Commercial Drone Operator's Licence - Anyone Done It?
Discussion
I did a course in December - a PH er has an interest in the firm... Based on what I'm going to say next should probably not identify him.
The organisation had done a large course the previous week. There were only a handful of us on our course. I have a suspicion that they could not be bothered because of the size.
The trainers were very experienced, but rather rushed through things. The course was for 3-4 days. The 4th day was a 'reserve' in case the weather was bad when doing flight tests. The weather was bad - and it became clear that despite course members having booked the extra night away, the trainers were booked elsewhere.
The flight practice was very limited - the tests even less so.
So did I get value for money? Definitely not, but I did pass - and will hopefully get my permission in the next couple of weeks.
Be careful where you spend your money...
The organisation had done a large course the previous week. There were only a handful of us on our course. I have a suspicion that they could not be bothered because of the size.
The trainers were very experienced, but rather rushed through things. The course was for 3-4 days. The 4th day was a 'reserve' in case the weather was bad when doing flight tests. The weather was bad - and it became clear that despite course members having booked the extra night away, the trainers were booked elsewhere.
The flight practice was very limited - the tests even less so.
So did I get value for money? Definitely not, but I did pass - and will hopefully get my permission in the next couple of weeks.
Be careful where you spend your money...
PPL or above can skip the theory side of the PFCO (Permit for Commercial Operations) - I elected to do the full course tho, as it was a good refresher and a lot of the UAV Air Laws are not covered in fixed wing air law.
It's not a licence, as FCL does not exist (yet) for UAV, and the practical flight test is very basic - they're looking for you to be safe, ultimately. There are a number of schools (NQE's) set up to get you through the course. Worth doing your research on the web (Facebook is quite good for this) regarding feedback for each schools. There's a bit of a race to the bottom going on in the industry, both from holders of the permit, to the flight school's themselves.
Feel free to PM me if you've any further Q's.
It's not a licence, as FCL does not exist (yet) for UAV, and the practical flight test is very basic - they're looking for you to be safe, ultimately. There are a number of schools (NQE's) set up to get you through the course. Worth doing your research on the web (Facebook is quite good for this) regarding feedback for each schools. There's a bit of a race to the bottom going on in the industry, both from holders of the permit, to the flight school's themselves.
Feel free to PM me if you've any further Q's.
Dear Surveyor,
I would like to congratulate you on passing our CAA course that we are so passionate about offering and wish you all the best with your future flying career!
I’m sorry to hear however that your expectations were not met on our recent course with our instructors at our venue in Sheffield with respect to the value you felt you received.
We aspire to be the very best in terms of training delivered and all our courses for NQE CAA PfCO are operated to these current guidelines.
I fully appreciate that you chose not to name my organisation or me on this public forum and that you had a choice of training partners from our industry.
However, I feel the best chance to improve customer service for future students in this case is very important and I’d like to thank you for your permission to allow me to respond on here openly today as well as in person to you by telephone as we did earlier, to learn from your experience and improve as a company.
Upon noting your feedback on the forum above, we called an internal meeting to discuss the points raised by your message regarding the course in question with all those involved and capture action points for improvement.
In this way, we can further evolve the course for the next intake based on your valuable comments.
In parallel, we have finalised a full review of the course offering delivered in 2016 to our 300 students so far to ensure that our 2017 intake receives the best possible training that we can provide by building on the foundations laid last year and the feedback that we received.
Firstly, with so much of our effort invested in providing a world leading training offering, following our discussion I feel we let you down on some aspects of this and I apologise to you directly.
The results of our meeting and review have been shared with your good self and we trust that the steps we have taken would lead you to once again recommend us for this service.
There was certainly no intention to make you feel any less welcome than previous intakes, despite the numbers being much lower on the course in question as Christmas approached us.
Our instructors have trained around 1000 pilots between them.
We highly value all our student feedback on their views of the course execution by these instructors as we can always improve as you have highlighted above.
If it appeared that instructors were rushing through the material in any way, they apologise and confirm back to me that they will pause for reflection more frequently and ensure that everyone is fully up to speed at every stage with the modules moving forward.
