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NBC to film news vehicle promo with drones at EPCAL

A bird's eye view of the Enterprise Park at Calverton site. (Credit: Andrew Lepre, file)

Drones will soon be flying over the Enterprise Park at Calverton — only not the ones you’re probably thinking of.

Luminati Aerospace bought the former SkyDive Long Island building at EPCAL to make solar-powered “unmanned aerial vehicles” that can broadcast wireless internet. At the time, most media reports referred to the UAVs as “drones,” to the chagrin of Luminati CEO Dan Preston, who said they are not drones.

These other drones are little less high tech than Lumniati’s UAVs.

The Riverhead Town Board authorized an agreement Thursday to allow NBC Universal Media, parent company of WNBC television in New York, to film a promo at the unused 7,000-foot runway at EPCAL and a section of Hulse Landing Road in Wading River.

“They have new news vehicles that they want to use in a promo in the fall,” town attorney Bob Kozakiewicz said at a recent work session. “They want to rent the runway for two days and they would use a drone to video the vehicle.”

The NBC deal gives the network access to the inactive 7,000-foot runway for two days, June 7 and 8, and allows them to use a section of Hulse Landing Road, between Sound Avenue and Route 25A, for up to four hours between 4 and 8 p.m. on June 7.

NBC will pay the town $2,500 per day for the use of the runway, and at least $1,360 for the services of two town police officers and police cars for four hours on the section of Hulse Landing Road that will be closed during filming. 

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Credit: EPCAL in Calverton. (Credit: Andrew LePre)

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