[OpenRelief Developer] Open Relief Aerial Vehicle - Also introduction

[Mike Faragher]

I found this project looking for UAVs for Emergency Management work. As I mentioned in horrible English on Twitter (who thought up 140 characters?) in 2002 our local department had a 50 car incident with ten fatalities, and a private pilot/photography company wanted over $900 for aerial photographs. The ability to get real-time aerial intel is worth a tremendous amount. The number one thing we discuss is the importance of getting good information and forwarding it to the community, and difficulty therein. 

It's no mistake I signed up on the developer list, as between Emergency Management and my background in Mechanical Engineering, I think I could be an asset to help a project that could save lives.

If you need a hand with the EM end of things, planning numbers or the like, let me know. My electronics and computer programming are absolutely terrible, but I can help elsewhere. I'm also interested in building a prototype myself when the project reaches that stage, and I'd be more than happy to talk to local Emergency Management to see if they'd be interested in field-testing during exercises.

Bearing in mind, being in the States makes regulations and standards slightly different than the UK or Japan, but I think emergency response is similar enough around the globe.

Thanks again for working on this project, it's needed, we can't all afford Global Hawks.

Michael Faragher