Unlocking Remote Operations: Pasco County Sheriff's Office Milestone

Waiver Watch! The Pasco County Sheriff's Office in Florida has received FAA approval for a Part107 waiver to conduct remote #drone operations without the need for visual observers. This is the first time such a waiver has been granted for public safety, allowing the department to operate drones remotely up to 200 feet AGL or within 50 feet of structures using only ADS-B technology for airspace awareness.

This significant achievement enhances the safety and efficiency of public safety operations. Pasco County will initially use this capability for training and emergency response within school properties. The approval paves the way for broader Drone as First Responder (DFR) applications once Skydio’s parachute attachment for the X10 drone becomes available later this year.

Skydio has been at the forefront of integrating ADS-B into its Remote Flight Deck, enabling real-time air traffic awareness for drone operators. This milestone for Pasco County signifies a major advancement in public safety drone operations, setting a new standard for other departments nationwide.

hey everyone Jakee Stoltz here with the Skydio regulatory team I've got an exciting regulatory update to share in the public safety space so earlier this month Pasco County Sheriff's Office in Florida received a part 107 waiver to conduct remote operations without visual observers now we've been unlocking remote apps without VO's for some time now with commercial customers but this approval represents the first time for Public Safety where Pasco County is now able to operate remotely without visual observers without any flight CR site up to 200t AGL or within 50 ft of structures and importantly just with ADS-B technology so no other additional airspace awareness technology is required so let's talk a little bit about that safety case and when we talk safety case we always talk about air and ground risk and usually the multiple layers in each one of those so for air risk Pasco County is located in a Mode C veil of Tampa International Airport and in this area aircraft are required to broadcast ADS-B out unless they've received permission from the fa to fly without it and over a year ago now Skydio began integrating ADS-B into remote flight deck and this integration makes it really easy for pilots and operators to see where these aircraft are operating at in real time and then if necessary they're able to make decisions and give right away to those aircraft and as I said there's layers so in addition to adsb technology the operations are also conducted at lower altitudes it's within 200t AGL or within 50 ft of structures and so operating at a bit lower altitudes gives a little more buffer between the Drone operations and the lowest altitudes where crude aircraft typically Operate Now ground risk that's managed by operating at Pasco County Sheriff's Office first facility as well as Pasco County Schools so operations initially will be used for things like training and responding to events Within School properties but we expect that as our parachute attachment for X10 starts shipping later this year Pasco County will be able to expand this waiver into a full Drone as First Responder approval or DFR if you want to learn more about this regulatory strategy you can watch a pre-recorded video now of a June 13th webinar where I explained our regulatory approach to unlocking DFR operations at scale but for now we want to give a congratulations to Pasco County Sheriff's Office in reaching this no visual Observer Milestone we're really excited for the impact this approval will have in Pasco County but also what it represents for Public Safety more broadly as we get closer and closer to unlocking Drone as First Responder without VO's at scale so that's all I have for now we'll see you next time and fly safe