Chris Tonn 00:00
Well, welcome back to another episode of aerial perspectives. I'm your host, Chris ton, and we've got a very, very special guest today, Andrew Smith, out of Pensacola, Florida, who is here recently highlighted in multiple news outlets for being one of the first civilians captured on film to rescue someone that was drowning on the beach with a drone, a fishing drone, no doubt, and we want to talk about it. So thank you for coming on the show today. Thank you for having me absolutely.
Andrew Smith 00:28
So, yeah, it was, it was crazy.
Chris Tonn 00:31
Oh, I can only imagine. I want to hear a little bit about how you got into drone fishing and how this all started. You know, just back it up a little bit and tell me like, when was the first time you said, Hey, I think I want to do the drone fishing, or was it? Was it before drone fishing was drones a general interest?
Andrew Smith 00:49
No shark fishing. Get the baits out there. You can't cast. Most people use kayaks. Yep. And in January, when it's that cold out. My friend showed up with a drone, and I, like a heck with this guy hacking. So I actually, honestly, I had to get a personal loan, because I'm terrible with money, and it's $30,000 but after I got it, it completely changed fishing for me, yeah, and now you can't go out to the beach without seeing at least one other of these drought when they're completely taken off.
Chris Tonn 01:24
Now are, yeah, now that's, that's, that's no pun intended, uh, now, is that a, is that something that you found yourself like using for more sharp fishing? Was it? Was it? Was it a variety of fish that you utilize it for? Where's the main, you know, focus on the fishing.
Andrew Smith 01:42
Uh, just shark fishing, yeah. Sometimes we've tried to catch like redfish and stuff with it, but it's when you're flying it. You have to make sure the line doesn't go into prop and stuff, yeah, and it's not worth the potential wreck to catch redfish, yeah. The only time we use it is the get the baits out. We usually go, like, three to 600
Chris Tonn 02:01
yards. Nice, nice. And is it? Is it something that you do more at, you know, like a sunset or morning hour? When's the go to time?
Andrew Smith 02:11
It depends on the time of year. I guess when it's cold, gray whites are around, yeah, the wheat fish. And we'll be out there from Friday to Sunday. And so
Chris Tonn 02:19
you've been doing this for two years now, for drone operator. And have you felt yourself like enjoying it more, getting, you know, deeper down the rabbit hole. What's kind of the the progression over the last two years?
Andrew Smith 02:34
I wrecked the drone like two months ago, and I didn't even want to fish anymore, really, because it's, it's just so much easier. You can get five dates out 15 minutes. It used to take two hours by the time you kayak out, kayak back in, catch your breath. Kayak back out. Yep, I've done a backflip in the kayak trying to go out. So in the drone, it can, it can fly in like 30 mile an hour wind to carry 10 pounds. So it's completely game changing.
Chris Tonn 03:04
So you get to a point where this is just a standard tool in the toolbox with fishing, and I fast forward with me over to you're on a new part of Pensacola Beach. What you know you're fishing, and somebody's in distress. How did this all unfold? On the rescue side of this
Andrew Smith 03:26
we were only fishing there because the water conditions were bad where we usually fish. And my friend said, I was just here and the water is not bad. So I was laying in bed. I was like, Well, I guess, guess I'll get out there. And I was just sitting there waiting for people to go like, all this girl came running down the beach screaming, can anybody swim? Everybody just standing there, and we're out there all the time. So I knew that the yellow floats were there, and I ran up, grabbed one, and my first attempt. I don't know if you've seen the first one, but I dropped it way too early. I was shaking. I was panicked. Yeah, there's a lot of stress going on right there, yeah, and there's some lady, I don't even know where she came from. It's kind from. It's kind of all blur. She just handed me another one.
Chris Tonn 04:05
And now, were these, were these, like, pool floats? Were they a lifeguard float? What were the floats,
Andrew Smith 04:13
you know, like, when you see, like, a lifeguard tower, and they have, like, the long skin, like, long
Chris Tonn 04:18
Yeah, yeah, the tube kind of foam. Ish, well, ones, yeah, okay, so yeah. And it was one of those that was hanging out and and it was just available to latch onto, and it clamps in your system, just like the fishing line would. But you were able to get it with the strap or
Andrew Smith 04:36
the fishing line you put the swivel through, yep. But it didn't have a swivel, so I just crammed up the part that, oh, crow, yeah. I was like, it all works, yeah, and it worked.
Chris Tonn 04:50
And so the first shot you said, it was real nerve wracking, and it was a complete miss, but it ended up being something that you know, where. You went back up, what was kind of the difference that you wanted to do between the first flight to the second flight?
Andrew Smith 05:06
I realized how windy it was, yeah, like, I and I, I released it too high. I knew it was too high. As soon as it dropped, I was like, Oh, no way it makes and then the second one, that was he would have died. I knew it was it, was that, was it? That was the last chance. I took my time, wow. And I met her dad, and he said she was about to give up, and she saw this yellow thing in front of her face. Oh, wow. She was out there. Good. I mean, yeah, 100 yards, about 100 yards. Okay, second sandbar,
Chris Tonn 05:36
I thought, and, and she was trying to swim back, or was she just kind of spreading water? What was? What was?
