CAP Provides sUAS Drone Training to Pennington County

Eleven members of the Pennington County Drone Team received drone training from South Dakota Wing, Civil Air Patrol, on March 20. The Drone team includes representatives of the county search and rescue team and the Rapid City Police Department.

See the KEVN/KOTA BlackHillsFOX
report on the training session

“Students used basic flight skills with drones to take accurate photos of what they were seeing and to maneuver between targets,” said Col. Mike Beason, CAP.

Beason was certified three years ago by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which developed the training curriculum. The NIST goal was to provide consistent training standards for organizations for the use of small uncrewed aerial systems. The training can be used to certify organizations where no standards previously existed.

CAP UAS team members in Rapid City created a set of testing supplies from materials donated by Knecht Ace Hardware. In addition to Beason, four other CAP drone pilots and technicians helped facilitate the training, Lt Col Howard Steiner, Lt Jim Brown, and Lt Byron Aultmann from Rapid City, along with Maj Tim Modde from Custer’s squadron.

South Dakota Wing has been a leader in the national CAP drone program, including the first-ever CAP use of drones on a search and rescue mission and photography of the January B-1 crash site at Ellsworth AFB, which the resulting safety investigation board called "Pivotal" and "Groundbreaking."

South Dakota Wing has been a leader in the national CAP drone program, including the first-ever CAP use of drones on a search and rescue mission and photography of the January B-1 crash site at Ellsworth AFB, which the resulting safety investigation board called "Pivotal" and "Groundbreaking."