At Drone World Expo, San Jose California Kittyhawk, the platform provider that unifies the mission and aircraft for safe and effective drone operations, announced a core new Risk Assessment system and workflow developed in collaboration with CNN Air.
Having a record of the risk assessment for the mission, state of the pilot, state of the aircraft, airspace surroundings, and flight conditions are invaluable data points to accompany pilot checklists and flight logs, especially to analyze any unforeseen events post mission, according to the company.
“Companies need a clean, standardized method to approve flights and plan their missions,” says Jon Hegranes, CEO & Co-Founder of Kittyhawk. “Kittyhawk Risk Assessments leverage data that Kittyhawk already knows about the pilot, conditions, and location, giving operators a new level of quantifiable awareness to their upcoming flights.”
Similar to old-school log books or spreadsheets, previous risk assessment procedures have been informal, with unstructured qualitative data. Kittyhawk Risk Assessments formalizes this procedure by assigning risk scores and recording the conditions and circumstances surrounding a mission and flight.
Kittyhawk Risk Assessments comprise two elements: 1) Initial Risk Assessment, designed to be initiated in the planning phase of a mission to help Chief Pilots gauge the risk of the mission and assess if different pilots or aircraft may be needed given the circumstances, and 2) Preflight Risk Assessment, designed to be taken immediately before takeoff and takes into account more real-time data around airspace and weather, as well as pilot health and well being