Andrew Smith 05:43
It was a massive rip. She kept me just hanging on for dear life based, wow, she was out there five minutes or so before I even for anybody even knew she had. She was with two other girls. They were all 17, and her and her friend were actually getting sucked out both. And girl got back on her own, and the other friend was running down the beach screaming, and
Chris Tonn 06:08
this is further down the beach, not necessarily like Center, where the pier is. And lots of folks is this, or is this close to,
Andrew Smith 06:16
you know, where chicken bone Beach is? Sure it was a chicken bone. Okay, okay, because you can't fly the drone at four Pickens, yeah, yeah, that's the last Park in all of course, for picking Love it. Love it. Okay, they put in the news that it was at Fort Pickens road. So I got a bunch of messages telling me that I was going to get a rest.
Chris Tonn 06:36
Yeah, as we, we all know it's, it's a no go in this, in the in the state national parks, but that's it's good clarify too,
Andrew Smith 06:45
at the road name is for pick, yeah, yep. Now
Chris Tonn 06:49
this obviously led to, I'm sure, a huge thank you from the parents, and some recognition from our local news stations. And I guess it even got all the way up the national level news. You know what happened with that whirlwind after mission success and and by the way, did she need any additional care? Was she literally able to swim to shore? Was there additional rescue efforts that got her to shore? What what happened there after
Andrew Smith 07:17
I got it to her? I saw her kind of falling back in some and then I was a mad rush of people around me, but she almost made it back before the lifeguards got there. And then one just swam out there a little ways and pulled her in Gotcha. And then another one I had to go, retrieved the one I missed. Oh, float that was halfway to Cancun, and I met her dad. Couple like five or so days after it happened, and he said that she didn't swallow any water or anything, and she he wrote me a nice card.
Chris Tonn 07:50
Nice, nice. And then comes the onslaught of news and coverage elements. How did that unfold. And what was that like
Andrew Smith 08:03
when I saw there was a guy at the beach, the guy that actually filmed it, he said I got it on video, and I asked him to send me it. And then when I woke up and I saw it online, it already had like 200,000 views, I realized that it was going to be a mad rush. I about how to turn my phone off. It was, it was going crazy, I know, like on YouTube alone, the remember NBC or what? But the one video had a million views only. That was just on the one YouTube other one, I bet you, over 50 million people saw it play Fox News and CNN and NBC and ABC and
Chris Tonn 08:45
all of them. Yeah, that's incredible, and it continues to live on on YouTube and and continued exposure. And we appreciate this opportunity too to take that deeper dive in it, because, you know, that's the the one thing you can't really get in the news segment, they've got multiple stories to tell within their little window, and it's nice to just have a deeper understanding of all this. So what was the most fun interview, or part of all of the like, you feel like it was, you know, something that you you enjoyed some of the highlights. Do you you find that it's not really somewhere you like to be in the spotlight. Like, what was that? Some of that, like,
Andrew Smith 09:27
the news was good because they needed to really spread awareness about they shouldn't have been in the water. It was a red flag. And two weeks or so before there was 50 water rescue those people don't listen to the flagging system, there was two drownings, I think, last week. And handle has the most drownings in the country, yeah? Because nobody listens to the flags.
Chris Tonn 09:48
Yeah, and that's, that's from the brakes and the sandbar, right? That causes those recurrence to come out.
Andrew Smith 09:53
Honestly, I really don't know the whole rip current thing. If people would, I do have put the flag. Stuff. Yes, I made sure every news article included the part about the flags. You don't want to see a 17 year old kid growling, trying to shark fish.
Chris Tonn 10:08
No, no, ever. And I couldn't agree more, you have to pay attention to flags, especially when you're not from the local area.
Andrew Smith 10:16
They were a local. Her dad said the that they kept telling her not to go, but they were 17, probably made them want to go
Chris Tonn 10:23
more, yeah, yeah, that age. Well, that's very interesting. And I'm glad that you got a lot of, you know, support from the family. And obviously everybody was okay, was there? It had to be some some fun moments, I'm sure, from the, maybe the manufacturer side. You know, I tell me more about this, you know, device that is used for drone fishing, and what some of the capabilities are. And, you know, just why you chose that fishing drone, and how it ended up, you know, being so versatile for this.
Andrew Smith 10:57
When you want to shark fishing, you carry some pretty big baits. And they were the first company that they were designing the drones for, like military. But then shark fishing ended up using it more. So then they came out with this model that could carry, like 10 pounds, because their other models, they had other ones, but they couldn't carry, think was like four and a half was the max, and that's just not big enough. And this one can go on pretty 30 mile an hour wind or so. So this was just completely game changing. And
Chris Tonn 11:33
it it supports just, you know, one, or is it multiple, you know, elements it can carry. What's the
Andrew Smith 11:41
there's two releases. So you could have somebody, say, drowning 200 yards to the west, drop on the life jacket and fly 30 miles an hour, 200 yards to the east, drop another life jacket. And technically, if you had to, I mean, you could drop a life preserver and able to fish around.
