patrol (CAP), was invited to be a member of the first national training class for a new category of photography drone aircraft. CAP uses drones, formally known as small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS), for aerial mapping, damage assessment, and missing person searches. CAP’s new hybrid drones take off and land vertically, like a rotary UAS, but fly like a fixed-wing UAS.

Maj. E.W. Filler, of Big Sioux Composite Squadron, spent two weeks at Nellis AFB in Nevada this month, helping active-duty Air Force personnel train for use of remote-sensing drones.

Two South Dakota Wing members attended CAPs National Emergency Services Academy (NESA) in Indiana for two weeks in June. Both worked with CAP’s small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS), commonly called drones.