Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hi brain Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum here. When Hurricane Harvey hit Texas in August, readers of USA Today's website were able to watch dramatic aerial video footage of the city of Houston flooding, a nearby chemical plant immersed underwater, and other startling views of the disaster. But these eye catching clips weren't shot by a cameraman perched in a helicopter as they might have
been in the past. Instead, they were captured by robotic drones equipped with cameras and piloted by operators on the ground. Ever since the Federal Aviation Administration issued new regulations in sixteen making it easier for news organizations to use the flying robots, drones have become a hot new news gathering tool. Prior to the change, a drone had to be piloted by someone trained and licensed for manned aircraft, requiring hours
of cockpit experience. The new rules only require an operator to study and pass a test to be certified for drones. Some journalism eating programs are making big investments in a drone future. Matt Waite is a journalism professor at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, who heads the school's Drone journalism lab. He's trained three hundred and ninety journalists across the nation in the past year on how to use drones, and he says that probably about half of them have gone
on to obtain fa A certification. He estimates that somewhere between dozens to low hundreds of US news outlets, and not just TV stations, but newspapers and radio stations too, now use unmanned aircraft in news gathering. Drone news is rising at a time when the once seemingly ubiquitous news
helicopter is in decline. While definitive numbers aren't available, TV News Check and Industry Publication estimated that there were only one hundred to one hundred and twenty news schoppers still flying around the country, down from a hundred and eighty before the late two thousand's economic downturn for news outlets.
Drones are far less expensive news gathering tool than helicopters, which can cost three to four million dollars apiece, including the cost of cameras and mint, and consume a significant amount of fuel. O Wait said, you can buy a really good drone kit for about eighteen hundred dollars. That's about what it would cost you to fly a helicopter
for an hour. He pointed out that drones are a more affordable way to supply the ever increasing demand for video clips that can be posted on websites, and that the technology is well suited for covering certain types of news events tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, massive traffic backups, stories like that, he says. We also spoke via email with Henry H. Parrott, Jr. A professor at the Chicago Kent College of Law and co author of the book Domesticating Drones, The Technology, Economics
and Law of Unmanned Aircraft. He said that drones can add aerial coverage for stations and publications that couldn't afford a helicopter, even for stations who can. He said, the main advantage is that every news crew can go out with one and decide when it's coverage might be useful, and since drones are unmanned, journalists don't face the same risks that they would in news choppers. But drones also have mitations that give helicopters an advantage for other types
of stories. Wait explained, for example, that the f a A prohibits operators from flying drones directly over people, which would make it difficult to get close to a massive protest rally or a celebratory parade for a sports championship win. Most drones electric battery packs only allow them to stay aloft for twenty minutes, while helicopters can stay in the air for hours at a time, and f a A regulations require that the drone helicopters on the ground maintain
visual contact with the unmanned aircraft. Drones wait points out would have been ill equipped to cover what is perhaps the most famous aerial footage story ever, two hour police pursuit of football star turned murder suspect O. J. Simpson and his white Ford Bronco on the l A area of Freeway System newscopters were able to transmit live video of the chase, and it aired non stop on TV
viewers screens. That's why there will probably be room for both copters and drones in journalism for the foreseeable future. Some news organizations, such as Jacksonville, floor A based TV
station w j x T, rely on both. We spoke with the stations vice president and general manager, Bob Ellis In an email, he said, we use our sky for helicopter here in Jacksonville to cover breaking news and to get to a scene quickly, but drones oftentimes provide far better pictures and can help tell a much better story. In our coverage after Hurricane Irma, we used drone footage to show damaged areas that showed exactly what happened, far better than using a helicopter could. I believe there's a
place for all these technologies to be utilized. I prefer to look at it from a content standpoint, what is the technology that helps best tell the story? Parrot adds drones won't ever completely replace news helicopters because they're so much cheaper. They will be used in some markets instead of helicopters, and stations in big markets may renegotiate their helicopter contracts over time to use less helicopter time, filling
the gap with drones. In the future, news organizations may use drones not just to capture dramatic aerial images, but to gather vast amounts of data from various angles to create virtual reality simulations. Eventually, for example, news consumers may be able to put on a VR headset and walk through a three dimensional simulation of the ruins of a war torn city on the other side of the planet. Today's episode was written by Patrick J. Keiger and produced
by Tristan McNeil. For more on this and lots of other newsworthy topics, visit our home planet has Stuff works dot com.