Furthermore, this will take place more thoroughly as it has now been formally logged with our training manager as part of our quality process.
We have run many courses globally for our parent marine organisation on a vast range of engineering disciplines and we like to believe that we can always do better for the customer on the next one versus the last one.
Pauses and reflection must be built into the learning process for our students alongside calibration, so that everyone is comfortable with the pace we’ve set at the schools.
With relation to the trainers being stood down when it became apparent that the flight tests could not take place due to inclement weather, this simply should have been handled better for you and we are sorry you were made to feel this way.
Secondly, we take on board your comments around the clarity of the “3-4 days course duration” we advertise with respect to flight test preparation and completion and what this means to students.
It’s always difficult in the UK as we are challenged by the weather with respect to follow up flight testing regardless of the season.
My own feelings reflect yours, I believe this could be clearer.
This system is now also now under review as a result to make it much clearer regarding the expectations and requirements of the flight test in UK conditions following ground school.
This will take place well before new students set foot on the ground based modules so they can choose definitively a method of testing that works best for them.
Our joining material will include moving forward details of this and the options to fly on day 4 or postpone the test if needs be to a later date formally, which will also enable those not ready to fly a month or so to gain practise before presenting themselves fit and ready for the flight test.
Each candidate will be allocated ample time to prepare for their test with a view to gaining more flying experience if required.
We are also increasing the depth of these tests as part of our review for new students that requested more advice on set up and administration exercises.
It also gives those that may have flown for years, the option to take the test immediately following ground school, providing the weather is with us.
We feel the above will be the best balance to offer those who seek a professional training course but we will review regularly with customer the offering and gather feedback to amend as required.
Thirdly, we will also be offering more coaching on practical flying ahead of the flight test itself for those that request it, with a view to making the CAA test less daunting for newcomers by hosting mock exams in advance if requested.
This practical flight training will be optioned ahead of the course itself with professional pilots to give new students the chance to experience life for a day as a professional working pilot alongside coaching exercises which seems to be a popular cost option with us currently.
We do have people that attend the course and then determine that this life is not for them, so this option will also be a taster to determine if the life of a drone pilot is actually for you.
In relation to the other great statements made in this thread, the CAA ensures that safety is the key aspect of what each NQE teaches and our course centres very heavily around the safety aspect of flying as you have now experienced.
The largest category of those failing a CAA course at flight test stage do so for breach of safety rules.
Feedback to date is usually that we strike exactly the right balance following each course via Facebook, twitter, drone related forums and our own website between safety, pace, enjoyment and “value for money” versus the other courses on offer out there.
If not, we critically review as we have done here today to see how we can improve the experience for our customers individually.
As a major equipment provider, attendees to our CAA courses are also given access to limited special offers for both equipment and subsequent professional courses in return for placing their business with us.
I’m sorry if this value was not conveyed effectively to you.
I carry the responsibility for this aspect of your comments as I created some of the offers outlined to present at the course and these should have been clearer in the form of hand-outs for you.
We have also noted ourselves within both the training industry and specifically the drone division that there is evidence of a “race to the bottom” with some other providers.
We see this in both course fees advertised and subsequently work rates then offered out by new pilots to their own clients.
There appears to be a requirement sometimes to always be the “cheapest provider” either as pilot in front of new clients or for NQE’s looking to attract new pilots to train.
We feel that this will not sustain those looking to make a career from drone operations post-PfCO in the longer term and we try and be as up front as possible with customers that telephone us to discuss their options in this market.
Therefore, we took the decision not to engage with this trend as it devalues what we find is quite an expensive product to deliver in the first place in terms of the quality needed to make both it and the graduating students a sustainable success.
If we are requested to price match a quick pass course, we work to sell the value of our course in terms of the reality and vocational experience that can be gained from working with ourselves.
We also request trained pilots not to engage in price wars with each other that devalue their service below cost but instead look to their own ways of adding value into their service so that they can maintain a reasonable price for a good, safe service and make a living from the industry, which is absolutely possible for the legally trained pilot.
One example is that we run professional software and photography courses so that pilots need not contract our video editing and software processing following a job.
