ISight’s North Dakota BVLOS Approval Will Allow Company to Expand Operations: How it Works

BVLOS Waiver Enables ISight to Expand Drone Operations Statewide in North Dakota

By DRONELIFE Features Editor Jim Magill

Doug McDonald, flight operations manager at ISight Drone Services, said a recent waiver the company received to allow it to fly beyond the visual line of sight would enable the operator to expand its operations across a large swath of its home state of North Dakota.

“The lion’s share of our work truly is just kind of elevator-ride stuff, wind blades and cell towers and utility poles,” McDonald said. “But I think with this BVLOS waiver and some advancements in some of the sensor technology, we’ll start to be able to do things like utility poles and lines that would give us economies of scale.”

ISight announced on August 8 that it had received its BVLOS waiver through the FAA’s Near-Term Approval Process (NTAP). ISight said it was one of the first operators to secure BVLOS approval under NTAP, a process that assures enhanced reliability and quicker approval pathways that ensure efficient operations up to 400 feet.

The company secured that waiver thanks to the operation of Vantis, the North Dakota’s statewide detect-and-avoid network, the first of its kind in the nation.

McDonald said the waiver would allow the company to fly its electric vertical takeoff and landing (EVTOL) Super Bolo aircraft anywhere in the state covered by the Vantis network.  Previously, ISight, a provider of drone services to the agricultural, critical infrastructure, wildlife management and insurance industries, had been limited under Part 107 to flying within the line of sight of a ground observer, or within a diameter of about three miles.

“Now we have the ability with this NTAP waiver to utilize the Vantis infrastructure to fly virtually any time and anywhere where there’s coverage,” he said.

Currently the Vantis system, which was developed by the Northern Plains UAS Test Site (NPUASTS), is largely concentrated in the sparsely populated western region of the state. “That’s where we got our testing done and our approval by the FAA, was out west,” McDonald said. He estimated that the network of radars and sensors provides coverage to about 3,000 square miles of the state.

“As the infrastructure gets developed and they start capitalizing on some of the radars and whatnot in the eastern part of the state, that network is going to grow. I think the intent is to have kind of a network that covers the whole state, capitalizing on different existing radars.”

McDonald said the company’s initial focus on seeking the BVLOS waiver was in order to allow it to perform inspections along gravel roads used by trucks to carry oil from the state’s prodigious Bakken Shale formation.

“When trucks are driving on these gravel roads, all it’s good, until they have a heavy rain event. Then they slowly get stuck, and they tear up the roads, and it’s a major problem for the counties who have to fix it,” he said. “So, the intent is to fly and inspect those roads, and to shut off as few as possible to: one guarantee that their trucks keep rolling, and two that they don’t tear up the road.”

Ultimately, the BVLOS waiver, which will enable ISight to conduct longer-distant flights, will open the door to expand into other drone applications, such as the delivery of medical supplies to remote parts of the state.

“Once we do some initial flights, the main flight will be straight west to Devil’s Lake,” McDonald said. Located about 90 miles west of ISight’s base in Grand Forks, Devil’s Lake is home to the tribal entity, Spirit Lake Nation.

The Native group suffers from high levels of diabetes, so there is a critical need for the medications and equipment needed to treat that disease. Delivering medical supplies to the community via drone offers a possible solution, “rather than having tribal members have to drive all the way to Grand Forks,” McDonald said.

The Super Bolo, which has a capability of accommodating a five-and-a-half-hour trip could easily be configured to accommodate such long round-trip flights, he said.

After we do some of our initial research and development, we can we do it,” he said. “That flight will become a reality within the next year or two. We’re very excited about it.”

The Super Bolo is a hybrid gas and electric aerial vehicle, with battery-powered vertical take offs and landings. Once aloft, the aircraft switches to gas-power for vertical flight.

“The interesting thing is that once it goes into the gas portion, when it goes forward flight, it’s actually recharging the electric batteries for the VTOL,” McDonald said. “The beauty of it is we can take off from virtually anywhere where we want, and land anywhere where we want.

McDonald also commented on an agreement that ISight recently signed with Altru Health System, one of the state’s largest medical providers, to explore the possibility of deploying drones to fly between Altru’s facilities to deliver medical supplies.

That deal, still in its formative stages, could involve drone flights as short as a few city blocks to as far as 40 miles when traveling to some of the health system’s more remote affiliated facilities, McDonald said. While those shorter intra-city flights will not require the use of the BVLOS waiver, they will require some FAA approvals.

“We’re going to be flying over people, we’re going to be flying over cars,” he said.

Read more:

• Event 38 Drone Secures BVLOS Waiver for Pipeline Inspection
• FAA Progress on BVLOS Rules and Advanced Air Mobility Integration
• FAA Grants Historic BVLOS Approval for Multiple Operators in DFW Area

Jim Magill is a Houston-based writer with almost a quarter-century of experience covering technical and economic developments in the oil and gas industry. After retiring in December 2019 as a senior editor with S&P Global Platts, Jim began writing about emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence, robots and drones, and the ways in which they’re contributing to our society. In addition to DroneLife, Jim is a contributor to Forbes.com and his work has appeared in the Houston Chronicle, U.S. News & World Report, and Unmanned Systems, a publication of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International.