A collaborative mindset
At first, the biggest challenge was trusting the technology. “On the manned-aircraft side, they tell you ‘Don’t trust the automation,’” Wischnewsky says. The Dallas–Fort Worth area, though, is a testing ground for unmanned aircraft systems traffic management (UTM), a network that allows autonomous drones from FlyTrex and its competitors to share their coordinates in real time to help avoid collisions even beyond the pilot’s line of sight. Once Wischnewsky makes sure a drone is flight-ready, its path is unimpeded, and the weather conditions are clear, UTM takes care of the rest.
Ability to stay calm under pressure
At his busiest, Wischnewsky will have up to 10 drones on his watch at the same time. “You’re there as a safety net,” he says. Even with automation, keen situational awareness is required, and the most common hazard is the weather. Wischnewsky recalls a particularly stressful day: A drone had been in the air for only seconds when the wind picked up so suddenly that he had to intervene. He returned it safely, preventing an errant ice cream cake from hitting the sidewalk.
Eamon Whalen is a reporter and researcher based in San Francisco.