We teach a little about this on the course now as a way of adding further value to the standardised training modules that the CAA require us to present.
The little extra we charge for these value points we feel outweighs the discounts you can gain by going for slightly cheaper training elsewhere as the "value proposition" can be used again and again as you develop your own client base in terms of savings down the line.
We set expectation from the outset that there are monthly costs the new pilot must carry in terms of the correct insurance, equipment, training, operational procedures and marketing so that a correct mind-set of running a drone business can be established from the very beginning in terms of budgeting, versus those they may encounter that will always look to do the same work more cheaply for a given client.
In relation to this, as an ISO9001 organisation, our systems form the backbone of our own service provision and this does carry a cost to maintain which is reflected in the price we charge for delivering the service.
We are satisfied that while we are unable to offer the cheapest, lowest optioned product to the market, we always look to be competitive in terms of "whole value supplied" and support our customers with offers on equipment that choose to start and continue their flying career with us to CAA certified standards for example.
To summarise, in terms of value for money, on top of the gesture I have made to you today by telephone Surveyor, I’d also like to invite you back onto one of our local software courses (at our own cost as a further gesture of goodwill).
This is so that you may have a second chance to assess our passion and drive for both the subjects we teach and how we wish to be associated only with fantastic customer service that provides value to the new pilot community we are building!
These options should have been better represented on the course as discussed as driving value for you and I do hope this addresses your feeling that you did receive value for money in terms of what we provided.
Best Wishes with your future flying career and I trust we can continue to be of service to you moving forward based on our conversation on the matter.
I would like to congratulate you on passing our CAA course that we are so passionate about offering and wish you all the best with your future flying career!
I’m sorry to hear however that your expectations were not met on our recent course with our instructors at our venue in Sheffield with respect to the value you felt you received.
We aspire to be the very best in terms of training delivered and all our courses for NQE CAA PfCO are operated to these current guidelines.
I fully appreciate that you chose not to name my organisation or me on this public forum and that you had a choice of training partners from our industry.
However, I feel the best chance to improve customer service for future students in this case is very important and I’d like to thank you for your permission to allow me to respond on here openly today as well as in person to you by telephone as we did earlier, to learn from your experience and improve as a company.
Upon noting your feedback on the forum above, we called an internal meeting to discuss the points raised by your message regarding the course in question with all those involved and capture action points for improvement.
In this way, we can further evolve the course for the next intake based on your valuable comments.
In parallel, we have finalised a full review of the course offering delivered in 2016 to our 300 students so far to ensure that our 2017 intake receives the best possible training that we can provide by building on the foundations laid last year and the feedback that we received.
Firstly, with so much of our effort invested in providing a world leading training offering, following our discussion I feel we let you down on some aspects of this and I apologise to you directly.
The results of our meeting and review have been shared with your good self and we trust that the steps we have taken would lead you to once again recommend us for this service.
There was certainly no intention to make you feel any less welcome than previous intakes, despite the numbers being much lower on the course in question as Christmas approached us.
Our instructors have trained around 1000 pilots between them.
We highly value all our student feedback on their views of the course execution by these instructors as we can always improve as you have highlighted above.
If it appeared that instructors were rushing through the material in any way, they apologise and confirm back to me that they will pause for reflection more frequently and ensure that everyone is fully up to speed at every stage with the modules moving forward.
Furthermore, this will take place more thoroughly as it has now been formally logged with our training manager as part of our quality process.
We have run many courses globally for our parent marine organisation on a vast range of engineering disciplines and we like to believe that we can always do better for the customer on the next one versus the last one.
Pauses and reflection must be built into the learning process for our students alongside calibration, so that everyone is comfortable with the pace we’ve set at the schools.
With relation to the trainers being stood down when it became apparent that the flight tests could not take place due to inclement weather, this simply should have been handled better for you and we are sorry you were made to feel this way.
Secondly, we take on board your comments around the clarity of the “3-4 days course duration” we advertise with respect to flight test preparation and completion and what this means to students.
It’s always difficult in the UK as we are challenged by the weather with respect to follow up flight testing regardless of the season.
My own feelings reflect yours, I believe this could be clearer.
