Drone Delivers Pizza: Highlights Serious UM Business

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - At Saturday night’s UM versus UC Davis Football game, the ‘Pizza with the President’ feature took on a new high-tech look, as a drone from the UM Autonomous Aerial Systems Office was used for the first time dramatically flying over the football field carrying pizza boxes for the student section.

Before the game, I spoke with Jeremy Crowley, Director of the UM Autonomous Aerial Systems Office about the agency.

“We're an office within the University of Montana, and we started in about 2016,” began Crowley. “We started out to support research with drones on campus, mainly to make sure people are following all the (drone flying) regulations. Since then, we've branched out to do all kinds of other work with the Forest Service, with the Montana Department of Transportation, and with different state and federal agencies.”

Crowley expanded on the work that his program is doing with other agencies.

“One of the big projects that just got funded is the Headwaters Tech Hub,” he said. “A component of that tech hub is a drone and robotic test bed area up at Lubrecht Experimental Forest. We're going to be starting up that project right now, and that'll involve some pretty large drones. We're applying for a waiver to be able to fly beyond the visual line of sight with the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and also for flights up to 2,000 feet (altitude).”

Flying a Drone Near a Wildfire Forces Grounding of All Firefighting Aircraft

One of the aspects of the business is providing training to drone owners and operators, specifically on why it is vital not to fly a drone anywhere near an active wildfire, which could place lives and aerial assets in danger.

“If they (The USFS) have an unidentified drone in their area, they have to ground potentially dozens of helicopters and airplanes, and it could cause untold damage,” he said. “It's a very serious thing, so even people flying recreationally with those little tiny drones, they might think it's a good idea to get some pretty pictures, but it's actually a pretty serious offense.”

Drones are in Use for Commercial Delivery Worldwide

Crowley said the drone pizza delivery at the football stadium was a first for Montana, but drones are currently being used worldwide for package delivery.

“With this pizza delivery thing, we have to follow really specific rules with the FAA to make sure that we're not flying over people that are unaware," Crowley said. "We have to set it up just right so that we're not breaking any regulations. However, there are companies right now that are doing package delivery. Amazon and Wal-Mart are doing package delivery in the U.S., and there were over a million packages delivered last year, so it's going to be a thing that's more and more common, I think.”