On the night of Thursday, July 26, during 2018 EAA AirVenture Oshkosh, a UAS light show lit up the sky in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

​As Lee Greenwood's “God Bless the U.S.A.” played over loudspeakers, the UAS formed a double heart and eagle before flying around to spell out EAA and finish with an American flag.

The light show was performed by Great Lakes Drone Company, which is one of just three companies in the U.S. approved by the FAA to perform lighted drone shows.

The company has four stock shows ranging from 25 to 100 UAS, as well as shows it customizes for customers.  

Great Lakes Drone Co. put together part of a stock show on the history of flight and customized it to AirVenture officials' requests. The company started working with AirVenture in December 2017, and obtained the necessary FAA permits to perform the show, while also designing it.

“We're opening a lot of doors here that have never been opened before,” says Matt Quinn, Great Lakes Drone Co. director of operations, via the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

“Never in the history of North America, that any of us know about, have drones been let out of the cage and integrated with an air show performance.”

This type of demonstration was a first at AirVenture.

“It's very new for us and new for the air show community,” says AirVenture spokesman Dick Knapinski. “There has never been a (FAA) waivered air show with a lighted drone air show in the midst of it.”

To create images, each UAS is programmed with predetermined flight paths. The show is coordinated through one computer system which communicates with each UAS to ensure that they are doing what they’re supposed to be doing.

Great Lakes Drone Co. used 60 custom-built one-foot by one-foot UAS, each of which weighed three pounds. Each UAS shines up to 7,000 lumens in brightness, and much like air show performers who must stay within a physical space to ensure safety for spectators, the UAS light show was also programmed to stay within the invisible box.

While FAA regulations require one pilot per UAS, Great Lakes Drone Co. has obtained waivers that allows one pilot with a laptop to control a UAS swarm. Typically, the company assigns one person per 10 UAS plus a show control, the person in front of the computer.

Great Lakes Drone Co. will perform its next UAS light show in Algoma, Wisconsin on August 12.