This system is now also now under review as a result to make it much clearer regarding the expectations and requirements of the flight test in UK conditions following ground school.
This will take place well before new students set foot on the ground based modules so they can choose definitively a method of testing that works best for them.
Our joining material will include moving forward details of this and the options to fly on day 4 or postpone the test if needs be to a later date formally, which will also enable those not ready to fly a month or so to gain practise before presenting themselves fit and ready for the flight test.
Each candidate will be allocated ample time to prepare for their test with a view to gaining more flying experience if required.
We are also increasing the depth of these tests as part of our review for new students that requested more advice on set up and administration exercises.
It also gives those that may have flown for years, the option to take the test immediately following ground school, providing the weather is with us.
We feel the above will be the best balance to offer those who seek a professional training course but we will review regularly with customer the offering and gather feedback to amend as required.
Thirdly, we will also be offering more coaching on practical flying ahead of the flight test itself for those that request it, with a view to making the CAA test less daunting for newcomers by hosting mock exams in advance if requested.
This practical flight training will be optioned ahead of the course itself with professional pilots to give new students the chance to experience life for a day as a professional working pilot alongside coaching exercises which seems to be a popular cost option with us currently.
We do have people that attend the course and then determine that this life is not for them, so this option will also be a taster to determine if the life of a drone pilot is actually for you.
In relation to the other great statements made in this thread, the CAA ensures that safety is the key aspect of what each NQE teaches and our course centres very heavily around the safety aspect of flying as you have now experienced.
The largest category of those failing a CAA course at flight test stage do so for breach of safety rules.
Feedback to date is usually that we strike exactly the right balance following each course via Facebook, twitter, drone related forums and our own website between safety, pace, enjoyment and “value for money” versus the other courses on offer out there.
If not, we critically review as we have done here today to see how we can improve the experience for our customers individually.
As a major equipment provider, attendees to our CAA courses are also given access to limited special offers for both equipment and subsequent professional courses in return for placing their business with us.
I’m sorry if this value was not conveyed effectively to you.
I carry the responsibility for this aspect of your comments as I created some of the offers outlined to present at the course and these should have been clearer in the form of hand-outs for you.
We have also noted ourselves within both the training industry and specifically the drone division that there is evidence of a “race to the bottom” with some other providers.
We see this in both course fees advertised and subsequently work rates then offered out by new pilots to their own clients.
There appears to be a requirement sometimes to always be the “cheapest provider” either as pilot in front of new clients or for NQE’s looking to attract new pilots to train.
We feel that this will not sustain those looking to make a career from drone operations post-PfCO in the longer term and we try and be as up front as possible with customers that telephone us to discuss their options in this market.
Therefore, we took the decision not to engage with this trend as it devalues what we find is quite an expensive product to deliver in the first place in terms of the quality needed to make both it and the graduating students a sustainable success.
If we are requested to price match a quick pass course, we work to sell the value of our course in terms of the reality and vocational experience that can be gained from working with ourselves.
We also request trained pilots not to engage in price wars with each other that devalue their service below cost but instead look to their own ways of adding value into their service so that they can maintain a reasonable price for a good, safe service and make a living from the industry, which is absolutely possible for the legally trained pilot.
One example is that we run professional software and photography courses so that pilots need not contract our video editing and software processing following a job.
We teach a little about this on the course now as a way of adding further value to the standardised training modules that the CAA require us to present.
The little extra we charge for these value points we feel outweighs the discounts you can gain by going for slightly cheaper training elsewhere as the "value proposition" can be used again and again as you develop your own client base in terms of savings down the line.
We set expectation from the outset that there are monthly costs the new pilot must carry in terms of the correct insurance, equipment, training, operational procedures and marketing so that a correct mind-set of running a drone business can be established from the very beginning in terms of budgeting, versus those they may encounter that will always look to do the same work more cheaply for a given client.
In relation to this, as an ISO9001 organisation, our systems form the backbone of our own service provision and this does carry a cost to maintain which is reflected in the price we charge for delivering the service.
We are satisfied that while we are unable to offer the cheapest, lowest optioned product to the market, we always look to be competitive in terms of "whole value supplied" and support our customers with offers on equipment that choose to start and continue their flying career with us to CAA certified standards for example.
