Our Mission
Enabling Emergency Service drones to operate Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS), providing life-critical support.
Our Founder
IN MEMORY OF
JOHN BULLOUGH MBE
John was a founder of both the Thunderbird Project and Scotland’s Charity Air Ambulance, serving as Managing Trustee and Chairman respectively when he tragically passed away in May 2023. We are committed to delivering John’s legacy.
“The Emergency Services, as a sector, are uniquely placed to form the vanguard of the autonomous aerial revolution, where their deployment in time critical, life threatening situations will transform public and officer safety.”
John Bullough
Founder and Managing Trustee
Within our Feasibility Phase we brought together representatives from all emergency services to define their key use cases, operational environments, benefits, and challenges to bring our shared vision to life.
Our Vision
The world has witnessed incredible advances in drone capability over recent years. However, there are vital areas of emergency response where this technology could deliver more: providing invaluable situational awareness to mission commanders, helping to locate an increasing number of high-risk missing persons, or delivering medical aid to casualties more quickly than conventional means – saving time where every minute counts.
There’s no doubt that eventually all these capabilities will develop, but this project is founded on the passionate belief that by bringing emergency services together through a multi-agency, systems approach, with no commercial or institutional bias, we can accelerate this journey – saving more lives, sooner and with few resources.
Why Thunderbird?
Multi-Agency
We have found that the breadth of emergency service Beyond Visual Line Of Sight (BVLOS) use cases face many of the same, highly complex challenges. By sharing resources and working together we will save more lives sooner and more efficiently.
Procurement
As a charity, we can operate in an agile and neutral manner whilst ensuring appropriate governance and due diligence remains a priority. This enables us to deliver much needed capabilities in an efficient, effective, and accelerated manner.
Funding
We are supported by government, private, and third sector organisations, maximising the shared use of resources. Our focus is not commercial, but in delivering our charitable mission.
Category A
We have a clear focus on life-threatening (‘Cat A’, ‘Blue Light’) missions, recognised by the emergency services and the Civil Aviation Authority as the greatest priority for BVLOS approval.
Our team
We draw on decades of leading aviation technical expertise. The pedigree of the organisations we work with enables us to solve complex challenges in a unique and agile manner, drawing on an extensive UK and global drone industry network to place us at the cutting edge.
