2 hours after posting this, I now have a fleet of 20+ drone operators with gear at the ready. Fixed wing, multicopters, and hopefully a few FLIR cameras in the mix.
Waiting for Justin Samenfeld to get back to me in the morning. He's burning $3k an hour on helicopters. :/
I don't know how helpful this would be for the current situation, given that the California pilots seem not to be at all close by (at least the cities I recognize), though perhaps the list is worth a look:
UPDATE: The missing couple has been found alive near the Mexican border! Thank you for all of the help and thank you to the drone pilots who volunteered.
They've been missing since Monday. Dehydration and exposure, combined with poor wilderness survival skills, should be taking their toll right about now. Time is, unfortunately, running out.
People can survive for about 3-5 days without water. If they weren't travelling with water they are probably close to the upper bound of this. Its entirely credible.
I was looking into PLBs earlier this evening, for obvious reasons and, since the topic was mentioned here, and since this might be helpful to people, I'll describe something notable I found.
On a site called outdoorgearlab.com, which has reviews of a number of units, one stood out in particular for being simple, well-reviewed (there and elsewhere) and relatively inexpensive.
The ACR ResQlink 406 Personal Locator Beacon, reviewed here [0], is around $250-$300, has a 5-year battery and doesn't require any subscription/data-plan, like some units that can send msgs do -- it just reliably sends S.O.S. messages to the relevant satellites in orbit (and it will send such messages at 5 watts, which is around 2.5 - 12x the power used by some other units -- helpful when sending data to a satellite).
There's a ResQlink+ model now too -- it's buoyant (the ResQlink is not) so it floats (but doesn't come w/a case, from what I read and is about 20 grams heavier).
[+] [-] emblem21|9 years ago|reply
Waiting for Justin Samenfeld to get back to me in the morning. He's burning $3k an hour on helicopters. :/
[+] [-] qohen|9 years ago|reply
BTW, it turns out there's a registry of volunteer drone pilots for doing SAR (search-and-rescue) called SWARM, whose website is this:
http://sardrones.org/
I don't know how helpful this would be for the current situation, given that the California pilots seem not to be at all close by (at least the cities I recognize), though perhaps the list is worth a look:
http://sardrones.org/search-and-rescue-drones/sar-drones-wor...
(There's also a guide for volunteer pilots on procedures that might be helpful:
http://sardrones.org/swarm-standard-operating-procedure-sop/ )
[+] [-] emblem21|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] msbot|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] x1798DE|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] emblem21|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] legostormtroopr|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChoGGi|9 years ago|reply
Edit: just wanted to also mention you can rent PLBs (personal locator beacon).
[+] [-] qohen|9 years ago|reply
On a site called outdoorgearlab.com, which has reviews of a number of units, one stood out in particular for being simple, well-reviewed (there and elsewhere) and relatively inexpensive.
The ACR ResQlink 406 Personal Locator Beacon, reviewed here [0], is around $250-$300, has a 5-year battery and doesn't require any subscription/data-plan, like some units that can send msgs do -- it just reliably sends S.O.S. messages to the relevant satellites in orbit (and it will send such messages at 5 watts, which is around 2.5 - 12x the power used by some other units -- helpful when sending data to a satellite).
There's a ResQlink+ model now too -- it's buoyant (the ResQlink is not) so it floats (but doesn't come w/a case, from what I read and is about 20 grams heavier).
[0] http://www.outdoorgearlab.com/Personal-Locator-Beacon-Review...
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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