How to Become a Professional Drone Pilot
So you’re looking to become a professional, commercial, drone, pilot and you’re, not quite sure where to start well in this video, i’m going to give you three ways that you can become a professional drone pilot, so stay tuned taylor mitchum here from general, the channel that helps You grow your income as a drone pilot and, like i said, i’m gon na help. You start your journey to become a commercial drone pilot, so the minimum requirements in order to get any sort of work out there, whether you’re going to start your own business, whether you’re going to join a company, become a pilot on their roster or etc, etc. Is that you need a license plus training, so the license that you’re going to need is a part 107 license and the training that you’re going to need is flight experience doing something, and so i’m going to share with you three ways in order for you to Get the license, plus the training, slash experience required. The first way to become a professional commercial drone pilot is to join the military, and the military will give you the training, as well as the certificates that you need in order to fly in u.s airspace for free.
In fact, they’ll pay you to do it. So that’s one of the pros of joining the military they’ll bring you in. You can come straight out of high school and, if you’re able to get a slot and i’ll kind of go into each of the branches and how to get a slot. Very, very, very very briefly, but if there’s a slot available and you qualify, you can join the military. They’Ll train you to fly their aircraft.
Each branch flies different aircraft, um, typically they’re larger aircraft, larger than what you would find at best buy, for example, and uh they’ll train you they’ll get you to where you can pilot the aircraft and it’s a really really good training. That’S gon na help you once you get out of the military or if you join the reserves or the national guard. Once you finish your training, since the national guard and the reserves are part-time, but the army, the marines and the air force allow people directly off the street to come in and get involved in unmanned aviation. The navy you have to join and then put in a packet in order to transfer into unmanned aviation um with the army and the marines. You can become a uav operator or uas operator, uh with a high school diploma, a qua and if you qualify and if there’s a slot available the air force.
If you want to become a pilot, they call them rpa pilots remotely piloted aircraft, pilots, you do have to become an officer and you have to go through a commissioning program in order to qualify for that, and that does require a bachelor’s degree. But i don’t want to get too far in the weeds with that, but if you want me to do a video specifically on how to become a military, drone pilot or uav operator uas operator, please let me know in the comments below i’m more than happy to Do a video that goes more in depth about how to do that, how that process goes for each branch or whatever that you’re you’re interested in? So that’s the first way join the military, get your training get paid to do your training and go through that. Now, the pro of that, of course, is you get free training, uh you’ll be paid a salary you’ll have housing paid for meals, all that stuff, all the typical military benefits, but the con is that you do have to sign at least a four-year contract. It could be six years, it could be eight years.
It just depends on what branch you join and what type of contract that you sign. What if you join the reserves? National guard active duty all that stuff, depending on how long your active duty, service obligation or your service, your active service obligation is but again it’s free training and once you get out because you’ll have a secret security clearance and other training under your belt, you’ll be Set up to get a job on the outside once you get out of the military, so just think of that as an option and like i said, if you want me to go more in depth about that, how to do that, what opportunities are available in each Branch all that stuff – let me know in the comments below and i’ll, be more than happy to do a video about that now. The second way is to go to an aviation school and do an actual unmanned aviation program. So there are schools now such as embry-riddle university of north dakota and several other schools out there, including community college that actually offer degrees in unmanned aviation and in these programs, you’ll learn a lot about manned aviation, and some of them even include private pilot certificates.
Of course, your part 107 certificate, but they also offer training on various different aircraft. So it’s totally dependent on the college program itself, but it’s a great way to come in get a degree, a bachelor’s degree, an associate’s degree in some cases a master’s degree in unmanned aviation and learn all of it, not just the flying side of it, but also How to put together a uas uav, how they work the aerodynamics of it, uh how maintenance works and all the different sides of it, the business side of it. So if you’re at that age or you’re at a stage in your life, where you’re thinking, maybe a college program, is a better fit for you, and you know you want to be an unmanned aviation. Doing an unmanned aviation degree could be a great step for you. However, the con of that is that these programs are expensive.
I mean it’s the cost of whatever school you go to and, as you may or may not know, uh college degrees are only going up in price and they can be very expensive, and some of the training within a degree program could be overkill depending on what Area you want to go into within the unmanned aviation industry depending on what kind of pilot you want to go into. So please don’t feel that going to college and getting a degree in unmanned aviation is a requirement. It absolutely is not a requirement to get into this and that’s what i’m going to discuss more in the third way to become a drone pilot and uh. I don’t have a degree in unmanned aviation. I actually did the third way which i’ll talk about in a second, but it could be an option depending on where you are in your life.
But the pro of doing a program like that is it’s very structured. You’Ll get a lot of training and you’ll have a decent amount of experience and a piece of paper to back it up. So the third way, and the most common way is to go the self-taught route. So what this involves is number one you have to get your part 107 certification in the united states. Different countries require different certifications, but you have to get your faa part 107 certification, and i have a video on my channel already.
All about that that i will link somewhere up here and also link it in the description below, of course before during and after that time, you should be flying as much as you possibly can, even if it’s a little tiny, whoop drone, which are those little toys In fact, let me grab one for you. Let me get one even if it’s one of these like this is a little hubsan x4. It’S a small drone. It’S definitely in the toy category. However, flying one of these can make you a better drone pilot in the long run.
So even if you start with one of these, you can graduate to other bigger and better drones, such as dji and moving on to different types of missions. But you want to get as much flying experience as you possibly can and if you’re unable to make that larger investment, because drones are expensive, they can be a few thousand dollars. I would suggest you try and find an employer, that’s willing to train you. The pay! Isn’T the greatest at first, especially if you’re very entry level very, very new, but it can give you that experience that you need in order to get to a higher and higher and higher level if you’re going the self-taught route.
Personally, this is something that i did. I went the self-taught route, i started flying drones, i got my part 107. I started getting into more and more commercial projects and slowly but surely i started building up my flight hours and my portfolio of projects that i’ve done and that’s how i went now. You know this was four or five years ago now there are so many classes and different programs and things out there. Even if you don’t want to go the university route or the military route, there are a lot of shorter classes.
One week two week, three week classes out there a lot of people online who put out tutorials and things. So it’s much easier to learn, not only learn how to fly a drone, but also learn how drones are helpful to different clients and things like that and to get the necessary skills that you need in order to become a great pilot now. One thing i do want to say about being a great pilot is understanding why they are hiring you to do what you do so no one hires someone to fly a drone around in circles just for the fun of it unless you’re in racing, of course, because That’S considered entertainment, they hire you to fly a drone because you are able to collect some sort of data. That’S helpful to someone else. For example, netflix hires drone pilots to get footage for their documentaries because it adds more depth to the documentaries.
It adds b-roll. It makes them more entertaining or serving in engineering firms they’re starting to hire drone pilots now for their mapping missions and things. So there are a lot of opportunities out there, but just know if you’re going the self-taught route. You really have to take this seriously and go out and do as much work as you can, even if it’s stuff that doesn’t necessarily pay the best. So i hope you found this content helpful on how to get a job as a drone pilot.
How to start a career as a drone pilot? If you did, i really appreciate it if you smash that, like button hit, subscribe and hit the notification bell, so that you know when i post videos on how to grow your income as a drone pilot, i’m taylor mitchum – this is gernaro and i’ll, see you .
