Scotland rescue group adds DJI FPV drone to its search toolbox

Use of first-person view (FPV) drones has been described as providing a thrilling new perspective all UAV pilots should experience – as well as being an essential tool for many professional filmmakers. Now the Galloway Mountain Rescue Team is finding another use for its new DJI Avata craft: saving people lost or otherwise missing in the vast wilds of Scotland.

DroneDJ has written before on search and rescue organizations in Scotland using drones to locate people who’ve wandered off or gotten stuck in the beautiful, yet often treacherous terrain of the country’s Highlands. Now the Galloway Mountain Rescue Team is putting a different spin on the aerial helping hand it provides stray hikers with deployment of its new DJI Avata FPV craft, which can take its pilots down into the nooks and crannies of inspected areas.

Covering the southwest region of Scotland since its 1975 founding, the Galloway Mountain Rescue Team added drones to its tool kit a few years back. It’s now expanding it again with the close FPV looks and high maneuverability its DJI Avata drone will provide – both proving and extending the organization’s range of searches and rescue operations.

The unit is clearly excited to get to work with the new addition, held back only by – in what will come as something less than a shock to anybody who has visited the otherwise marvelous nation – the lousy conditions that have engulfed Scotland of late.

“The respite from the recent weather has allowed Galloway Mountain Rescue Team to test our new DJI Avata drone that was delivered by Edinburgh drone company on Christmas Eve,” the public service group reports. “We hope to use it in more complex searches – water/rope rescue, gullies, and areas which access can be difficult.”

The new, and-you-are-there FPV drone asset will be used in Galloway Mountain Rescue Team’s regular work bailing out errant hikers in Scotland’s Dumfries, Galloway, and South Ayrshire regions. But as an on-call member of the nation’s Search & Rescue Aerial Association (SARAA) it will also deploy the new DJI Avata anywhere alerts are sounded over people missing in the nation’s wilds.

“The team is growing in strength, and we now fly four drones, with nine qualified pilots throughout the country,” Galloway Mountain Rescue Team said in announcing the first DJI Avata flights, andtheir expected FPV contributions to finding lost walkers. “All of our pilots are longstanding members of Scottish Mountain Rescue Teams and SARAA hope to continue developing this new and existing asset within Scottish Mountain Rescue.”

Image: Reuben Teo/Unsplash