commercial drone training etc

[fin racer]

Hi folks, I am pretty sure there will be someone on here who has gone through this process already, but I am in the early stages of planning a small business using agricultural drones, and am asking for some insight from those who have undertaken PfCO/CAA training, specifically around the best ( ie. most sensibly priced) courses, as well as rough costs as the CAA site has a lot of detail over Standard vs Non Standard Permissions (and seemingly a ,massive variance in cost as well).
I will be marketing my services in the rural community, so I'd imagine a reduced risk. Thanks in advance

[ecsrobin]

fin racer said:

Hi folks, I am pretty sure there will be someone on here who has gone through this process already, but I am in the early stages of planning a small business using agricultural drones, and am asking for some insight from those who have undertaken PfCO/CAA training, specifically around the best ( ie. most sensibly priced) courses, as well as rough costs as the CAA site has a lot of detail over Standard vs Non Standard Permissions (and seemingly a ,massive variance in cost as well).
I will be marketing my services in the rural community, so I'd imagine a reduced risk. Thanks in advance

https://www.ajs-support.net/ Is a training provider that I know of rather than using their services. The limited contact I’ve had has been positive.

Have you checked the market I believe agriculture were one of the first providers of agricultural drone use many years ago so I imagine it’s quite an established market.

I did some drone trials last year ranging from people who have made something in their shed to multi million pound drones from big defence companies. What was evident is that it’s not the drone it’s the software that’s the selling point.

In our trials the off the shelf drone with bespoke software was by far the most outstanding one we trialled. Likewise one of the multimillion pound ones had a sensor on it that was superb but we didn’t need a drone to get and use that sensor and is something we could retrofit to our current delivery method.

[Mothersruin]

I've just got seven of our Mountain Rescue Team qualified.

The course we did, and it seems that most are the same, are not technical. They won't make you better pilots, its more a ground school thing to make sure you meet the legal requirements and understand the 'rules'. We've created our own in-house training and competency requirements as we may well be flying at the edge of the equipment's envelopes, in crap terrain, weather etc... with a possibility of it being 'Press' worthy.

Also ensure the company helps with the Operations Manual that meets the CAA's requirements. It should be a cut and paste job where you fill in the blanks.

Moonrock insurance are great and do specific stuff for passing the assessment and refund it back against the following commercial policy.

I'll add contacts and more thoughts when I'm back at the PC later.

[fin racer]

Excellent thanks mothersruin.

[fin racer]

ecsrobin said:

https://www.ajs-support.net/ Is a training provider that I know of rather than using their services. The limited contact I’ve had has been positive.

Have you checked the market I believe agriculture were one of the first providers of agricultural drone use many years ago so I imagine it’s quite an established market.

I did some drone trials last year ranging from people who have made something in their shed to multi million pound drones from big defence companies. What was evident is that it’s not the drone it’s the software that’s the selling point.

In our trials the off the shelf drone with bespoke software was by far the most outstanding one we trialled. Likewise one of the multimillion pound ones had a sensor on it that was superb but we didn’t need a drone to get and use that sensor and is something we could retrofit to our current delivery method.

Robin you say the market is long established but in my research to date I see very little businesses in my part of the world (northern Ireland). Thanks for your comments regardless

[ecsrobin]

fin racer said:

Robin you say the market is long established but in my research to date I see very little businesses in my part of the world (northern Ireland). Thanks for your comments regardless

If you’re in Northern Ireland then get in touch with Paul Trimble of Search systems Ltd. He mainly specialises in search and rescue drone work but I believe he does do consultation work or may be able to point you in the right direction for drone training.

His software that he uses for search is the best I’ve seen.

There’s also a farm that will put you through licences and run specialist farming drone courses: https://droneag.farm/training/

Edited by ecsrobin on Sunday 7th July 16:49

[Mothersruin]

Here's the guys we used - https://asg.ltd/

Insurance - https://www.moonrockinsurance.com/

Moonrock are really helpful and will happily do bespoke policies - give them a ring if you have any questions.

