Weekend airshow will feature wide variety of drones in flight at CSU's Christman Airfield

From first responders searching for a missing person in the backcountry to farmers measuring moisture levels in their crops, the uses of drones are multiplying exponentially.

The radio-controlled aircraft are used for so much more now than aerial photography.

To give manufacturers a chance to show what their various drones can do and give the public a chance to see them fly in real time, Colorado State University is putting on the first Colorado Drone Airshow on Friday and Saturday at Christman Airfield on West Laporte Avenue, just west of Overland Trail in west Fort Collins.

“It’s like a traditional airshow, but it’s all about drones instead of airplanes,” said Chris Robertson, director of the CSU Drone Center. “The primary function is bringing out aircraft manufacturers and innovators within the drone space right now and having them do live demonstrations of their aircraft’s capabilities.”

Robertson expects to have as many as 40 to 50 drones take off and land during the public portion of the show from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday. Drone manufacturers and operators will be showing off the capabilities of their aircraft, visitors will have an opportunity to learn how to fly drones, watch drone races and participate in other activities, he said. Food trucks will be available on site.

“It’s a chance for the community to come in and see a lot of different types of drones and get a first-class experience with the drone technology of today and where it’s going,” Robertson said.

Drones will be on display and in the air Friday, too, for a ticketed event designed primarily to connect businesses, researchers, law enforcement agencies, firefighters, search-and-rescue teams and other potential operators with drone manufacturers.

One of the highlights of the weekend event is a drone light show by Denver-based Brightflight at 9:30 p.m. Friday night over the intramural fields on CSU’s main campus. The light show, featuring more than 100 lighted drones creating images in the sky, will be oriented for optimum viewing from the west lawn of Lory Student Center and other points east of the intramural fields, Robertson said.

The light show and Saturday event are free and open to the public. Learn more at coloradodroneshow.colostate.edu.

The airshow itself, at a Federal Aviation Administration-licensed airfield where the drones can actually be flown, will be the first of its kind in Colorado and the surrounding area, Robertson and two scheduled exhibitors said.

“Certainly, the focus around flight is different from what we’d normally do,” said Jack Elston, founder and CEO of Boulder-based Black Swift Technologies. “Most of the shows are static displays and things like that at trade shows where we’re normally inside a conference center of something like that, or we’re presenting papers or work that we’ve done in more of an academic setting.”

He’s excited to show off the drones designed and manufactured by his company that are used primarily for scientific research. Black Swift designs its own auto-pilot systems, build its own electronic boards, communications controls and user interface and aerodynamics. The company also works with researchers to integrate and design sensors for a wide variety of uses.

One drone that was built for research by the University of Colorado, where Elston earned a degree in aerospace engineering, can measure water content in the ground as it flies overhead.

“We’ve done everything from flights over wildfires to tornado chasing and arctic ice surveys,” Elston said last month. “I just got back from Alaska, where we were doing volcano surveys with the (U.S. Geological Survey).”

He was scheduled to travel a few days later to the southeast U.S. to drop two of his company’s drones into an active hurricane from National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration’s P3 Hurricane Hunter airplane.

Black Swift manufactures drones of all sizes, including a 3-pound one that can fly 100 mph and another with a 10-foot wing span that relatively inexperienced pilots were able to fly over Greenland on 97 missions without any mishaps, Elston said.

Jon McBride will put one of his company’s large, fixed-wing Dragon Fish drones in the sky over Christman Field both Friday and Saturday, he said. The drones, with wingspans of 7 ½ to 10 feet, are used primarily by first responders, with about 40 in service across the U.S., he said.

The Autel Robotics aircraft are used by search-and-rescue groups to locate missing and injured people in remote areas, by law enforcement agencies to find and track crime suspects and by fire agencies to map and monitor fire perimeters and locate hot spots.

“It’s got a V-tail and is shaped like an airplane, but takes off like a drone and flies like a drone,” said McBride, Autel Robotics’ Utah-based global vice president of technology and training.

His company also makes smaller drones that have been used to deliver cellphones and radio transmitters to injured or stranded hikers or climbers in remote areas to communicate with incident commanders until ground crews can reach them. They can deliver water bottles and protein bars or drop GPS trackers.

The use of drones by researchers at CSU has become so prevalent that the university established its own drone center in 2018 at Christman Airfield, a 96-year-old airstrip with a 4,000-foot runway on 327 acres that served as the original Fort Collins airport from its founding in 1927 until CSU took over its ownership and management in the 1960s, Robertson said.

The CSU Drone Center provides training and flight instruction, including a five-day workshop designed to help participants pass Part 107 of their FAA licensure exam, he said.

The center also offers a team mapping and modeling course to teach people how to gather imagery from remote sensing and is in the process of designing a first responder course for scenario-based training, he said.

It’s also a place where faculty, staff and students can come discuss the capabilities of various drones and work with Robertson and his team to create and attach sensors for a wide range of research opportunities.

“We do everything from helping design systems, fly the systems, train researchers or support those proposals and that research base,” Robertson said.

Other current uses of drones, McBride said, are to inspect power lines, buildings and bridges that can’t easily be reached by other means. Agricultural uses include the collection of data to measure crop yields. Amazon and Dominos have used drones to deliver packages and pizzas on a trial basis in various locations.

And, of course, they’re still used to fly overhead to take aerial photographs and record videos for marketing, education and entertainment.

“There’s tons of stuff that people are not aware of that happens with drones,” McBride said. “That was the concept of this show was to have more hands-on opportunities and to see this stuff actually flying … to involve the community, the community outside of the drone community.”

Reporter Kelly Lyell covers education, breaking news, some sports and other topics of interest for the Coloradoan. Contact him at kellylyell@coloradoan.com, twitter.com/KellyLyell or facebook.com/KellyLyell.news. 

This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan: Wide range of drones will be in flight during CSU's weekend airshow