Ideas for 1 September 2013

Audio, Radio New Zealand

UAVs or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or drones as they’re commonly known, are suddenly everywhere. Conservationists and academics are using them to map our rivers; engineers surveyed the interior of the earthquake damaged Christchurch Cathedral with one; and then, of course, there's the military drones used to such lethal affect in Pakistan and Yemen. Ideas visits Palmerston North's Skycam UAV – New Zealand's leading manufacture of UAVs; talks to the interim president of the Association of Unmanned Operations – a union of US drone pilots; and Professor James Cavallaro tells us about the findings of a report he co-authored: 'Living Under Drones: Death, Injury, and Trauma to Civilians from US Drone Practices in Pakistan'.