Drone Range Update

26th Feb 2022

Flight Design’s West Wyalong Drone range is preparing for our first flight. It will be about a month away, but we are already upgrading our facilities. We are in the middle of our meeting and training room build. We are currently pricing our “clean room” and determining its dimensions. Meetings with government are scheduled in the next weeks to investigate grants for further development. It is very apparent that jobs are the key for grants. We will be discussing aspects of the drone range that will build job numbers in the region.

The training room build is an extension of the current building – closer to the front of the hangar. It has been framed up and the walls and ceiling are being installed. It will have a large HDMI screen at the front of the room for presentations and power outlets for laptop connections

The trailers have been moved and the room is along the side wall on the right. It will either be configured as a meeting room or the table moved to be desks on either side of the centre isle for a training room.

The dimensions of the clean room are being determined by user needs. The clean room is not pharmaceutical grade, but will be more dust free. It must be only used for drone, balloon and aerospace activities as it is on airport ground. This room will be dust free and will have sliding doors to allow large drones to be wheeled in for maintenance. Air conditioning and filtering with positive air pressure will be essential to keep dust out and to make it a comfortable work space. As the clean room will be made up primarily of cool room panels, it is expected that the area will be fairly easy to keep at a reasonable temperature. With the room well sealed, it will be a simple task to turn of the airflow between use as it will not have any air flow

Cleaning and maintenance will be important as well as the use of ecofriendly products. Special deep cleaning can be carried out for some customers prior to use and lint-free overalls, hair nets and special overshoes be used.

Static limiting flooring will be installed to ensure that static build up is not possible. Basically it will be linoleum that conducts electricity at a high resistance. It will be earthed to ensure that all static charge will leak away. earth straps for wrist bands and equipment earthing will be available. Benches and other wall fitting will be available.

Video security and rapid response will underpin the safety of the site when unmanned or when used when Flight Design staff are not present.

All up the site will provide a secure and dust free environment for maintenance and also have secure training and meeting facilities with internet wireless connectivity. Further facilities are planned including a fabrication workshop.