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Civil Defence volunteers receive drone licenses, will help find missing people

There are 20 drones available throughout the country.

E03F4408-CA92-478F-AF47-CC27A7BA2BCF Civil Defence volunteer Patrice Doyle, from Louth, with Defence Minister Paul Kehoe. Rossiter Photography Rossiter Photography

DOZENS OF CIVIL Defence volunteers received their drone licenses today.

Forty-three volunteers recently completed a drone pilot training programme, meaning the Civil Defence now has 60 trained pilots

There are 20 drones available throughout the country, in each Major Emergency Management region. The drones are used for a number of reasons but primarily to help gardaí locate missing people.

The Civil Defence is on call 24/7 to deliver an aerial search capability to An Garda Siochána in such cases.

This service has been enhanced in the last 12 months to carry thermal imaging cameras so as to carry out effective searches at nighttime.

The service is also used to assist the County Fire and Rescue Services to carry out rapid assessment of wildland fires in inaccessible areas.

SUA Pilot Competency Certs award cermony One of the drones. Rossiter Photography Rossiter Photography

Speaking at the ceremony in Dublin’s Phoenix Park today, Defence Minister Paul Kehoe said the Civil Defence “has never been afraid to change and has continued to thrive with the major transformations that have taken place down through the years”.

“That success is very much to the credit of everybody assembled here today and in particular to the volunteers who give of their time and expertise,” he added.

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13 Comments
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    Mute John
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    Nov 25th 2018, 5:42 PM

    Why don’t the Gardaí have this capability rather than a volunteer organisation?

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    Mute Kinsaleable
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    Nov 25th 2018, 5:46 PM

    @John: they tried but someone mentioned GDPR and data protection.

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    Mute Link
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    Nov 25th 2018, 8:51 PM

    @John: During a missing person search, you’d be surprised how much is outsourced to voluntary organisations. Mainly due to the fact that they’re very labour intensive and it keeps Gardai free for their frontline roles, also the infrastructure that CD in particular have is top notch and allows for seamless intra-organisation communication.

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    Mute Roger Camp
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    Nov 27th 2018, 7:48 PM

    @John: cos theyre too dim to pilot somoethig. Like these high powered things

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    Mute Liam Carlin
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    Nov 25th 2018, 6:19 PM

    You need a drone license?

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    Mute Vocal Outrage
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    Nov 25th 2018, 6:50 PM

    @Liam Carlin: yes, unless you are operating a drone of less than 1kg in Uncontrolled Airspace, below 400ft, in visual flight rules, line of sight, but not further than 300m away, and not over or within 30m of people or vehicles and within a flight area you can control, nor over urban areas. For everything else you need a license, its actualkt quite strict but many flout the rules.
    check out https://www.iaa.ie/general-aviation/drones/drone-regulations-guidance

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    Mute John P
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    Nov 26th 2018, 11:21 AM

    @Vocal Outrage: where’s a good place to do training?

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    Mute Alan Conroy
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    Nov 25th 2018, 11:51 PM

    Paul Kehoe isn’t the defence minister, Leo is. Paul is a junior minister, very very junior.

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    Mute Chief
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    Nov 25th 2018, 6:12 PM

    Couple of questions for ye folks.

    1. What’s the flight time on that type of drone?

    2. Anyone know the make & model of the car/jeep in the background?

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    Mute Shane Halpin
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    Nov 25th 2018, 6:17 PM

    @Chief: the 4×4 is a land rover discovery, the drones we use are DJI inspire, Yuneec typhoon and DJI matrice drones, so all spec can be found on their websites

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    Mute Chief
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    Nov 25th 2018, 6:54 PM

    @Shane Halpin: thanks Shane. Reason I asked about the land rover was I did a reverse image search on the drone picture and Google came back with ford escape hybrid as the result. Though it was impressive seen as the image only shows a vehicle wheel. On the drones,, I had a phantom 1, 3 and 4 myself for a while max flight time about 24 minutes, looks like that one in the image after I looked it up does around 37.

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    Mute John Carolan
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    Nov 25th 2018, 7:14 PM

    @Chief: I’m guessing google picked up the outline of the landrover badge, it’s the same shape as the ford badge…

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    Mute Daniel Donovan
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    Nov 26th 2018, 6:47 PM

    Another way to spy on us stupid sheep.

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