Three Vicksburg police officers are going to flight school.

Police Chief Milton Moore said officers Jeff Merritt, Lt. Mike Bryant and Lt. Leonce Young are attending classes to learn to pilot drones for the department. He said he expects to purchase a drone before the end of the month, adding it might be several months before the department’s first craft takes to the air.

“We need to get the officers trained and then we need to develop the department’s policy for it,” Moore said. “That could take some time to get ready before we can be ready to fly.”

“The chief wants us to be certified operators with the drones, and he wants us to have a certificate of authorization from the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration),” Young said, adding the certificate of authorization will allow police to fly the drone at a certain altitude.

To be certified as operators, he said, the officers must attend schools to learn to fly the drone, and take an FAA-required test. He said they recently attended a class on the drone operation in Gonzales, La., and will be attending a three-day class later this month in Natchez.

“It’s a very hands-on class,” Young said. “They first have you train on a simulator, and then you fly a drone.”

He said four law enforcement agencies in Mississippi, including Adams County and Madison, are using drones.

Moore said using a drone can have several benefits for the department.

“It can be useful when we have crowd situations, not that we can fly over the people, but we can fly around the area, we can check and follow suspicious vehicles, and it can be helpful in search and rescue operations,” he said.

“It can help with manpower,” Young said. “If we have a situation where someone has barricaded themselves in a house, we can send a drone up and get a 360-degree view of the house. If the person leaves the house and if he’s carrying a weapon, the drone will see it and we can see in which direction he’s going instead of having 10 officers surrounding the house, we can use maybe four.

“If we’re chasing someone at night, we can send it up to find the person and lead us right to him, instead of having a group of people walking through the woods with flashlights.”

Moore said he has not determined what camera equipment will be purchased for the drone. “The drone does not cost that much, but the equipment, like a night vision camera, is expensive,” he said.

“This is a tool that can help us.”