Draganfly drones could be "game changer" on the border for Cochise County sheriff

Driving the news: The sheriff's office and Canadian drone company Draganfly convened a border security summit in Sierra Vista on Sunday and Monday, with law enforcement and other officials from across the country.

• The event culminated with a drone demonstration along the southern border that showcased several Draganfly drones, including the Outrider.

Threat level: Cochise County shares a roughly 84-mile border with Mexico, and the sheriff's office routinely responds to border-related calls.

• Many such pursuits have spilled into populated areas.
• And though border encounters have dropped dramatically under the Trump administration, "It's not zero. It's still happening every day," Capt. Tim Williams, from the office's special operations division, told reporters Monday.

State of play: Draganfly is providing the sheriff's office with two prototypes of its Outrider drone, which the company says has a maximum flight time of about seven hours.

• The drones Cochise County currently uses can stay in the air for only about 15 minutes, Williams said.
• With exponentially longer flight times, the Outrider could be used to interdict illegal border crossers and deliver medical and other supplies.
• "It's a game changer," Williams said.

Zoom in: Cochise County will test the Outrider, and its initial learnings will help Draganfly create a final product.

• At the start, the sheriff's office will focus solely on flight times, with no cameras on the drones.
• Months later, it'll use the Outriders operationally for "real-world applications."
• Draganfly CEO Cameron Chell told reporters he's hopeful the Outriders will be operational by the end of March 2026 and ready for organizations to begin seeking grant money and putting in orders in the second quarter of next year.

Between the lines: Williams said the Outrider is unique because it's the only quadcopter-style drone with the same flight time capacity.

• There are fixed-wing drones that can stay in the air as long, he said, but the Outrider can be deployed from the back of a pickup truck and doesn't need a launcher or runway.
• The Outrider has single- and double-engine variants, with the double-engine model measuring about 9 feet across, per Chell.

The intrigue: Draganfly was only able to have the Outrider hover in a netted enclosure because it was unable to get a needed FAA waiver due to the recently ended government shutdown.

• Yes, but: The other smaller drones they showcased were used to demonstrate not only the type of scenarios the sheriff's office would use drones for, but to show why the Outrider is necessary.

What's next: Once the pilot program is finished, the sheriff's office will decide whether to purchase Outriders.

• Chell told Axios he expects the drones to cost about $150,000. Williams said the department's current drones cost $8,000-$9,000.
• If the pilot program is successful, he hopes to see hundreds of Outriders being used by other agencies along the southern and northern U.S. borders.
• "Hopefully it's a stepping stone," Chell told Axios.

Meanwhile, the sheriff's office is eyeing smaller Draganfly drones, which the company also demonstrated at the border Monday, to replace its aging fleet.

• They include the Apex drone, equipped with a loudspeaker, and the slightly larger Commander 3 XL, which was flown with an electronic message board.

The other side: Not every border county has the same need for drone surveillance.

• Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos told Axios he isn't interested because of the cost and because he views border security as a federal issue.
• Only about 1% of the Pima County Sheriff's Office's calls for service are border-related, Nanos said, and if there were more, he'd tell Border Patrol to handle it.
• The agency has about 14 drones, primarily used for tactical situations, including barricaded suspects.

The Yuma County Sheriff's Office has no plans for a drone program, either, because Border Patrol already operates one in the Yuma Sector, agency spokesperson Tania Pavlak told Axios.

• Customs and Border Patrol has an "extensive" drone program for border operations, spokesperson John Mennell told Axios.