To summarise, in terms of value for money, on top of the gesture I have made to you today by telephone Surveyor, I’d also like to invite you back onto one of our local software courses (at our own cost as a further gesture of goodwill).
This is so that you may have a second chance to assess our passion and drive for both the subjects we teach and how we wish to be associated only with fantastic customer service that provides value to the new pilot community we are building!
These options should have been better represented on the course as discussed as driving value for you and I do hope this addresses your feeling that you did receive value for money in terms of what we provided.
Best Wishes with your future flying career and I trust we can continue to be of service to you moving forward based on our conversation on the matter.
Edited by 996Type on Tuesday 31st January 10:21
Edited by 996Type on Tuesday 31st January 10:24
Currently passed my Theory exam, and doing some practice exercises before hopefully going for my Practical Exam. I'm not in a commercial role (public sector) so some of the detail is not necessarily applicable to me.
Couple of flies in the ointment:
- The company selected to deliver the training for our 6no new pilots recently, as in over Christmas put their UK arm into administration. We pre-paid our training fees so may have lost that for the two of us who have yet to do the Practical, and one who has to re-sit the theory.
- We're training on the basis of a Swinglet-Cam fixed wing, and not the all-signing quad-copter that was custom built for us, but one day...
Couple of flies in the ointment:
- The company selected to deliver the training for our 6no new pilots recently, as in over Christmas put their UK arm into administration. We pre-paid our training fees so may have lost that for the two of us who have yet to do the Practical, and one who has to re-sit the theory.
- We're training on the basis of a Swinglet-Cam fixed wing, and not the all-signing quad-copter that was custom built for us, but one day...
996Type said:
Sorry to hear of the above.
If you PM me, we can take into account evidenced training and build a shortfall course for you.
We are seeing some outfall from the guys in question, we don't believe they will be the last based on the current trends.
Interesting prospect. Why do you not think it will be the last given the popularity of UAVs and the likelihood of the authorities to push most / all pilots down some sort of licencing route?If you PM me, we can take into account evidenced training and build a shortfall course for you.
We are seeing some outfall from the guys in question, we don't believe they will be the last based on the current trends.
996Type said:
Said a lot - too much to quote....
996 Type... (Forums are strange...)It was good to talk to you. It was refreshing to see feedback taken so seriously and the changes that you speak about sound very positive indeed.
I look forward to meeting you again at some point..
Kind regards
David
Hi Dr Rick,
The market has expanded from drone enthusiasts providing training to supplement their own flying activities to larger organisations (for example ex military or corporate guys from other disciplines) who have very comprehensive growth strategies and reach into very large numbers of industries looking to train en masse with funding behind them. These have very systematic approaches to training.
One of my friends that now trains is the worlds most senior harrier pilot for example and ran the UK weapons school, the one the US copied to create Top Gun. I can't imagine a more qualified person to teach the discipline, such is the level the bar is now being raised to.
It's just my personal opinion but the market is expanding rapidly and I could believe that others could go the same way if they just engage in price wars to protect their business as opposed to offering something different / better for their students.
Add to this the fragile relationship that SUAS has with the media and the potential for a swing in legislation, public opinion or strategy post brexit and it becomes possible to see how different everything could be within 24 months.
The market has expanded from drone enthusiasts providing training to supplement their own flying activities to larger organisations (for example ex military or corporate guys from other disciplines) who have very comprehensive growth strategies and reach into very large numbers of industries looking to train en masse with funding behind them. These have very systematic approaches to training.
One of my friends that now trains is the worlds most senior harrier pilot for example and ran the UK weapons school, the one the US copied to create Top Gun. I can't imagine a more qualified person to teach the discipline, such is the level the bar is now being raised to.
It's just my personal opinion but the market is expanding rapidly and I could believe that others could go the same way if they just engage in price wars to protect their business as opposed to offering something different / better for their students.
Add to this the fragile relationship that SUAS has with the media and the potential for a swing in legislation, public opinion or strategy post brexit and it becomes possible to see how different everything could be within 24 months.
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