Commonwealth Drone Partnership's Podcast

Lee is a Station Commander and the Drone Project Lead for the London Fire Brigade, responsible for the growth and expansion of the drone programme. He has served in LFB for 24 years and is currently based in Brigade HQ on the Operational Assurance and Policy team.

In our latest CDP podcast we explore the role that drones, AI driven software and data integration are playing in fire fighting missions.   Pegasus CEO, Cole Rosentreter talks us through the critical nature of the ignition to detection window in fire fighting and how multiple drones on a range of concurrent missions can offer a scaled up network effect to provide timely information to fire fighters.  The podcast also touches on levels of safety standards, the overlap with manned aviation and ongoing public-private collaboration. 

Andrew explains the role of the Connected Places Catapult and its focus on Cities, Transport and Places.  He explores their close collaboration with the Department for Transport, BEIS and the CAA and discusses the Drone Pathfinder Programme, public engagement  and real world demonstrations.  Seeking to overcome technical, operational and commercial barriers to successful BVLOS flights in non-segregated airspace, Connected Places regularly convenes conversations between the public / private sector and local / central government.  The podcast also touches on successful Australian / Canadian models, counter-drone technology and drone cyber security. 

As the Commonwealth’s most populous country embraces the wide use of drones, we discuss India’s UAS journey.  Discussing practical drone applications, Smit also justifies the need for sophisticated counter drone technology in the context of the recent attack on Jammu airbase. He also walks us through the development of India’s domestic drone manufacturing capability in the context of growing geopolitical tensions with China.

In this hugely informative podcast episode we speak to Chief Charles Werner, Founder of Drone Responders, Police Officer Brandon Karr and Esri Director, Mike Cox. They explain the DR model with its 4400 members spanning 49 countries and walk us through their resource centre of lessons learnt and best practice policies as well as the DR Public Safety Drone Directory. The conversation also covers Esri geospatial imagery and workflows in wildfire scenarios, regulatory challenges and collaboration across multiple first responder agencies. 

In this episode, we explore the phenomenal growth of the Drone Racing League (DRL) over the last 5 years, touching on celebrity pilots, loyal fans and virtual simulators. Ashley tells us how the DRL harnessed its innovative spirit in adapting to the pandemic and how drone racing is growing out the sport at the grassroots level. 

In this episode we explore the Canadian Advanced Air Mobility Consortium and their focus on sustainably transporting people, goods and services within the framework of net zero emissions. JR talks us through Toronto and Vancouver case studies and  highlights the Federal, Provincial and Municipal cooperation which makes Canada an ideal ecosystem to prove new aviation solutions.  We also touch on dark skies, a social licence to operate and the  future delivery of a cancer isotope across land and water. 

An insightful look at Innovate UK's Future Flight Challenge with Simon Masters, exploring their funding mechanism and collaboration with industry, existing projects, major growth in health / NHS related drone collaboration and much more, including further funding later this year. 

During this episode, we discuss Swoop Aero's impact work in Africa and beyond as one of the global leaders in  drone health logistics.  Eric talks us through operational practice and safety, regulatory engagement, cybersecurity and more as the company embarks on new challenges in the UK and Australia. 

During this episode, we explore TEKTowr’s latest funding from UK Future Flight and their work on creating an aviation data system-of-systems (Fly2Plan) and a simulation as a service platform to support airspace design and collaboration (SMARTER).