When the drones will light up at night, will they replace the fireworks?

Their preprogrammed electric dance illuminated the darkness of dawn in October with a palette of red, green and blue that blended together as they described many shapes: a rotating cube, a tornado tearing the roof of a roof. house, a pair of eyes staring.

The 16-minute show of the unmanned aircraft system north of Detroit has not been announced, but it has attracted enough cars for drone operators to feel obliged to close the gate of the ground run by an aeronautical club of Radio Control called Holly Cloud Hoppers.

The forms and maneuvers, along with the buzzing buzz of the swarm, were not designed to entertain that night, but to allow a Michigan company, Firefly Drone Shows, to test new ideas, including some could be used for future performance.

Ryan Sigmon, owner of Firefly with Kyle Dorosz, compared LED lighting to something you see on a computer screen.

"Imagine them as pixels – each drone has its place at a particular moment," he said.

But try not to think of them as drones, Sigmon said. Think about how an artist would see them.

"Look, I have lots of dots in the sky, what can I do? It's at that point that the real magic begins to happen there," Sigmon said.

This magic is what arouses interest in the types of drones that Firefly and some other companies can create. Last month, Firefly produced a show on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the start of production at the Ford Rouge plant. The drones were used to spell "HAPPY B-DAY! in the sky and even create vehicles, including an F-150 pickup, which seemed to drive on rocky terrain.

The kind of evening celebration that might once have been the exclusive domain of fireworks is being expanded to the growing technological prowess of drones. Firefly, which this year obtained the necessary waivers from the Federal Aviation Administration to operate several UAVs at night, has presented a potential market element this summer when Sigmon and Dorosz received a call from a resort in Arizona.

The extremely dry conditions had forced the cancellation of the fireworks show of the community organized on July 4th. Sigmon, Dorosz and his team headed west and organized a drone show between their other planned events.

"We were able to use drones to solve a real, extremely neat problem (…) and the fact that we managed to solve it in four days was just the icing on the cake," Dorosz said.

Firefly did not provide specific price information, but Sigmon said the prices "generally correspond to those of a big fireworks display".

Drone shows have been used in a number of prestigious events in recent years, including the Super Bowl LI half-time show with Lady Gaga in 2017 and this year's Olympic Winter Games in Korea. South. The Olympic performance included more than 1,200 drones in a recorded show that created a snowboarder in action.

Intel, who is considered a pioneer of drone entertainment; Firefly; and Great Lakes Drone Co., which is based in southwestern Michigan, are considered to be the main operators of lighted drone shows, but anyone wishing to develop similar night programs in the United States may request a waiver from the FAA.

The FAA has announced 38 derogations allowing the operation of several drones by a single pilot and more than 1,900 derogations allowing night operations. The three companies have both types of exemptions.

The need to issue waivers to allow such operations could, however, create a false confidence in the security of technology, said an expert, Ella Atkins, professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Michigan.

"The fact that it's a waiver means that it's not an established process," Atkins said. "If you think about it, you get exceptions or derogations, which is to say that the FAA recognizes that it has not yet a process to carefully assess the safety of each drone. who asks her to work, so that she examines the documents which is really light on the technical details. "

Atkins has worked extensively with drones as an educational consultant for the Michigan UAV team, helping to lobby for the creation of a network test center at the university. and serving on a committee of national academies related to drone research, according to the university. She is also a private pilot.

Atkins said that the risk of a drone falling from the sky remained and that the risks in terms of equipment, software and operational practices "to trust the drone to fly in a crowd" were not examined with care.

"We can show that a drone is really impressive by following a prescribed path, as do many of these light shows." People have meticulously created what they believe to be an artistic model to follow for the drone group, which is normally great … but if something goes wrong, maybe it's not that great, "said Atkins.

Before a fireworks show at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Monika Nourmand of Los Angeles was hit in the face by a drone powered by the owner of Great Lakes Drone Co., Matt Quinn, according to a lawsuit and his lawyer, according to which Nourmand knew nothing. drone show had been planned.

Nourmand and her husband sued Quinn and her company, according to a report by Caesars, who did not respond to a request for comment.

The collision resulted in a visit to the emergency room for Nourmand, who had been treated for various injuries, including subretinal bleeding, cuts around the eye, fracture of the orbital floor, blurred vision. and vision loss, Nourmand's lawyer, Robert Glassman, told Nourmand. is now at risk for early glaucoma, he said.

Glassman rejected the idea that a waiver would protect operators from any liability.

"Even if there is a departure from federal regulations, you can not use a drone that falls from the sky and hits someone in the face without being held responsible." I mean the waiver n & # 39; 39 is not a waiver in the event that there is an injury or that there is negligence, "Glassman said.

The FAA, however, stated that "based on the investigation, there did not appear to be any violation of the current federal aviation regulations".

Quinn, the owner of Great Lakes Drone Co., declined to discuss the incident, citing the lawsuit, but said, "All FAA investigations are open, I'm not worried about anything. "

Natalie Pavlatos, Managing Partner of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, a rights group, said the FAA's regulations opened the door to commercial drone operations in 2016.

The regulation states that drones must fly within 400 feet (400 feet), within the boundaries of a visual line of the site, one at a time and during the day, she said.

"However, the FAA has recognized the need for flexibility in this rule and has created a waiver process that allows for extensive case-by-case operations, including night flights or multiple drones at a time (two important elements for drone shows), "said Pavlatos.

An exemption is also available for operators who wish to overfly people.

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