Drone flying is not a skill

Once again I will upset folks, drone driving is and will become more of a button push-only exercise.

The person in the loop is the most significant danger in 99% of operations.

I have been triggered, here in South Africa, a course provider will take a small sum from your youngster to give them a taste of the brave new world to come and a certificate as well. In their own words

We develop core 21st Century skills and career opportunities through, blended educational and technological programmes for students and educators.

Our offerings are both online and offline programmes and curricula that cover 4th Industrial Revolutionary (4iR) technologies such as Coding for operation, 3D Printing, Robotics, Drones, Virtual Reality (VR), and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Almost all the buzzwords are in one place, they just need to add AI and blockchain.

South Africa already has far more trained commercial drone operators than it needs, which is a costly process here. They are lured in with the promise of lucrative work and largely not told they need a ticket for their company as well to be completely legal. It is at this point they give up and the next round of fresh-faced hopefuls arrive.

What the industry lacks worldwide are people that can turn whatever outputs that their drone provides into actionable data.

If it’s not data, it is all just pretty pictures. So rather find out how to be a surveyor or inspector of some sort. Get hands-on with LiDAR, CAD, 3D modelling and all things digital display. There is a raft of skills to turn up with at a drone company before you have even seen one.

Most of the work that drones undertake happens with platforms weighing less than 20kg. If bigger platforms are needed then yes some serious pilot training is required. For that a model aircraft association membership of whatever country you are in and some photos of all the models you have crashed would be high on my personnel list of requirements.

This will take you much further at the interview than a bogus piece of paper from people that have never operated serious platforms.

Of course, I think the world of droning has a future, just make sure you know exactly what the market needs before you start spending money on training.

Argue with me about this on the thing of now Threads https://www.threads.net/@suasnews