Doctors, dentists and a drone: Va. clinic to have it all

The Federal Aviation Administration banned drones from distance delivery in February, but it made an exception on Friday.

Some underserved Virginia patients were among the first to be officially helped by an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), more commonly known as a drone, during research flights to a medical clinic in Wise County Friday.

The pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies were delivered Friday to the fairgrounds in Wise County, where the worldwide nonprofit Remote Area medical has set up a clinic for the weekend. Two remotely piloted drones successfully carried drugs and medical supplies to the annual event meant to help bring care to people living in an area lacking in clinical infrastructure. From the airport, the much smaller Flirtey drone delivered the broken-up cargo in 24 separate flights. The delivery was part of a drone demonstration with NASA, which flew the medicine to a local airport before it was carried by Flirtey’s drone to the clinic.

The Mid-Atlantic Aviation Partnership at Virginia Tech oversaw the test flights.

The FAA has allowed over 500 companies to fly drones this year. Flirtey co-founders Tom Bass and Matt Sweeny, McAuliffe, Wise County Clerk of Circuit Court Jack Kennedy, and Virginia Secretary of Technology Karen Jackson witnessed the groundbreaking flights.

The comparison belies a crucial difference: the Wrights Brothers were the first people in the world to build a successful airplane, but successful drone-deliveries have already been made in other countries.

Ram founder Stan Brock said he sees a definite need for drones here. The former manager of the FAA office tasked to integrate UAS in the national airspace, was recently quoted in the Washington Post as stating that package delivery will “be fairly routine, be it in rural areas”.

“After 16 years of doing it, we have it down pretty well”, she said. Trent said this was his second year coming to the clinic.

“This is the beginning of the possibility, or should I say probability, of us being able to delivery emergency medicine in operations in the Amazon and Africa”. Wise RAM is merely the largest such event in the nation, a distinction that attracts several hundred medical, dental and vision professionals every year to volunteer their services for free to thousands of all comers. “I would say it would save lives on a daily basis”, said Teresa Gardner, the Executive Director of Health Wagon which organizes the clinic. It’s a challenge because there’s a lot of people in the Wise area and we need to coordinate our effort so that we’re not flying unmanned aircraft over people.

The RAM clinic continues through Sunday.