# News Source Record

**L-Ne / Open-source news extract** — Original media coverage of unmanned aerial systems.

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Collection date | 21 June 2015 |
| Platform | Quiet Systems |
| Data label | Open-source news record // LRRK collection product |
| Handling | Public-source material. Image rights require separate verification before publication. |
| Scale | Local |
| Language | English |
| Terms matched | UAS; drone; Section 333; SkySkopes |

## Bibliographic

| Field | Value |
| --- | --- |
| Outlet | Grand Forks Herald (Grand Forks, North Dakota) |
| Title | Grand Forks startup explores commercial use of drones |
| Dateline | Grand Forks, North Dakota |
| First publisher | yes |
| Original URL | https://www.grandforksherald.com/newsmd/grand-forks-startup-explores-commercial-use-of-drones |
| Archive URL | https://www.newspapers.com/image/1135788702/?terms=UAS |
| Dedup key | 2015-06-21|grand-forks-herald|skyskopes-first-gf-section-333 |
| Source grade | A1 |

## Pictures

- page scan: not downloaded this pass (img CDN 429 — download rate limit). IAT minted from signed-in session. Extract locked from contemporaneous web first-publisher, not Tesseract.
- clips folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vXHLTJaJN6V5eWhhGKAB_ObEa0zYttcd

## Record

**Verified extract — [Fact — A1]** Brandi Jewett of the Grand Forks Herald reported that SkySkopes, an unmanned-aircraft startup less than a year old at the UND Center for Innovation, is the first Grand Forks company to receive an FAA Section 333 commercial-flight exemption. On Friday (19 June) Connor Grafius, a UND UAS-program sophomore with a private pilot license, flew a DJI Spreading Wings S1000 — one of two models the exemption allows him to pilot — near the Center; a camera on the airframe showed the crew on a nearby monitor. President and CEO Matt Dunlevy: “This is a very drone-centric city” and the firm wants to show drones “being used to make the world a better place.” The 333 lets SkySkopes fly up to 200 feet, among other limits. Mission is infrastructure inspection (cell towers, wind turbines, other above-ground structures) plus aerial photography and sensor data collection. Vice President Jack Wilcox and Special Projects Manager Ryan Ach came out of Dunlevy’s UND entrepreneurship class. SkySkopes is the third North Dakota 333 (after Shutter Pilots of Bismarck and Falkirk Mining Co.); more than 600 exemptions granted nationwide. Before each flight the company must file a NOTAM via Lockheed Martin as middleman to the FAA. Approval under 200 feet can take 72 hours; 200–400 feet up to 15 days. The S1000 weighs up to 20 pounds with camera. Newspapers.com 18 June 2015 GF A1 (1135788702) is a UAS page in the same week; print OCR was not obtained (CDN 429), so the extract is locked to the 21 June web first-publisher, not assumed identical to A1.

**Kinematic object.** DJI Spreading Wings S1000 (SkySkopes — first Grand Forks Section 333; UND Center for Innovation).

**Coverage frame.** civil / commercial exemption / industry

## Source integrity

- Why this is treated as an original: Grand Forks Herald staff byline on the local first-333 startup.
- Wire reprint status: Staff-written. Not AP. Possible same-week A1 1135788702 not OCR’d; do not treat A1 as confirmed identical.
- What was excluded: National 333-count color except as ND ranking.

## LRRK relevance

Watch / Passport. A Watch desk would have logged the first Grand Forks 333 — a UND-student-flown S1000 still gated by Lockheed-relayed NOTAMs and a 72-hour/15-day approval clock.

*LRRK — security assurance for systems that sense, move, and act.*

L-Ne