Florida police plan piloted electric aircraft, pending FAA approval

Eight electric motors, one seat and a nickname: Astro. Florida Polytechnic University's police department plans to put this piloted electric aircraft, the Jetson ONE, into campus patrols and emergency response. The machine weighs about 253 pounds with its batteries, and it can take off and land vertically, the way a helicopter does, so it does not need a runway. The university still needs approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the US civil aviation regulator, before officers can fly it on duty.

Police have been using drones for years, and Florida Poly already added a drone unit recently. A piloted aircraft is a different tool: it carries a person above the ground, and it can cover distances that a patrol car cannot reach quickly. Police Chief Aaron Murray believes departments should understand this kind of aviation before it becomes common, and the university wants to test its potential for public safety and safer airspace. The Jetson ONE was built mainly for recreational flyers, and the company accelerated the university's order despite a three-year waiting list, because, according to CEO Stéphan D'haene, the university's engineering focus and public safety goals made the project a priority.

The aircraft's specifications set the boundaries of its missions. It has a top speed of 63 mph and an estimated flight time of 20 minutes, which is short enough to make it a patrol and response tool rather than a long-range vehicle. It carries a ballistic parachute and an automatic landing function. Murray and the university plan to use it for watching the campus and its surroundings, and after severe weather, for assessing damaged areas and carrying essential supplies when roads become difficult to navigate. The department also plans to work with other regional law enforcement agencies, which could extend the aircraft's role beyond the campus.

For students, the aircraft becomes a working laboratory. The university introduced an aerospace engineering degree this fall, and faculty and students plan to study real-time operational data from Astro and integrate it into senior capstone design projects. Provost Brad Thiessen said the aircraft will let students and faculty study real-world data, and that this work could help them tackle the engineering challenges of advanced air mobility, the emerging sector that aims to move people and equipment through the air with new aircraft and operating models.

For the police, the immediate gain is a new vantage point above the campus and after storms, with the time and date of its first official mission set by the FAA's decision, which the sources do not schedule. For Jetson, the university offers a professional setting in which to test an electric personal aircraft outside recreational use. For the students, a single aircraft in daily use is a source of flight data that a classroom cannot provide. The programme is at the stage of a planned deployment: one aircraft, one police department, and an approval that remains to be granted.