Data Security Manager

BVLOS won't save your utility drone program if the Data Pipeline is broken. Here is what Entergy and Southern just said out loud. Tactical summary. On June 24, 2026, DRONELIFE reported on a panel at InnovateEnergy Week 2026 in The Woodlands, Texas, where UAS managers from two of the largest electric utilities in the country, Entergy and Southern Company, described where their drone programs actually stand heading into the Part 108 era. The most useful thing they did was puncture a comfortable assumption the rest of the industry keeps repeating: that beyond visual line of sight authority is the unlock for utility inspection at scale. It is not, at least not by itself. Jason Goodick, who runs the UAS program at Entergy with roughly 100 pilots, said extended BVLOS does not help one of his core missions, storm-damage assessment, because the bottleneck is not airspace authority. It is data. A single 20-mile transmission-line flight can yield a terabyte of imagery, and during a storm restoration there is no one available to review a terabyte of imagery and turn it into actionable damage reports fast enough to matter. That is a sentence every utility drone program manager, and every vendor selling them a BVLOS waiver, should read twice. Why "just get BVLOS" Is the wrong North star. The standard industry pitch treats BVLOS as the finish line. Get the waiver, fly farther, cover more assets per sortie, done. The Entergy account exposes why that framing fails in practice for a whole class of utility missions. During storm recovery, the constraint is time-to-decision, not distance flown. Goodick described flying shorter inspection runs of two to three miles during storm applications precisely because that keeps the data volume small enough to process and act on without delaying restoration or sending crews back out twice. A 20-mile BVLOS sortie that generates a terabyte you cannot review for days is not an efficiency gain in that scenario. It is a backlog generator. This is the part of an operational design that gets ignored when programs chase the regulatory headline. The flight is the cheap part. The expensive, rate-limiting part is the pipeline behind the flight: ingest, storage, defect detection, human review, and report generation feeding the people who dispatch repair crews. If that pipeline cannot keep pace with the sensor, more range and more autonomy just move the choke point downstream and make it worse. For program managers building or scaling a utility UAS program, the practical takeaway is to size the data and analysis pipeline first, then scope the flight operations to feed it, not the reverse. Map your true time-to-decision requirement for each mission type. Storm restoration and routine asset-health inspection have completely different latency tolerances, and they justify completely different concepts of operation. Automated defect detection and machine-learning triage are not nice-to-haves here. For storm work they are the difference between BVLOS helping and BVLOS hurting. Where BVLOS genuinely pays off. None of this means BVLOS is irrelevant to utilities. It means the value is mission-specific, and the utilities themselves are clear about where it lands. Southern Company, with roughly 190 pilots serving about nine million electric and gas customers, described holding a broad nationwide BVLOS waiver that lets its Skydio X10 fleet fly over any of its own infrastructure. Tim Hadaway's framing is instructive: in flat South Georgia he can push the aircraft two and a half miles out and hold signal, while in the mountains of North Georgia terrain and tree cover cut that range sharply, but he can still fly beyond line of sight within those limits. That is BVLOS used as an access tool for remote or road-inaccessible assets, where the alternative is a crew driving hours or not reaching the asset at all. The value there is real and obvious. Note also the airspace mechanics that come with post-storm work. After major storms the FAA frequently stands up Temporary Flight Restrictions over the affected area, and Southern files a Certificate of Authorization to operate inside those TFRs. That COA-in-a-TFR workflow is a recurring, plannable compliance task for any utility that flies disaster response, and it is exactly the kind of preparation that should live in a program's standard operating procedures long before the storm. If you are still treating TFR access as an emergency scramble, you are behind. Its BVLOS compliance checklist and the broader Part 108 explainer walk through how to pre-stage that authority work. The post-dji transition is a cost and timeline problem. The second thread from the panel is the move away from DJI hardware, driven by federal pressure on Chinese-made UAVs and the FCC's decision to place DJI on its Covered List for new products. The two utilities are at different stages, and the contrast is the lesson. Southern Company has already transitioned. Its fleet is now Skydio X10 for manual and dock operations, Alta X, and two SwissDrones VTOL platforms for long-range heavy-lift LiDAR work. Entergy is still flying DJI to hold costs down while it searches for a replacement, and Goodick was candid that DJI's ease of use and optics remain hard to match at the price point. His cybersecurity posture is the operationally interesting detail: Entergy air-gaps its DJI systems so the aircraft never touch network infrastructure, and runs all collected imagery through a separate system that scans the media for malware before it enters any workflow. Whatever you think of the DJI debate, the air-gap-and-scan architecture is a genuinely useful pattern for any operator running hardware that sits on a restricted or banned list while a replacement