Episode 308 - 2025 APSA Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) Award Recipient – Nicholas Romano Part 1

Welcome to The Hangar Z Podcast, brought to you by Vertical HeliCASTS , in partnership with Vertical Valor magazine . Listen closely for your chance to win awesome prizes from Heli Life! Throughout 2025, every episode of The Hangar Z Podcast will reveal a secret word. Once you catch it, head to contests.verticalhelicasts.com to enter! Today’s episode was recorded on the floor of APSCON 2025 in Phoenix, Arizona, at the Vertical Valor/Hangar Z booth. Each year the Airborne Public Safety Association presents awards in a wide variety of categories. We were lucky enough this year to record with a couple of those recipients, including our guest today. Deputy Nicholas Romano is a 25-year veteran of the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, and recipient of this year’s Unmanned Aerial Systems Award. Nicholas serves as the UAS coordinator for his department and has firmly established himself as a subject matter expert throughout Florida. We discuss his tech background as an investigator, what drew him to the UAS world, the value of the UAS unit working under manned air support, how UAS units are evolving, manned and unmanned integration, and what the future of UAS looks like in law enforcement. Thank you again for your support of the Hangar Z Podcast. Check out the other podcasts on the Vertical Helicasts platform which includes The Real Rescue Podcast , The Helicopter Podcast , The Valor Flight Crew Podcast , and the Vertical MRO Podcast . Thank you to our sponsors Astronautics Corporation of America , Robinson Helicopter and Spectrolab .