S / Safety
Most drone operators sell flight time. We sell flights you don't have to worry about.
An SMS isn't a binder on a shelf. It's a working framework with four parts: a safety policy that sets the standard, risk management that identifies hazards and mitigates them before the aircraft leaves the ground, safety assurance that checks whether our controls actually worked, and safety promotion that keeps training and lessons-learned moving. In plain terms: we plan the flight, we plan the risks, we fly the plan, and we review it afterward.
Someone's name is on every flight. A named Remote Pilot in Command and a documented chain of responsibility, so you always know who made the go/no-go call.
Hazards identified before takeoff. Each mission type carries its own hazard library and risk matrix, assessed and signed off before the aircraft leaves the ground.
Every mission reviewed after it's flown — the same After Action discipline used on multi-agency work like the Fall Creek Falls operation — so problems get caught and fixed.
Training, currency, and a culture where calling off a flight is a good decision, not a failure. The SMS shapes how the work actually gets done.
When you hire a drone operator, you're putting an aircraft over your property, your crew, or your crops. If something goes wrong without a documented safety process behind it, the exposure lands on you. An operator with a real SMS means the airspace was checked, the weather and obstacles were assessed, an emergency plan existed, and the whole thing was documented — so a hazard is far less likely, and far more defensible if a question ever comes up. For commercial and government work, a documented safety program is frequently a hard requirement, not a bonus.
UUAS is led by Rory Johnson, an FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot in Command and a Master of Science in Aviation candidate at Middle Tennessee State University, concentrating in Aviation Safety and Security Management. He also serves as UAS Team Lead Safety Officer for the State Defense Force Foundation, including multi-agency emergency-response work such as the Fall Creek Falls exercise (May 2026). That background is the difference between a hobby pilot and an aviation safety professional running your job.
That same forward posture is why we're already building toward Part 108, the FAA's coming Beyond Visual Line of Sight rule, which will require operators to demonstrate exactly this kind of documented safety program. See the full record →
We plan the flight, we plan the risks, we fly the plan, and we review it afterward.