program runs. It treats the data path, not just the airframe, as the security boundary. UAVHQ covered the economics of the DJI restrictions in its piece on Oregon's study of the FCC ban's costs, and the reality has not changed: transitioning a fleet is a multi-year budget line, not a swap. Plan the cutover around training, spares, software integration, and yes, the data pipeline that has to ingest a new sensor's output. In-House pilots over contractors. One more operational signal worth flagging, because it cuts against a common assumption that utilities will outsource UAS work. Both companies favor in-house, full-time pilots over third-party contractors, and for the same two reasons: cost control, since salaried employees do storm-damage assessment without contractor uptick fees, and accountability, since invested employees tend to show more care and diligence than rotating outside crews. For anyone planning a workforce around utility drone demand, that is a meaningful demand-side data point. The growth is in building internal programs, not just selling flight services into them. The UAVHQ read. The headline most outlets will run is "utilities prepare for BVLOS." The operator read is sharper. Two of the most mature utility drone programs in the country are telling you that for a major mission set, BVLOS authority is not the constraint, data throughput is, and that the post-DJI transition is a budget and timeline problem dressed up as a procurement decision. If you run or advise a utility UAS program, build the analysis pipeline to your worst-case time-to-decision before you buy more range. Pre-stage your TFR and COA workflows so storm response is procedure, not improvisation. And scope the DJI cutover as the multi-year program it actually is, with the data path secured as carefully as the airframe. The teams that win the next phase of utility drone operations will be the ones who treat the flight as the easy part. If you are scoping a utility or critical-infrastructure UAS program and need the BVLOS authority path, TFR and COA workflow, and fleet-transition plan mapped before you commit budget, that is exactly the kind of work UAVHQ does. Sources. Entergy Southern Company BVLOS Part 108 Utility Inspection Storm Response Data Pipeline DJI Transition FCC Covered List COA TFR Remote ID Need expert drone consulting? UAVHQ offers professional consulting for BVLOS waivers, Part 107/108 compliance, utility and critical-infrastructure program design, and regulatory strategy. 25+ years of aviation expertise at your service. Stay ahead of the drone industry. New regulatory analysis and BVLOS briefings on the UAVHQ YouTube channel - subscribe so the next big rule change isn't a surprise.

Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District welcomes new board leadership and honors outgoing Chairman Page. (ATLANTA - June 11, 2026) - The Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District (District) is pleased to announce a new board leadership team: Gwinnett County Chairwoman Nicole Love Hendrickson as Board Chair, Cherokee County Chairman Harry Johnston as Board Vice Chair, and Dr. Mark Berry of Georgia Power as Secretary/Treasurer. The District would also like to recognize outgoing Chairman Glenn Page, who concludes six years of steadfast leadership. A former water resources utility general manager and current consultant based in Woodstock, Page brought decades of hands-on operational expertise to the role. "We extend our sincerest gratitude to Glenn Page for his visionary leadership and unwavering commitment metro Atlanta's water resources," said Danny Johnson, Director of the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District. "His legacy will continue to guide the District for years to come." Gwinnett County Chairwoman Nicole Love Hendrickson steps into the role of Board Chair, having previously served as Vice Chair. Elected Gwinnett County Board Chair in 2020 and reelected in 2024, she is the first African American to hold that position in Georgia's second-most populous county, overseeing a $2.58 billion budget and services for more than one million residents. Hendrickson has championed regional transit, housing affordability, and economic inclusion throughout her tenure. She holds a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Rhode Island and a Master of Social Work from the University of Georgia. Cherokee County Chairman Harry Johnston brings extensive experience in regional governance to his role as Board Vice Chair. Elected Cherokee County Chairman in 2014, he previously served as District 1 Commissioner from 2000 to 2014 and on the county's planning commission from 1996 to 2000, including two years as chairman. Johnston retired after a 42-year career in finance and accounting with Southern Company. Dr. Mark S. Berry, P.E., will continue his role with the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District Board as Secretary/Treasurer. He currently serves as Senior Vice President of Research and Development for Southern Company Services, where he leads the company's R&D organization and guides strategic technology advancement for a net-zero energy future. Prior to Southern Company, Dr. Berry attained the commissioned rank of lieutenant commander in the United States Navy as a surface warfare officer. "We are grateful to Chairman Page for the strong foundation he helped build, and I am thrilled to welcome Chairman Johnston and Dr. Berry to this leadership team," said Hendrickson. "As we celebrate 25 years of the District's work, we do so with renewed energy and a shared commitment to the regional water future metro Atlanta deserves." MEDIA CONTACT: Paul Donsky, ARC Communications Director 470-626-3869 [email protected]