New Operators

The biggest challenge I believe new UAS operators are facing in the industry are a lack of understanding of the platforms and their complexities. Many people tend to over simplify to where it sounds like anybody can fly them. This generalization does hold some water in the sense that companies don’t tend to over complicate the controls of the UAS. People need to understand the whole scope of UAS in order to be a safe and efficient pilot. A UAS platform is just like any other mechanical object that you own, it is going to need maintenance. Many people believe that you don’t need to do maintenance on the platforms unless they are broken and that is completely false. You need to inspect the moving parts of your aircraft to make sure it is safe to fly and will not danger others. Without having a background in UAS it becomes harder to troubleshoot in the field. For example, I have taken a UAS electricity class so I understand how the electrical system works and what to look for when I run into a problem with the platform. This allows me to possibly fix my problem in the field and resume the task I doing before I ran into the error. Many of the weekend warriors of drones do not know how to do this stuff and their platforms become unsafe to fly. These are the people that give drone pilots a bad reputation of being reckless and not knowing what they are doing. In my opinion this is why the FAA currently has strict regulations for drones and their pilots. If people want to fly drones for a living, I believe they need to be educated first just like how I am currently. That is what I believe the biggest problem currently is for new UAS operators.