Twelve seconds and one hundred twenty feet, December 17, 1903. September 23, 2023, Mavic Air 2 drone quickly lifts and hovers, its four propellers spinning, creating a blurred see-through disk. Dustin Jermalowicz, Lansing Community College UAS* instructor, leads his UAS students in manipulating the drone controls to photograph features in minute detail, something that the Wright brothers could not have imagined when their Kitty Hawk Flyer lifted and flew those few hundred feet in 1903.
I signed up for the LCC UAS Flight Orientation class to prepare for the Remote Pilot FAA Knowledge Exam in order to inspect and photograph historic riveted metal truss bridges, to capture those historic bridge connections inaccessible at ground level that may enlighten us about those unknown craftsmen who hand crafted historic iron and steel, an often-unwritten record.
Vern Mesler, 2023
*(Unmanned Aircraft Systems)
