Avalanche control by drone - from Outside Magazine:
The Newest Tool in Avy Control: Bomb-Carrying Drones
In 2010, Jackson Hole ski patroller Mark “Big Wally” Wolling was using hand charges to set off controlled avalanches when the slope above him broke free. He was carried over a cliff, buried, and died three days later.
Though it’s rare for the job to be fatal—since 2009, one ski patroller has died each year in the United States—it’s not uncommon for avalanche-control personnel to be in some precarious situations. Paul Baugher, head of the ski patrol at Crystal Mountain in Washington, has been buried three times. “We do mitigation work with explosives, which have inherent danger, and we do it in bad weather,” says Baugher. “If you can reduce someone’s exposure to dangerous snow conditions, that’s huge.”
In December 2013, ski buddies Brent Holbrook, Warren Linde, Gray Byers, and Robert Blank launched Mountain Drones, based in Telluride, Colorado, to do just that. How? Take the bombs out of the patrollers’ hands, strap them to an octocopter, and let the unmanned craft do the job instead.
A bit more - the drone and its task:
The Prospect has eight 30-inch-long propellers and a seven-foot wingspan. It flies for 45 minutes on one battery and can carry half its weight in dynamite, enough to clear five avalanche paths in one flight.
Here’s how it would work: Instead of spending hours bootpacking to a ridgeline to drop a hand charge, ski patrollers would select a preprogrammed route for the drone to fly and manually drop the charges to clear the slope from a safe distance. Onboard sensors will calculate the snow-water equivalent—a measure of the snowpack’s water content—and depth, allowing patrollers to identify persistent weak layers and breaking points and helping them determine where to make drops.
Still waiting for FAA clearence - flying with explosives is a bit outside their comfort zone. Still, this would make things a lot safer for everyone. Having onboard sensors will make it much more accurate.
The Mountain Drones website can be found here: Mountain Drones
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