Jun. 9—A southeast Oklahoma tribe made its first public beyond-the-visual-line-of-sight drone flight Friday to highlight the latest advancements in its program.
Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma hosted a crowd of about 100 state and tribal officials at an event where Chief Gary Batton said the tribe's drone program could lead to more manufacturing jobs within the reservation.
"We believe we have smart young people here that's going to lead and help grow our state of Oklahoma and become the number one state in America," Batton said.
The nearly 20-minute flight took a custom-built drone six miles away from where it was launched and was flown through the use of video feed and other electronic guidance.
Beyond visual line of sight, known as BVLOS, refers to operations where the pilot responsible for the drone can't physically see it during some or all of its flight. Regulations state a drone pilot, or an observer, must keep the drone within physical line of sight during all times of operation.
The Federal Aviation Administration in January gave the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma's BEYOND program approval to conduct BVLOS flights within the tribe's Emerging Aviation Technology Center's test range between Stringtown and Daisy on State Highway 43.
Tribal officials said Friday that it expanded with several drone programs in recent years and now partners with eight high schools with aviation programs.
More than 44,000 acres of land within its Daisy Ranch was set aside by the tribe for the EATC testbed.
"We have one of the largest areas in the country now," said James Grimsley, the tribe's executive director of Advanced Technology Initiatives. "The FAA gave us a nine-mile by four-mile area for our regular operations."
The Choctaw Nation was the only tribal nation selected to participate in the FAA's initial Integrated Pilot Program for unmanned aircraft systems in 2017 before becoming the only tribal nation to lead the BEYOND Program.
Operations at the EATC focus on BVLOS operations for package delivery.
Grimsley said the tribe and its partners are focusing on moving things around as it will become important for business development in the future and that U.S. Highway 69 in the future could become a "multimodal freight corridor" to include drone flights and the existing rail, air, and trucking infrastructure along the highway.
Grimsley said the most important thing to come from the addition of the EATC and the use of drone technology within the reservation is that it will lead to more children in the area becoming engineers through the tours of the test center and partnerships with area schools.
"What we're doing here, we want a workforce 15-20 years from now, and whether they come back here to work or not, their lives will still be better, they are going to have a lot more opportunities," Grimsley said. "So, we see that as a very important investment."
Oklahoma Speaker of the House Charles McCall attended the Friday event and said the state government works well with Choctaw Nation.
McCall is the Republican representative from Atoka and represents House District 22 where the EATC is located, and said the tribe is a large part to the investment of southeast Oklahoma.
"We enjoy a great partnership," McCall said. "These partnerships between the state and the Choctaw Nation on projects similar to this are so critically important to the future of our state and we have to be mindful that when we embrace one another and we work together, we are really able to make big strides forward."
Next for the tribe and its partners are BVLOS flights between Coalgate and Atoka and Atoka to McAlester that could happen as soon as this summer.
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