TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. —
The 60th Maintenance Group began training on the U.S. Air Force’s first drone aircraft inspection program, July 16-19.
This program aims to improve aircraft inspections with the aid of Skydio X2D drones and create a training template to be used by Air Force maintenance units.
“(Drone inspections) will cut down on time,” said U.S Air Force 1st Lt. Sawyer Hodson, 60th MXG executive officer. “Normally when maintainers have to inspect the tops of aircraft panels, they’ve got to get up on man lifts, wear harnesses and clip into points on the aircraft to walk around. It takes a very long time.”
A current exterior inspection of a C-17 Globemaster III aircraft by Airmen can take approximately eight hours. With the X2D drone, an inspection would only take 40 minutes.
Currently, two instructors and two operators are training through the program, with a three-day training schedule for instructors and a two-day schedule for operators.
Amanda Gullett, Skydio training consultant, is administering the training. She explained that the Skydio X2D drone used for the training is identical to the drone that will be used for aircraft inspection but with less capabilities.
The drone that will be used for aircraft inspection is a multiband Skydio X2D. It is capable of autonomous 3D capture/modeling and has 360-degree obstacle avoidance for close inspections. It is also equipped with a thermal camera.
Tech. Sgt. Jacob Costello, 60th MXG continuous process improvement manager, is overseeing the training program.
“From start to finish, we have our Skydio training to do our initial qualifications,” said Costello. “After that, we’ll have our initial training and then we’ll have mission specific training. That’ll be for each drone platform that we operate.”
Once the program is set up and there are daily drone flights without issue, according to Costello and Hodson, the goal is to allow other bases to copy and paste the training program so they have a fully vetted system to use.