Chris Tonn 12:00
Yeah. Now this sparked, obviously, a little bit of awareness to some of these products within the space. I hear you got some, some pretty cool additional life preservers that self inflate upon touching the water that you'll be keeping on you. Should you ever encounter this again, is that,
Andrew Smith 12:23
is that correct? Yes, and they they actually want me to make some videos with them. Yeah, feeling how I attached it, how I dropped in stuff, and they're out of Germany, and there's another company in Hawaii that's also been trying to contact me. And the life preserver is that the yellow one that I use golf breeze Rotary Club put out there? Yeah, they're putting another one out there in a couple weeks. And the Fox News 10 wants me to go out take a picture with it. More lifeguards say it's completely game changing. Yeah, you could have 15 foot waves by just above it?
Chris Tonn 13:01
Yeah, no, absolutely. That's the, that's the beauty of it. And I, I hope that it, it brings, also, maybe a step forward in integrating some of this really cool technology into a more, you know, permanent or seasonal focused, you know, outreach to, you know, one. I'm sure there's also shark awareness. You know, when we're when we're out there swimming, sometimes we can keep folks a little bit more aware of where some sharks might be swimming closer. Obviously, somebody getting out a little too far, get on the speaker and and announce, hey, you're getting a little too far. Come back in and obviously the the last and coolest part, the life preserver, being able to be deployed. Do you think that's something we'll see in the near future in Florida beaches or elsewhere, or I
Andrew Smith 13:47
really hope so, because it's getting kind of hard to find employees nowadays, too, and one lifeguard cover, yeah, a lot of beach the drone, you just have it put together sitting up on the lifeguard tower, and have the fold already attached to it, and you don't even have to be out of your tower, and you could already have life to the person. Yeah, work smarter, not harder, yeah, the way, I don't see why they won. It was $3,000 but how much is life?
Chris Tonn 14:13
Yeah, yeah. Oh, absolutely, as you mentioned, we had, what, 50 reported rescues and too unfortunate just in the last week not make it so, you know, I and this is, this is something that continues to repeat itself each season. This isn't just, you know, one season being worse than another. It's fortunately consistent, an awareness factor that has to keep going. People
Andrew Smith 14:37
think about like two of the golf like California with the massive waves, East Coast like all this through all it's not very big waves. It can't be dangerous, but Panama City has the most rowings in the country, and it not even people think that it's about the waves too. The flag system has nothing to do with waves. It's all the rip current. Exactly. People don't listen.
Chris Tonn 15:01
It's part of it. Now, advice for other folks that are interested in getting into the drone fishing world, or just in drones in general, what's a what's just a good piece of advice to maybe pass along those that are interested
Andrew Smith 15:15
practice with it a lot before you take it. I have wrecked mine like 10 times before I got good at it. It's completely, completely game changing. I can't kayak anymore because I have a bad seizure to sort it. I have them every couple days. And the drone fishing. Shark fishing is by far my favorite hobby, and without the drone, I wouldn't be able to fish. Yeah, and you can do so much with you could have someone branded all over the place, get some herd in the woods, all kinds of things.
Chris Tonn 15:53
Oh, the use cases are galore from, you know, obviously the life saving search and rescue agriculture, you know, even the going into the Marine sector, the shoreline erosion tracking. And, you know, I've even seen whale research with snot collection drones. When the whales come to surface and do the little blowhole in the in the water comes out, or the snot, there's such, such drone usage for all sorts of cases. So it's always the most exciting to hear it straight from, you know, the person's mouth that was involved. And we just can't thank you enough for coming on the show and sharing your story. But you know, I, I also want to leave the floor open to anything else that you know you'd like to bring awareness to, or just talk about, in general, with with our drone, or
Andrew Smith 16:44
also up in Pennsylvania, where I'm from, they'll use drones to attract, like, if you shoot a deer and like in the gut, then you go attract it. They'll just use the drones to attract animals. Thermal, heat, thermal, Yep, that's right. So there's people up there. There's so many you can do basically anything, whether your own, depending on your own, your interest, then well,
Chris Tonn 17:07
and that's why it sparked so much curiosity and in our audience and beyond. Because, you know, really, the imagination hasn't come up with all the uses just yet. I, you know, being on the school side with guidance counselors. You know, we talk about, like, drone agriculture spraying and how it really didn't exist a year and a half ago, you know, and it was, you know, there's just no job code for it yet, but we do need to start bringing in this next generation of workforce capable droneers. And, you know, you're a prime example of someone that's used it in a really cool way. And it's just, it's neat to hear the story, and obviously love to have you back on after a few more rescues and a few more fishing stories and
Andrew Smith 17:48
catch up more rescues.
Chris Tonn 17:52
Yeah, I hear you. It's a stressful one I can only imagine. I
Andrew Smith 17:56
still don't know how I do I've watched that video so many times. I don't I still shake just watching the video. I
Chris Tonn 18:02
can imagine, I can imagine, well, it's much appreciated that you were able to, you know, power through those stress moments and and get the job done. I know it now. It did well for all parties. So cool with that. Well in this episode, and thank you again for coming on to aerial perspectives. And really appreciate job well done. Thank you.
