Dear Editor,

I was watching TVJ news on April 25, 2015 and saw the drones [Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)] that are to be deployed to patrol the waters of Jamaica. My experience in flying radio-controlled airplanes has spanned from the mid 1970s to the present, and I have seen the amazing developments in the field, where even today at our flying field at the Caymanas Polo Field, club members are flying what are now classified as drones.

The drone shown was an electric motor-powered, had a styrofoam flying wing — which is quite slow — and can fly for about 15 minutes or so. I think that such an aircraft is inappropriate for the high winds in the area, as we frequently see on the nightly weather report wind speeds at the Pedro Banks of 20 knots and sometimes more.

In high-wind periods, the drone would have to run at almost maximum throttle to fly into the wind, rapidly depleting its batteries, and greatly reducing the range and time it can actually patrol our seas before going back to its base to have its batteries recharged or replaced.

Also, I tend to doubt that it has night vision capability, because of its obvious size and light weight, hence it would not be able to fly and be recovered at night when poachers are most likely to encroach on our waters.

I would recommend a longer range, faster, probably gasoline-powered aircraft with the ability fly for a couple hours and to power and carry the longer range transmitters and receivers for the video signals, night vision, remote control, and programmed GPS way-point flight; and night-time recovery (probably flying it into a vertical net).

The slow, short-range drone shown on TVJ is OK as a start for daytime patrolling of a small area, but not for really suitable for effective patrolling of our offshore economic zone and search and rescue operations.

Howard Chin, PE

Member, Jamaica Institution of Engineers

hmc14@cwjamaica.com