Lewisville police report 1,789 drone flights, but their public log stops at 1,303

The Lewisville Police Department in North Texas says its drones flew 1,789 times from 1 January to 3 November, about six flights a day. But its public Drone as First Responder dashboard listed only 1,303 flights when DroneXL checked it on 9 November, and the last of them was on 2 September.

The department flies Skydio drones from docks around the city under FAA approval for flights beyond visual line of sight. It has 19 drones and 15 trained operators, and the programme officially started on 8 May. The dashboard shows flights rising from 188 in the rest of May to a peak of 389 in July.

Police said flying stayed steady through October. On 20 October a drone reached a call behind a motel in under a minute, followed a man who ran from officers into an apartment complex and guided them to him, police said. That flight is not in the public log, although the city's transparency page says drone-as-first-responder flights update automatically.