Easy to Buy but Tough to Operate Legally
It’s easier than ever to buy a drone these days, but perhaps tougher than ever to legally operate one. Donations from the Advanced Transportation and Renewable Energy Sector are helping one local instructor change that with a new class at San Diego Miramar College.
Max Moore, Assistant Professor of Aviation Operations at Miramar, received various DJI drones and cameras from ATRE to use as part of a new course set to launch next fall. The course will focus on how to legally operate drones in the San Diego area — something that sounds easy but is not necessarily so, Moore says.
“There are very few places for drone pilots to fly commercially and a lot of hoops to jump through to do it legally,” Moore says. “One goal of the class is to get students the experience they need to know where they can and can’t fly,” as well as learning how to navigate the waiver process required for a lot of commercial drone flight.
Moore said initial enrollment in the course would be about 30 students in the lecture portion of the course and 15-20 students in the lab portion. He expects about half of the students to be those looking to utilize drones in their profession and half to be what he calls hobbyists, or those who bought a drone for personal use only.
Big Demands for in Architecture, Real Estate and Construction Sectors
Among the professional group, the biggest demand for drone use is coming from the architecture, real estate, and construction sectors. For a small investment of about $1,000 for a drone and $150 for license, professionals in these fields can realize a much larger long-term cost savings if they have proper training.
“They can do things like take real-time photos of a construction site or home they’re showing, but people realize pretty quickly that it’s not that easy to make money unless you know how to operate within FAA regulation.”
Moore joined Miramar in 2014 and brings a unique perspective to his students. The son of a crop duster, he joined the Marine Corps in 1997 and became an instructor on the CH-53 helicopter. He also served as a quality assurance inspector, crew resource management instructor, aircrew evaluator and a weapons and tactics crew chief instructor, where he earned eight Air Medals during multiple combat tours.
Drones are nothing new to Moore; in 2012 he flew large military drones supporting coalition forces in Afghanistan.
The correct term for a “drone” is Unmanned Aerial System (UAS); training planned at Miramar will focus on Small UAS (sUAS) which is recognized by the FAA as any UAS under 55 pounds. If all goes well this fall, he hopes to expand the drone course to multiple sections and add it as a for-credit component to Miramar’s Aviation Operations programs.
