An agreement between the city of Vicksburg and the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center to use the Vicksburg Municipal Airport for drone training will allow city officials to use topographic information gathered during the flights.

The Board of Mayor and Aldermen approved the agreement April 2.

Jenny Laird, ERDC Unmanned Aircraft Systems coordinator, said ERDC is expected to begin training on a new unmanned aircraft this spring that will use LIDAR, a remote sensing method that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure the ground.

Technicians at ERDC, she said, will process the data and give the final product from the training scenario to the city.

“They can use it to plan expansions, or repair their drainage problem,” she said. “It will give a 3D model of the area, and then they will be able to go and pull out certain identifiers when they need to see where the areas are, and develop information on what needs to be done.”

Laird said ERDC has been using the airport since November after hiring a new vendor to get training for the drones for its environmental laboratory, and the center’s campus did not have the necessary 30 acres of unobstructed space for the training.

“At the airport we can use the entire 80 acres it has because it needs to be open airspace without any trees or obstructions, and it needed to be where we could actually see the platform when it is in the air.

“We’re not conducting any projects; it’s more training and being able to use the data we collect out to actually be able train our data processors and our pilots better,” Laird said.

Under ERDC’s Federal Aviation Administration certificate, the training can only be done during daylight and the altitude is restricted to 500 feet.

“We are provided two-way VHF radios by the airport and report any activities of the UAS taking off and landing directly to the air traffic control,” Laird said. “During flight operations, the radios are being used to monitor any outbound or in bound air traffic.

“If we receive word that an aircraft is inbound for landing, we immediately land our UAS to remove it from the airspace to avoid any conflict with manned aircraft. We are very much aware of the airspace and control the UAS safely and properly follow all safety guidelines.”

Initially, the training involved using a fixed wing hybrid that took off vertically and then transformed into a fixed wing craft.

Laird said the new unmanned vehicle, called a Vapor 55 built by Pulse Aerospace, is a 6-foot long vehicle resembling a helicopter.

“It poses more safety requirements because the (propeller) blades are so large,” she said. “It will require more training and transition because it is more sophisticated, but it will be able to travel a greater distance and record more data.”

And plans are for the city to eventually provide facilities for training and testing the unmanned vehicles.

“What we’re working toward is building them a building out there big enough where they will be able to test their drones outside and bring them back inside and recalibrate and test them on the inside,” South Ward Alderman Alex Monsour said. “This (the agreement) is just the first stage in working with them out at our airport to start testing their drones.”