In the last year or so, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), more commonly known as drones, have been in the news. Such aircraft, which do not have a human pilot on board, are controlled by onboard computers or by distant pilots on the ground. The American military has used them in distant wars, for example in Afghanistan, sometimes with unplanned attacks that killed innocent civilians.
At first, the military used UAVs as an effective, difficult-to-detect method to monitor a battlefield without risking the lives of our soldiers. Later, weapons were added to the drones.
So-called “peaceful” uses of drones include inspecting roads and bridges, looking for traffic jams and accidents, even examining the upper atmosphere for changes in the ozone level. Also, drones can look for destructive hogs late at night, enter radiation-filled danger spots after a nuclear accident, search for survivors after a boating accident, even take photos of celebrities (who needs paparazzi anymore?).
When an official at Amazon suggested in 2013 that his company could deliver ordered packages directly to the buyer’s doorstep in a matter of minutes, much discussion was generated about the feasibility and legality of such an operation.
Suppose the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the national aviation authority of the USA, approved drones for commercial use. Think how enterprising fishermen could put those vehicles to work. For example, you could send a freshly caught fish back to your spouse to cook it and have it ready when you arrive home. Talk about a fresh fish ready for the skillet! Or, if you find that you left a favorite lure back home, you could send the drone home to fetch it. The matter to be airlifted (lures, medicine, maps) would probably be stored in an internal payload bay inside the drone, but could be hung/tethered below the aircraft.
Serious anglers could launch a drone to scout out conditions at remote fishing spots to determine the presence of other fishermen, wind conditions, rapids, maybe even the temperature of the water. If you were injured in the field or at sea, maybe you could call back and have some emergency medical supplies quickly airlifted to your boat.
If police in this country can use drones for the scanning of license plates or thermal imaging along our borders for illegal aliens and smugglers, surely we can foresee the day when fishermen will use drones in such “useful” ways as mentioned above. If private groups can use such aircraft for land assessment or the searching for lost animals or the look-out for poachers, enterprising fishermen-types can come up with some other beneficial uses for anglers in the field.
At the moment (2014), you have to have special permission from the FAA to fly a commercial drone in this country. By 2015, who knows? Drones might be a common sight around fishing holes!
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