I also found the CAA extremely helpful - again, they're very happy to have a chat about stuff, but the process can take a while from your submission - it's really important that the training company helps with your Ops Manual so that your operations are fully covered, meets all the legal requirements, has the right certification format etc...

One thing to perhaps do as well is research the major land owners in your area and find out what they require for indemnities etc...

We're surrounded by, perhaps obviously (lol), National Parks, National Trust, Military and large estates - we needed to have them all happy with our paperwork and insurances before they'd let go onto their land to train.

[fin racer]

ecsrobin said:

If you’re in Northern Ireland then get in touch with Paul Trimble of Search systems Ltd. He mainly specialises in search and rescue drone work but I believe he does do consultation work or may be able to point you in the right direction for drone training.

His software that he uses for search is the best I’ve seen.

There’s also a farm that will put you through licences and run specialist farming drone courses: https://droneag.farm/training/

Edited by ecsrobin on Sunday 7th July 16:49

That's great Robin, will do. Thank you again

[fin racer]

Mothersruin said:

Here's the guys we used - https://asg.ltd/

Insurance - https://www.moonrockinsurance.com/

Moonrock are really helpful and will happily do bespoke policies - give them a ring if you have any questions.

I also found the CAA extremely helpful - again, they're very happy to have a chat about stuff, but the process can take a while from your submission - it's really important that the training company helps with your Ops Manual so that your operations are fully covered, meets all the legal requirements, has the right certification format etc...

One thing to perhaps do as well is research the major land owners in your area and find out what they require for indemnities etc...

We're surrounded by, perhaps obviously (lol), National Parks, National Trust, Military and large estates - we needed to have them all happy with our paperwork and insurances before they'd let go onto their land to train.

more excellent stuff, thanks Mothers!

[surveyor]

Not allowed to name and shame, but I would not recommend the provider that I used - although to be fair I think they no longer sub out the courses so have probably improved.

I would be very wary though. It's a tough market to get into, and out of the 8 people on our course I don't think any of us bother. I'm the closest to setting it up again - but it's tough to prove a business need as I could not use it about 80% of the time that I wanted to. Agricultural at least should mean less restrictions.

I'm also not sure how easy it will to teach farmers new tricks, and get enough clients to make it pay.

[fin racer]

Surveyor,
These are the thoughts in my head too. I grew up/ still work part time in a farming background, but my daily trade is IT support. Finding a customer base and getting them to pay will be another issue. We have less large arable farms here but with the increasing squeeze on farming costs I'm betting that better crop overview and monitoring and subsequent more accurate fertilizer application will interest the right clients

[diff lock]

Making a living from flying UAV's alone is tough going. I hold a PfCO, but still need to drive a Scania for a couple of days per week. My business is slowly growing, bit by bit. You need to be constantly out there knocking on doors, and getting your name about.
I did my training with RUSTA, not the cheapest by any means but they are local to me and provide quite a bit of support, which came across in my due diligence. Insurance wise, I am with Coverdrone. Glue yourself to Youtube for every tutorial known to man. Its a great resource that taught me how to edit to give something credible to my customers. It's a hard industry to get into imho. Mainly because "drones" are still not excepted as main stream yet (that will come in time), and the recent round of negative press.
Drop me a pm if you want any more info, more than happy to help.

[fin racer]

diff lock said:

Making a living from flying UAV's alone is tough going. I hold a PfCO, but still need to drive a Scania for a couple of days per week. My business is slowly growing, bit by bit. You need to be constantly out there knocking on doors, and getting your name about.
I did my training with RUSTA, not the cheapest by any means but they are local to me and provide quite a bit of support, which came across in my due diligence. Insurance wise, I am with Coverdrone. Glue yourself to Youtube for every tutorial known to man. Its a great resource that taught me how to edit to give something credible to my customers. It's a hard industry to get into imho. Mainly because "drones" are still not excepted as main stream yet (that will come in time), and the recent round of negative press.
Drop me a pm if you want any more info, more than happy to help.

Diff,

Will most definitely take you up on that offer. I don't see this replacing my full time job and I'm under no illusions how difficult it will be