On Wednesday, October 14, the Lockheed-Martin and KAMAN Corporations will conduct a demonstration of a remotely piloted K-MAX helicopter for the Department of the Interior’s Office of Aviation Services and the U.S. Forest Service Fire and Aviation Management division.
The purpose of the demonstration is to assess the feasibility of using this type of aircraft for a variety of missions, including cargo delivery and wildfire suppression at night and during low visibility conditions.
The demonstration will take place in Idaho, but will be open only to the agencies and the media, but not to the public because, we are told, the area selected for the demo has very limited parking and viewing space. We asked a USFS spokesperson if there is an area even some distance from the site where the public could see the flights, but we are still waiting for a reply to that question.
In 2014 a remotely piloted K-MAX performed water drops, as you will see in the video below.
Lockheed Martin configured unmanned K-MAXs delivered thousands of loads of supplies and equipment to soldiers in Afghanistan between 2011 and 2014, carrying more than 4.5 million pounds of cargo, sometimes through areas that would be considered unacceptably risky for human pilots.
Unlike Predator drones, which are remotely piloted, the K-MAX helicopters in Afghanistan followed a pre-programmed route using Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates, and required human intervention only to get started.
It’s not cost effective for a private company, maybe the USFS could trade their C130’s for these things.